Barry Bonds, the artist?

Yesterday as I wait waited for Megan to meet me at Home Depot, I caught a segment of NPR’s “Wait, wait. Don’t tell me!” The panel was reviewing the news of the week and host Peter Sagal introduced the Barry Bonds story by indicating his home run record was tainted and that, “As a human being, Barry Bonds may be the biggest tool since steel driving John Henry’s hammer.”

Humorist Tom Bodett then jumped in and asked, “Can we be fair to this guy? Look at other arts…” Arts? Is baseball art? Yes, it is on many levels. Watching Pedro Martinez in his prime was no less art than Cirque du Soleil. There’s even the saying, “painting the corners” to describe pitchers with the skill to keep the ball on the edges of home plate. The unique trajectory of a long, “majestic” home run is art. The arc of the ball against a brilliant blue sky is beautiful, unless of course the artist dresses in pinstripes, then it’s a velvet Elvis. Oh, come on. I kid the Yanks… While no longer performing in the Bronx, Gary Sheffield’s swing rages to burst from the canvas like a Pollock. Derek Jeter plays the game with the artistic genius of Pacino, even if he does over do the drama.

Mr. Bodett went on to defend Mr. Bonds by asking if the Impressionists are any less legitimate for their use of Absinthe as a performance enhancing drug… Um, the drink; not the Degas. He questioned whether we should impugn the work of Sigmund Freud who “packed his nose on a daily basis” or if William Faulkner is “any less of a Nobel laureate because he never wrote a sober word in his life?”

Megan finally arrived and I soberly placed the 64 gallon trash receptacle into her RAV4. I’ve got to get me some of that Absinthe.