TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Monday, April 12, 2004

It was just a matter of time at this point, but today Barry Bonds tied his Godfather Willie Mays at 660 dingers.

Over at ESPN, Rob Neyer is making the case that there is too much hype over this event. I don't think so. Neyer makes some cogent points - that nobody remembers when Teddy Ballgame rolled past Mel Ott for #3, or for that matter, nobody remembers last year when Bonds past Ruth for #2 on walks. But these aren't walks, these are homers, and this isn't Mel Ott, it's Willie Mays.

Let's get walks and other sundries out of the way first. I believe in the value of the walk. In fact, at the time I complained that the passing of Ruth wasn't getting more coverage. But let's face it, all props to Rickey, but being the greatest walker of all time is kind of like being the welterweight champion of the world. Who is that? I guess a quick web search could tell me, but I don't care enough to do it. People only open their eyes for the heavyweights, and the same is true for homeruns. Whether that is fair or not is open to question, but certain events simply have a much greater gravity in our culture. Home runs are one of them.

Now there is the matter of Willie Mays. Suppose that Jackie Robinson had failed, and that integration had to wait another ten. Suppose instead of the Sey Hey Kid we had Frank Robinson sitting in the three slot. Passing Frank would not have been nearly as big a deal. It's not the position, it's the man in the position. When I was growing up, the Giants used to have a promotion with an airline. If you showed up to the stadium on a special Friday with a packed suitcase, they entered you into a lottery and you could go to one of ten cities for the weekend, all expenses paid. Only about fifty people went for this each year, so the actual odds of getting a vacation weren't that bad. But the coolest thing was they let you walk on the field before the game. I remember being let in through the centerfield gate, and about a third of the way to the infield realizing "this is centerfield in Candlestick Park. This is where Willie Mays played!" It was like a surge of electricity shooting through your spine when you grasped that.

When interest in the Negro Leagues was hitting the mainstream ten years ago, one of the sayings was "Imagine baseball without Willie Mays." You couldn't. Willie was an icon. He made The Catch, he played stickball in Harlem, it was Willie, Mickey and the Duke. The only sports book ever to be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize was his biography, Willie's Time. Willie transcended the sport. That's why what happened today is so important. Bonds didn't tie #3, he tied Willie Mays.

posted by David 3:35 PM