Barry Bonds, home run king

I don't make it a point to talk about non-Padres stuff often but I wanted to take a moment to talk about THE home run.

With the game on in the background and trying to get kids settled for bed, I came down with my three month old son right as Barry Bonds started his at bat in the fifth inning. No sooner did I sit down and start rocking my son when I heard the unmistakable crack of a home run.

You knew Bonds wanted to hit the home run at home so that he would actually be cheered and get to celebrate the achievement, but the one thing that may be overlooked here is the fact that this home run was actually a meaningful hit in a tie game.

Stopping play and knowing Bud Selig was not in attendance, it was obvious that Willie Mays was in attendance but the classiest part of the evening was the video message from Hank Aaron shown on the Jumbotron. Bonds then said a few words and actually showed some emotion and I think that if that was the guy portrayed in the media every day, he wouldn't be as hated by the baseball world as he currently is.

Baseball fans, and sports fans in general, like stars who are just as human as we are and when you hear the emotion coming from Bonds in short speech after the home run, he almost seemed like he could be a likable guy - if he wanted to be.

Regardless of whether he is guilty of cheating or not this was one of the moments that any fan watching the game will be able to recall (at least until A-Rod breaks the record) and one day I hope to tell my son about how we watched this moment of sports history together. Regardless of the man the moment is celebrating, it is definitely neat to be able to have a personal story to go with this bit of history.

And now baseball can get back to overhyping teams and players that matter, or will at least be a part of the pennant races.