714

I happened to be at the A's-Giants game where Barry Bonds hit his 714th home run and tied Babe Ruth on the all time home run list. My brother and I have season tickets and this game was just one of our package.

The game itself was close and fairly interesting though I've been reading the reports and, of course, the home run overshadows the rest of the game. The reports also say that the crowd gave Bonds a standing ovation. I'm not sure about this. Well maybe it did. The crowd was split in terms of loyalties, with more A's fans than Giants fans, though not overwhelmingly so. During his first at bat there was a distinct roar to the crowd. Usually people are either cheering or quiet, but for Bonds there were enough jeers mixed in with the cheers to make the the sounds incomprehensible on the whole. It sounded kind of like loud murmuring building up slowly until the moment the ball was hit. I was taking a picture, so I didn't see the ball until it landed, but I stood up too because the people in front of me stood up and I wanted to see. My theory is that most A's fans did not cheer Bonds. I think they simply didn't boo. The Giants fans were loud enough and plentiful enough on their own. The standing part of the ovation came from other people like me who wanted to see the semi-historical moment around the standing Giants fans. The cheering wasn't as loud or insistent as most standing ovations tend to be either, probably because a significant portion of the people were not cheering. When Bonds came out for his second curtain call, I remember wondering why he came out again. (Not in a mean way, I just didn't know what had prompted it.)

Anyway, I don't really care one way or another for Bonds, but I did think it was nice for him that there were enough Giants and Bonds fans there that his accomplishment, however attained, was more cheered than booed. It must stink to be booed everywhere you go.