A Letter to Barry Bonds

Dear Mr. Bonds,

I hear you're on the fast track to beating Hank Aaron's home run record. Although the media insists you shouldn't get any credit because your success is due to illegal steroid use, I earnestly applaud you in your pursuit of this record.

How gutsy to not only make light of America's National Pastime, but to then yank from his pedestal one of the scrappiest players of all time, Hank Aaron. Aaron was too good to be true. African American, from a tiny town in the south, raised in poverty, learning how to play baseball with sticks, Americans are sick of these self-made-man stories. We want someone we can relate to. We want someone who knows how to beat the system. We want someone who throws tradition aside and takes what they want, to hell with the casualties. Nobody wants to see a clean fight anymore. Barry, I applaud you for taking a folding chair to Aaron's record. Now just go for that final low blow and glory will be yours forever.

I hear fans have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves for when you break the record. As soon as #756 clears the fence, thousands of people will light your playing cards on fire and hold up pictures of Hank. As the game stops to celebrate the new record, the stadium will swell with boos while you strut to midfield for the celebratory ceremony. Fans will no longer want your autograph on game programs, instead you'll be asked to put your John Hancock on affidavits attesting to your ill-gotten record.

But I suggest that these fans are the poor sports, not you. Whatever happened to the traditional American spirit? The spirit that drove the scrappy settlers at Plymouth rock who systematically killed and drove out Native Americans to settle their sterile colonies. Those industrious Americans who captured and enslaved thousands of Africans to grow cotton and dust their china cabinets. The Americans I know and love have few scruples about encouraging women to surgically enhance their bodies and then flaunt them on the cover of glamor magazines. You are the definitive all-American. You did what you had to do to break a record - does it really matter what got you there?

The aging Aaron has refused to be in attendance when you break his record. Sour grapes in my opinion. True, Hammerin' Hank was a phenomena in his time. But he retired from baseball over thirty years ago. Shouldn't all his standing baseball records be broken by any means possible to breathe new life into the game? Aaron still leads the league in career home runs, RBIs, extra base hits and total bases. Borrrr-ing. Shoot whatever toxic waste you can find into those arms, Barry, to knock this puffed up egomaniac off his pedestal. I don't care how hard it is to find a batting helmet big enough for that watermelon sized head of yours, step up to the plate and take what's rightfully yours.

So on that day when you grab the record, I'll make sure to shoot a whithering stare at the fans who weep and wear black armbands. I'm a real American. And so are you.

Sincerely, Hollywood