I was going to do a post on how Barry Bonds is the sport superstar we all deserve, an emblem for our age of mendacity, but really its all been said and said again. Its odd how worked up some people get over the eclipsing of a sports record while they seem to have little passion for the deception that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis. Here in DC, we have a baseball team that, by all accounts, is struggling: last place, 3 games behind the erratic Marlins and completely out of the pennant race. During Spring training, the sports press was talking about an "historically bad" season for this team. The pitching was minor league caliber and the line-up had no slugger etc. The coach, Manny Acta, has proven to be tremendous at getting the most out of his players. After a disastrous April, the club has settled in to a good routine of contending in most series they play. Today they play their fourth game of a series against the first place Mets (admittedly suffering from some injuries to key players) and they're guaranteed at least splitting it having won two of the first three. No record setters on this team. Mostly footnotes for sports freaks who obsess over trivia. They seem to just be a bunch of guys grateful to be in the big leagues who enjoy the game. They seem to laugh a lot and celebrate their improbable victories. Baseball is about hope. Sure a lot of times it seems there's two outs in the 9th but the tying run is on deck and if the batter can just beat out that dribbler to short...
I won't cheer for Barry Bonds or denounce him. He just doesn't interest me. A team thats out of the race and still shows up to play, plays hard, loses a lot and comes back the next day with enthusiasm is a much more compelling story. Go Nats!!!
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