Liberal Talk Radio

The Beige One’s post on Barry Bonds spurs me to write down some thoughts I’ve been having about Mr. 756.

To me, the performance enhancers are the least of it. He faced ‘roided pitchers, ‘roids weren’t even banned at the time, etc. And the differences in training and related technology make this era so incomparable to the 1960s or 1930s that it’s almost meaningless to transport the number across generations.

No, the performance enhancers don’t bother me. What really bothers me is that bonds is a dynasty. Like George W. Bush, he was born on third base. Son of a great baseball player, and Godson of Willie Mays (who hit 660 himself), Bonds’ success is, to me, more evidence of a stratified class sytem in America. The Bushes and Kennedys and Bondses belong to a different America, one that’s increasingly out of reach to most of us in this new gilded age.

Now, it’s not be simply about wealth. It simply may be that we’ve reached such a high degree of professional specialization in America that it takes more than one lifetime to make it to the top. Many of the biggest names in Hollywood grew up in the industry. Very few are newcomers.

I’m just not sure that a kid from the sticks — or even a boy from Crenshaw, say — could break Bonds’ record. It seems like something that would demand several generations of breeding and determination. Good or bad, that’s a fundamental shift from the America that we all have in our collective imagination. It’s worth thinking about.