Thursday, August 09, 2007

Why don’t I care?

By: Frank Carpano

I’m trying to figure out why I’m not bowled over by Barry Bonds accomplishment.
Granted it’s probably got a lot to do with cloud of controversy surrounding Bonds and his use of performance enhancing drugs.

But, I still thought that I’d get caught up in the chase to break major league baseball’s all-time homerun record.

I remember when Aaron hit the homerun to beat Babe Ruth’s record. It was on my birthday in 1974. My entire family crowded around the TV to watch the game. I don’t know if we made a conscience decision to be a witness to history or if we watched because there wasn’t anything else on TV that night. Baseball on TV back then was a big deal. If a game was on TV, it was occupying about 33% of the channels you could get. (ESPN, MTV, what’s that?)

Back in 1974, we weren’t bombarded with information about players . We didn’t know much, if anything about what they did off the field. Who cares, play the game! Whatever we did hear wasn’t documented on the internet (what’s that?), with video available on You Tube.

I’ve got it! This little article has helped me figure it out (a lot cheaper than a pyscologist),
I’m not indifferent towards the Bonds accomplishment because I’m old and cynical. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot, but I still get goose bumps when I see a great athletic performance. It’s because we’re in an age where there is too much information available. I think we know way too much about Barry Bonds, about his problems, real and imagined. We should watch sports to root on our teams and to witness great performances. It’s information overload that is making us all numb to the pleasure we should derive from sports.