Barry Bonds’ three record-breaking home runs did not make a big splash in McCovey Cove. That’s because none landed in the water beyond the right-field wall at San Francisco’s Pacific Bell Park.
For subtler reasons, Bonds’ feat did not make a bigger splash in America’s consciousness, despite all the hyperbole sportswriters could muster.
The least of those reasons was Bonds’ much-publicized sullenness. More pertinent is the newfound perception that the home-run record is about as unbreakable as a soft-boiled egg.
But there is a bigger scuff on Bonds’ achievement.
It is the same one that smudges Mark McGwire’s 70-home-run season three years ago, and Sammy Sosa’s record three seasons with more than 60 home runs.
None of those sluggers was able to carry his team into league championship series, let alone the World Series, by their achievements.
As baseball fans know instinctively, and New York Yankees fans are reminded most frequently, the postseason holds the truly meaningful games.
Babe Ruth’s and Roger Maris’ home-run records have been eclipsed with scary regularity in the last three years. But the two Yankees got a bigger prize with their individual achievements, one that no future player could take away and one that Bonds, McGwire and Sosa could not get.
In 1927, when Ruth hit 60 home runs, his Yankees swept the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the World Series. Ruth hit two home runs and batted .400 in those four games.
In 1961, when Maris hit 61 homers, his Yankees went on to beat the Cincinnati Reds four games to one in the World Series. Maris hit a paltry .105 in those five games, but his lone home run was the game-winner in the ninth inning of Game 3.
The record achievements of Maris and Ruth were in the perfect context of championship seasons.
Contrast that with Bonds’ record-breaking season. Even as he was celebrating his remarkable feat on Oct. 5, when he clubbed his 71st and 72nd home runs into the hometown crowd, he was robbed of the chance to put his season into the ultimate context: Despite his starring role, the Giants lost the game 11-10 to the archrival Los Angeles Dodgers and were eliminated from postseason competition.
Maybe the biggest splash Bonds’ record can make is to displace adulation for that singular feat. What if, in our omnipresent ad-agency jargon, chicks don’t dig the long ball?
It is not unusual for a fan to favor a particular athlete, even in team sports. But more than its fellow professional leagues, Major League Baseball sells the sizzle of individual statistics over the steak of team triumph.
In the NFL and the NBA, team victory is succinctly acknowledged as preferable to individual records.
It is seldom trumpeted that Paul Hornung holds the NFL single-season scoring record of 176 points or that Dan Marino’s 48 touchdown passes are the epitome of success for the gaudy quarterback position.
Similarly, Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA single-season scoring records of 4,029 points and a 50.4 average per game were not thrown in Michael Jordan’s face as a qualification to his success.
Rather, the Bulls’ six championships in an eight-year span and the Boston Celtics’ and Minneapolis Lakers’ dynasties of yesteryear are the envy of NBA teams. Likewise, NFL success is measured against the Super Bowl runs of the Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers and the pre-Marino Miami Dolphins.
Perhaps the two achievements that have garnered the most attention in those two leagues are Chamberlain’s 100 points in a single NBA game in 1962 (though he got more notoriety for his professed off-court scoring) and the Dolphins’ 17-0 unbeaten season from the fall of 1972 through the January 1973 Super Bowl.
The Dolphins’ flawless season stands as perfect execution of the dictum, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” variously attributed to coaches Vince Lombardi and Red Sanders.
Allowing the annual home-run chase to detract from the bigger race to a team championship doesn’t just alter the quote, it mangles it. It becomes, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s incidental.”
Barry Bonds can attest to the falsehood of that. Thanks to the power of celebrity and promotion, he may be visiting both the World Series and Disneyland. He’ll get more playing time in the latter.
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Michael Hirsley is a Tribune staff reporter.
