confluence

For some reason, that word popped in my head as I stood up against the wall at meathead tavern. I was at the office until 4:45am last night, and I felt like going out. I went to work late, came home early and then went out to do laundry. I had to dip into my backup underwear reserves the past two days, which is not something I like to do. After LOST, I shaved, showered and put on my freshly washed clothes and then sat down in my living room wondering why I'd gone through so much trouble. I didn't have "plans." In fact, as I sat there on the couch, staring at the first disc of season five of the Sopranos that had just arrived from my new Netflix account, I contemplated not going out at all. Unfortunately, my wanderlust had gotten the best of me; I had gone through all this trouble. This was the first time I'd washed my three pairs of jeans in at least two and a half weeks, and the weather was nice enough.

I headed out to meathead tavern because I had plenty of drink tickets there and I figured I'd bump into someone I know. I entered to find the place crowded; and it was a total sausage fest. I said hi to a couple people and then found a spot by a television set to watch Sportscenter when the word "confluence" popped in my head. I don't think I've ever actually used it in a sentence. In fact, though I'm sure it's a word, I have no idea what it means. So I had to look it up at m-w.com, the site without which I'd never be able to function as an editor. This is what the good people at Meriam Webster had to say:

1 : a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point
2 a : the flowing together of two or more streams b : the place of meeting of two streams c : the combined stream formed by conjunction

I guess, looking back, that had absolutely nothing to do with the evening's course of events. Maybe it did in the most basic sense as a bar is a place where people come together. At meathead tavern, I drank my Captain and 7 and stared mindlessly at the television in-between catching passing glances at the new bar maiden as she cheerily stalked around picking up empty glasses. I was checking to see if Barry Bonds had tied Babe Ruth for second on the all-time home run list. There's a lot of hate for Barry and I can understand why. I always thought he was a prick--arrogant, self-centered--but that never changed my opinion that he's perhaps the greatest ballplayer I've ever seen. Ken Griffey Jr. would have gotten that honor if he could've only stayed healthy, though, if Albert Pujols keeps going the way he is, he's going to trump both of them around the time he turns 30. As far as I'm concerned, whether or not Bonds took performance enhancing drugs is irrelevant. All modern day record seekers have come under the same amount of fire, even more likable chaps like Sammy Sosa and Mark Maguire who helped resurrect interest in the game after strikes and contract squabbles had crushed people's faith in the American pastime.

But while Sosa and Maguire were shooting for a single season mark, Bonds is going for something much more hallowed, and he's going up against the most important man in baseball history. Babe Ruth was well before my time. Even before my father's time. The only images that I have of Ruth are sped up black and white highlight reels: Babe winking at the camera, Babe swinging for the fences, Babe's legs moving at unnatural speeds as he motors his ponderous form down the first base line. I'm not denying that, in his day, Babe Ruth was the most powerful player in the sport, but I doubt he'd be the prodigy he was if he'd been playing in the modern age. Maybe it is performance enhancing drugs, or that the ball is "juiced" to produce more home runs, but I think it's ridiculous to ignore the possibility, that after well over a hundred years of playing the sport, that the players have become more fine-tuned and sophisticated. There have been countless advances in scouting, technology, training...I'm getting off base.

Maybe Bonds knew, maybe he didn't. The fact of the matter is that MLB didn't have a drug/steroid policy until 2003 and the alleged time of Bonds's steroid use was before 2003. I'm glad that MLB does have a steroid policy in place now because they're harmful and they send out a wrong message, but if baseball was concerned with that, they would've done something about it long before 2003. Now that the game's most revered icons is about to be passed up for the second time by a black man, no less, people are screaming for an asteriks. I dunno. I think about it a lot, but I don't have any solid opinion. I never liked Barry Bonds, but that doesn't change his accomplishments. Neither does a little cream. In case you were wondering, here are some letters Hank Aaron got when he approached and later demolished Babe Ruth's all-time home run record:

"Dear Nigger Henry,

You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. . . . Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. . . . My gun is watching your every black move."

"Dear Henry Aaron,

How about some sickle cell anemia, Hank?"

Y'know, same shit different year.

I watched the television and saw that Bonds was still stuck on 713 HRs. After the report, ESPN tacked on a montage clip at the end of Bonds smacking long balls. This caught the attention of a young woman at the bar who could barely stand and was being led toward the bathroom by a girlfriend of hers. She stopped in front of me, and, seeing that I was watching the television, pounded my chest and shouted, "He did it! Barry hit the homer!" I tried to explained to her that he hadn't, that they were just showing clips, but she was so happy about it, I felt kind of bad, and besides, she was already being hurried further into the crowd.