Major League Baseball is not planning any celebration for Bonds if and when he tops Babe Ruth’s mark of 714 home runs, commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday.
“Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record,” Selig (above, right) said. “We don’t celebrate anybody the second or third time in.”
Selig does not figure to be in San Francisco ” or in Milwaukee or Philadelphia, where the Giants play next week ” as Bonds nears Ruth.
“We celebrate records, that’s what we do. We’re being consistent,” Selig said during the Associated Press Sports Editors annual meeting with league commissioners. “There’s nothing to read into that.”
Ruth is second on the career home run list, trailing Aaron’s total of 755. When Aaron broke Ruth’s record in 1974, commissioner Bowie Kuhn was not in attendance. Kuhn’s absence rankled many, including Aaron.
Selig said he had read Game of Shadows but not seen Bonds on Bonds, the ESPN reality show about the slugger’s life.
I do, however, have it on good authority the Commish is a very big fan of MTV’s “My Super Sweet Sixteen” and rarely misses an episode.
Bonds may be on track to hit 715 next weekend in Philadelphia, where he will be serenaded with a deafening torrent of boos and a barrage of verbal abuse from the city that is most reknowned for booing and verbal abuse. If this should happen, there truly is such a thing as “baseball gods”
I went to see the Cards play in Philly last year and was warned about unruly fans. I didn’t encounter any problems, not like at Shea when some lughead from Long Island woudn’t let my five year old son sit next to him for wearing a
Pujols shirt. Bonds, however, will get the treatment wherever he goes.
Ted,
If Scott Rolen wasnt on the DL at the time they played Philly last year you and your son would have a far more negative impression of your visit to CBP.
Ted,
I resent that remark. I’m not from Long Island.