756!

Finally it's fucking over. Bonds hit #756!!! This moment has been anticipated/dreaded for several years now. Over the past 5 years, I would say that Bonds, home run records, and steroids in baseball have been the second biggest topic of conversation in America after terrorism and the war in Iraq. Millions of words have been written. Billions of words have been said. I have nothing to add. I will just say that, even with the steroids, breaking the home run record is still pretty god damn awesome.

A few ancillary notes:
- Eat crow, Mookie. Hammerin Hank was super gracious in congratulating Bonds. Good for him.
- Giant fans better savor this moment for the next five years, because this team is going to be abysmal for a while. The Giants don't have a single position player on their team or in their organization that is a good bet to be above average over the next few years. They might be the only team in baseball about which I can make that claim.
- Also, Frisco, have fun watching Barry Zito's arm decompose for the next six and a half seasons. Tonight his fastball was consistently popping 83-85 MPH. I pay to play baseball in an Over-18 ham-and-egger league and I see that kind of heat pretty routinely. Obviously the tomato cans in my league can't match Zito's shoulders-to-ankles curve ball. Still, very few pitchers can be successful in the majors without a respectable fastball. Barry Zito is either going to have find another 5 MPH somewhere (Were he still alive, my late grandfather might have found them behind my ear) or turn himself into the new Jamie Moyer. Neither seems particularly likely. That $126 million contract is going to be a disaster.