Bye bye baby, baby goodbye*

As hard as it may be to believe, all things, good or bad, do come to an end. Tonight was that time in San Francisco. I took my lovely 13-year-old, who cannot even remember a time before Barry Bonds, to an exceptionally emotional baseball game.



Does that seem strange? That a "game" can be as emotional, say, as a wedding or a birth or a funeral?



My son and I earlier drove to the medical clinic where he had a growth removed from his inside lip last week. This was a routine follow-up visit, to make sure everything was fine, and it apparently is.



Then, we headed to (pick your) Telephone Company Park. Let me pause to say I absolutely hate AT&T, the third pathetic company to hang its name on what should rightfully be known as Barry Bonds Park.



If Yankee Stadium is the "House That Ruth Built," our fine downtown stadium truly is "The House That Bonds Built."



It was a joke of a game. The Padres destroyed the Giants. Barry batted three times, in the 2nd, the 4th and the 6th. He grounded out weakly twice and then hit a monster fly ball that fell just short of the center field wall in his last at bat in a Giants' uniform.

We, his crowd, stood for every pitch he saw as a batter for our team for the final time. We so much wanted to see one more home run, but it was not to be.

He was playing hurt, which was all too painfully clear. I recall only three defensive plays in this, his absolute last game as an outfielder. (If his career gets extended next year, it will be as a DH in the AL.) He sort of scuffed at two drives, diving but missing one, and dropping the ball in both.

He ran a long way and made a catch on the third.

But he was limping visibly the whole night.

Is baseball emotional? After he almost, but not quite, hit a HR in his final at bat, he hugged the pitcher for the opposing team, pointed into the opposition dugout in a gesture of respect, and disappeared into the Giants' dugout.

We all knew that this was it; that the end had come. A tremendous thunder erupted from the throats of 40,000+ fans in China Basin at this moment. It is not something you can explain rationally. It was a primal scream.

Bonds came out for one last curtain call, and then it was over.

This, too, must pass. He's an old man, Barry Bonds, with more demons and ghosts than most of us carry around in this life.

As we walked to our car afterwards, my gentle, yet fiercely competitive, athletic son captured our night: "Dad, I felt like I wanted to cry when Barry went off in the end."

That is the male dilemma, you see. We feel like crying but we don't. Not on the outside, anyway.

-30-

* The Four Seasons (as covered by Bay City Rollers)