Aaron and Bonds

Hank Aaron says he won't watch Barry Bonds break his record.

Aaron doesn't plan to see the milestone homer in person, wherever it might happen.

"No, I won't be there," he said.

Asked why, Aaron said: "I traveled for 23 years, and I just get tired of traveling. I'm not going to fly to go see somebody hit a home run, no matter whether it is Barry or Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig or whoever it may be. I'm not going anyplace. I wish him all the luck in the world."

I'm fine with this. Hank Aaron doesn't owe anyone anything. He can be as gracious as he wants to be or not to be. Anything on the polite side of being a jerk is acceptable, and he's nowhere near the jerk line here.

On the other hand, this is all wrong:

Fay Vincent has this advice for Bud Selig: Stay away! Vincent said the man who succeeded him as baseball commissioner should not be in the ballpark if and when Bonds hits his 756th home run to break Aaron's career record.

"He has every right to say: I'm willing to congratulate him but I don't honor him by presence," Vincent said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press during spring training.

"I think if nothing changes ... I would say to Bonds: Because you haven't told us what you did, because we assume and because we believe you cheated and because you haven't helped clean baseball up, we will recognize your record but we will not honor you," Vincent said.

Hogwash. If that's what Fay Vincent really thinks, then good riddance to him. I subscribe 100% to the King Kaufman solution:

Go to the game.

When Bonds gets to home run No. 753 or so, you get on the plane, go to wherever the San Francisco Giants are, and plant yourself in the front row for every game until he hits No. 756. Then you congratulate him, shake his hand and head for the exit.

You don't have to give a speech extolling his virtues -- which would be a very short speech indeed: "Dude sure can hit!" You don't have to give a speech downplaying the record and saying we really can't be sure what it means because we don't know all the facts, or one that condemns Bonds as a cheater but explains that your hands are tied, there's nothing you can hang on him yet, or one that tries to explain away the roughly two decades when you and the other owners ignored the steroid issue.

All you have to do is stand up in the front row, call Bonds over, shake his hand, say, "Congratulations" and walk up the aisle. You're free to go. You can even go to your own house if Bonds breaks the record in one of the six games the Giants play in Milwaukee between June 18 and July 22. Bonus.

Selig has to go because otherwise he's sending the message that Bonds is hitting illegitimate home runs and setting a new, illegitimate record. Is that baseball's official stance? "Our product is bogus"?

Not that such a thing would be completely foreign to the Budster, but one hopes that he's gotten past such urges. Hank Aaron is a private citizen, and he's free to do as he chooses. Bud Selig, God help us, is the official representative of Major League Baseball. He has an obligation, but luckily for him he can think of it as strictly a ceremonial one if he needs to. He can consider it as a ribbon-cutting if he can't find any pomp in this circumstance, but he needs to do the job he's there to do. To do anything else makes it de facto policy, and that deserves a lot more input and debate than what it's been given so far. Besides, going to the games and being a minimal presence will generate less publicity than not going will. Just a guess here, but I think that's probably what Bud would prefer. The choice is clear.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on May 24, 2007 to Baseball