Bonds's home run crown is held aloft, gingerly
BASEBALL PURISTS are unwilling to honor San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds as the home run king, now that he has surpassed, with his 756th blast, the mark held by Hank Aaron. Alleged steroid use has dogged the less-than-media-friendly star throughout his quest for this milestone. In their disdain of Bonds's accomplishment, critics overlook that even if he used steroids, all he gains is increased strength and size. Bonds still has to see the right pitch among the varied arsenals of some of the greatest pitchers ever to play the game; then he has a fraction of a second for his brain to process this information and transmit it such that he swings the bat where it collides with the ball traveling at a certain velocity and arc; then and only then, at a critical window, is a home run even possible. This isn't steroids, it's physics.
Being able to distinguish a changeup from a slider, sinker, or curveball, and then react almost instantaneously to any of several pitching combinations without getting clobbered by a nearly 100 mph spinning orb -- if steroids can make all that happen, then point me to the nearest representative from BALCO.
ROBERT RANDLE
Tacoma, Wash.
THERE WERE any number of ways to report Barry Bonds's 756th home run, and something restrained would have seemed appropriate when significant questions about the integrity of his stats are being investigated. So why did the Globe on Wednesday choose such celebratory banners as "Home run king" on the front page and "Giant of history" on the Sports front? Certainly, report the facts of the event. But this wide-eyed admiration seems an unfair gift to Bonds, and a bad message to everyone else including young people, who should see that conduct has consequences, and that until Bonds's conduct is fully understood, society is soberly withholding judgment.
DAVID S. CLANCY
Boston
NOW THAT Barry Bonds has broken the American home run record, he has 113 to go to shatter the world record of 868 set by Sadaharu Oh in Japanese baseball. It's a mark Bonds might reach in six or seven years.
Isn't it time to open the doors of Cooperstown to Oh? Ichiro, Daisuke, and others have shown that Japanese baseball is a pretty major league.
JOHN B. HOLWAY
Springfield, Va. 