Dog Days

These are the dog days of Summer on the Balcony. Outrages continue on the political front, but the warm weather and long days induce a laziness that makes dealing with all that impossible. The mailman comes around, and the mad dog on the porch barely opens one sleepy eye. Next time, we’ll get him next time. The mail will come again as surely as the Bush Administration will flout the law and defy logic.

Meanwhile, there is baseball. A week ago I was at Dodger Stadium in LA, sitting in the bright sunshine, drinking a $12 beer and munching a $5.50 Dodger dog. How the average working-class fan can afford the ticket price, parking, and the rip-off at the concession stands is beyond me. Perhaps the answer to that riddle rests with the smiling people handing out “pre-approved” applications for LA Dodger Mastercards as you enter the stadium.

My New York Yankees are eight games behind the hated Red Sox in the American League East and five games out of the Wild Card, largely because they were beset by injuries in April and May and dug themselves a monumental hole in the standings. Lately, the Yanks have beaten up the likes of Tampa Bay and Kansas City, improving their record, but until New York can beat the cream of the American League on a consistent basis, it appears they may miss the post-season for the first time in a decade.

Barry Bonds is limping his way toward the history books, poised to eclipse Henry Aaron’s all-time home run record. A lot of sporting people are outraged because of allegations that Bonds used illegal steroids on his way to the record, and even the Commissioner of Baseball can’t summon much enthusiasm to celebrate Bonds’s achievement.

Bonds had his most productive seasons after the age of thirty-five, a time when most players experience an erosion of their skills; he also defied the typical male aging process and packed on nearly forty pounds of solid muscle. Such unnatural growth is suspicious, but there’s no evidence to suggest that steroids can help a human being hit a baseball. Illegal steroids may have made Bonds bigger and stronger than a man his age had a right to be, but his ability to hit a round baseball with a round bat was present long before he allegedly began experimenting with the Cream and the Clear.

Hank Aaron was all class and consistency, even in the face of racial slurs and death threats from southern crackers and white supremacists. By contrast, Bonds is surly with the media and aloof from the public and his teammates. Bonds has as much class as Donald Trump.

Baseball is caught between a cheer and a sneer. The home run record is hallowed and sanctified as long as Henry Aaron holds it; Bonds brings his prickly personality and the suspicion of chemical enhancement to the throne, and when Baseball anoints him as home run king it may find that the crown won’t fit his super-sized cranium.