Frank Thomas, 500 Home Runs and, Well, ...

Today, June 28, 2007, Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas hit his 500th career home run in a game against the Minnesota Twins (somewhere, Hubert Horatio Humphrey is rolling in his grave and, no doubt, is making a speech about the occasion). There is absolutely no question about the manner in which Thomas achieved his milestone, even in the age of steroids, human "They Ain't Intellectual" growth hormones and diluted pitching as caused--largely--by too much expansion. Thomas will, in due time, earn first ballot admission to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. His personal career was also capped by being a member of the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox.
Last week, another former White Sox, Sammy Sosa, hit his 600th career home run against the Chicago Cubs, the team for whom he enjoyed the most individual success (OK, I won't put success in quotation marks as I usually do. Today at least, I won't quibble with its meaning as well as cultural and linguistic implications, ....). Unfortunately, "Slammin' Sammy" has been linked to useage of the same "enhancing" materials that Frank Thomas chose not to pursue. Linked, of course, not proved, and Sosa is innocent until proven guilty. Whether Sosa really forgot how to speak coherent English in his testimony before Congress or had an illiness that day, if I were a baseball writer with a Hall of Fame vote, I would not vote for his election the first year of eligibility, but would do so in the second year. I would do likewise for Mark "I Didn't Come to Talk about the Past" McGwire. Since, however, Raphael Palmiero did test positive after piously claiming never to have used steroids, I would not vote for his election unless some mitigating circumstances arose.
Whether Sosa forgot English or Palmiero forgot the difference between honesty and creative truth-telling, AT LEAST they had the intestinal fortitude to sit before Congress and the cameras. That is more than I can say for Barry Bonds. He is, as I write, within 6 home runs of tying Hank Aaron's all-time home run record and most of the major sports shows seem trying to navigate between a television event and the storm clouds currently downpouring their all-too-obvious rain on his allegedly ill-gotten parade. I do NOT doubt Bonds as one of the best players of the current era. I do NOT doubt, on the basis of his career prior to the (alleged) enlargment of his head, Bonds' election to Cooperstown. I do NOT doubt his unique offensive skills of speed and power. I DO have doubts--unproven, unsubstantiated and--ergo--Bonds is still innocent until proven guilty--about his post-35 years old, late 1990s power totals. Unless I see evidence that disproves my suspicions about his offensive totals from the late 1990s forward,--which just happened to be when steroid abuse came into public awareness and eventual scrutiny, even from the idiotic Commissioner's and Player's Union Offices--and I had a Hall of Fame vote, I would, as with Sosa and McGwire, not vote for Bonds in his first year of eligibility. Afterwards, I would hold my nose and vote to elect him on the basis of the earlier portions of his career. I do have the satisfaction however, that unless the San Francisco Giants get a lot better very quickly, that Bonds won't play on a World Championship team. He won't, in other words, have the same feeling as Mr. Aaron, Mr. Mays, The Big Hurt and the members of the 2004 World Champion Boston Red Sox. I rather enjoy that type of solace.