COLUMN: Bonds will live in McGwire’s shadow, record or not

A recent poll on ESPN.com showed baseball fans across the country aren’t too thrilled about Barry Bonds’ attempt to break Mark McGwire’s single-season home-run record.

McGwire set the record at 70 in 1998 – a mark many people (including yours truly) figured would stand for quite some time.

Now, just three seasons later, Bonds is a homer ahead of Big Mac’s record-setting pace.

Like I said earlier, a pretty big chunk of the baseball world is rooting against Bonds-40 percent, according to the ESPN.com poll.

Why? Hasn’t Bonds’ been just as spectacular this season as McGwire was three years ago? Why hasn’t the baseball world embraced Bonds the way it adored Big Mac and Sammy Sosa? The media followed McGwire’s every at-bat in 98, from his homer in the season opener to his two-home run performance in the season finale. We saw it all.

But Barry’s season has gone virtually unnoticed. And now that the baseball community is finally watching Bonds’ every at-bat, we find out it’s only because nearly half of us don’t want him to succeed (yours truly included).

So, what have we got against Bonds? One could begin by looking at the labels he’s picked up over his career: He’s arrogant. He’s selfish and cares only about his numbers. He’s arrogant. He’s not a team player, and he’s arrogant.

Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah . . . Did I mention he’s a little arrogant?

These labels have followed Bonds his entire career, from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, and as we learned from the Strike of ’94, baseball fans don’t easily forgive and forget.

So, I imagine there are a few Bonds-haters out there watching Giants games and praying, “Don’t give Barry anything to hit. Please, don’t give him anything to hit. I’ll be a good man, just don’t let Barry hit any more home runs.”

But most people aren’t Bonds haters anymore. Furthermore, this is America: a land where we marvel at accomplishment, and hitting more than 70 home runs is quite an accomplishment.

However, as Americans, we also believe in a storybook ending. We like the superhuman version of the story. We want our heroes to leap tall buildings in a single bound and bend lead pipes with their pinky-toes.

Mark McGwire fits that description. He’s larger than life; he has 17-inch forearms for heaven’s sake. He is the Paul Bunyan of the baseball world, so it’s only fitting he holds the single-season home-run record. Big Mac is the modern-day Babe Ruth.

McGwire is almost a legend in his own time. He dents scoreboards, and he trims trees outside stadiums with his 500-foot blasts.

We want to be able to tell our grandkids, “Yeah, I remember when McGwire hit 70. You see all those craters in the moon? That’s where some of them went. His home runs were so big, the city of St. Louis built a monument shaped like a McGwire home run.”

“You mean that silver arch thing, grandpappy?”

“That’s the one. McGwire was that good. In fact, McDonald’s even named a sandwich after him.”

But if Bonds hits 70 or more, what will we say about him? What will we tell our grandkids? There’s nothing mythical about Bonds. He’s a sure-fire Hall of Famer, but he’s also just an average guy, and average Joes are not the people who become legends.

That’s why roughly half of the baseball world is rooting against Bonds. It’s the same reason no one wanted Roger Maris to break Babe Ruth’s single-season record in 1961. Who was Maris compared to Ruth?

And who is Bonds compared to McGwire? Who wants Mighty Mouse when they already have Superman? Nobody.

That’s why people are rooting against Bonds. The baseball world has a Superman.

“So please, don’t’ let Barry hit anymore home runs. We’ll all be good people. We’ll go to church everyday for the rest of our lives. Just don’t let anyone throw him any more belt-high fastballs.”

Casey Hobson is a senior majoring in journalism. Comments can be e-mailed to hobsonhut@hotmail.com