Nothing ever changes, Bubba.Nothing. Ever. Changes.
On Tuesday night, Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run. On Wednesday morning, well—you tell me what was different.
Nothing ever changes, Bubba.
Nothing. Ever. Changes.
You know the rub here. You know how many words have been burned, how much ardor has been wasted. You know we sports fans have spent the last forty-some moons chasing our tails and pulling our puds, and you know that in the end all our aimless passion amounted to not much of anything at all.
It was just a home run, Bubba.
It was just a home run.
Maybe you love Barry. Maybe you loathe him. Wherever your sympathies lie, your brightest hopes and darkest fears went unrealized.
Hank Aaron neither dissolved into a cornfield nor embraced the man who broke his record. Bonds himself became no more or less legitimate than he always has been. 756 was supposed to be It: the single climactic moment that either released us from our suffering or sent us tumbling towards an utter and irrevocable ruin. Instead, Bubba—
Instead, the joke was on us.
Instead, we were the punch line.
Nothing ever changes, Bubba.
Nothing. Ever. Changes.
We’ve done this before, of course—this angsty millenarian pantomime. We pretend, is what we do: pretend that the quality of Existence is shaped by seminal and alien events, pretend that the next Election or Promotion or Steroid-Addled Home Run Chase will either make or break the very crux of our Being.
Maybe we’re scared.
Maybe we’re bored.
Or maybe Tomorrow’s just easier to swallow when we abdicate responsibility for making it work.
Doom and deliverance are vainglorious constructs, figments of a human intellect that’s too evolved for its own good. The End is not nigh. Jesus does not save. There is no Last Big Thing, Bubba—no final Home Run that will ever or could ever ease the burden of life between the foul lines.
We are the Status Quo—You, Me, Us.
It’s just too bad we can’t get used to it.
I’d like to believe there’s a moral here: something to learn from, something to build on. There isn’t. Ours is a cyclical fate, not a linear one. Apocalyptic hyperbole is in the genes. That doesn’t make it good or right or edifying—especially not for Us—but seriously Bubba you know the score:
Nothing ever changes.
Nothing.
Ever.
Changes.
Which I suppose means I’m only just saying, is all...
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about 1 year ago
Nothing. Ever. Chnges... except my interest in baseball, which has diminished.
about 1 year ago
Mine too. That was a shameful moment and I'm not even a bent-out-of-shape Barry Bonds hater.
Barry Bonds will go down as the best player of our generation. But (and I hate to sound like an old man here): that moment a few nights ago was truly a sign of the times.
A 42 year old juiced up slugger whacks one into the stands; that I can tolerate. But when that slugger literally watches the ball fly over the fence as he jogs to first rather than running the bases till it cleared the fence, like every slugger in the history of game USED to do it really pisses me off. It's kind of like when someone continually burps and talks with his mouth full at the dinner table.
But Bonds took it even further with his record breaking homerun. He didn't even watch it go out; he didn't even start walking to first. He literally threw his hands above his head in celebration of himself.
Watch the Hank Aaron homerun. Watch him run around the bases like a classy ballplayer.
Then watch the Bonds homerun. Watch him act like a self important jackass.
Then ask yourself: has the game not gone straight down the tubes?
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