Being present for a milestone is a precious memory. Whether it is sports or something a bit more prosaic, being able to say that you were there is a pretty special thing. Susan and I were in the stands at Enron/Ballpark at Union Station/Your Name Here/Minute Maid Field/Park the night Barry Bonds hit his 70th home run. San Francisco was thoroughly thumping the Astros that night- I think the final score was something like 12-3 San Francisco, so it wasn’t as if much was on the line.
When Bonds hit his home run, there was no doubt that the park wouldn’t hold it. The feeling was electric, unless anything I’d ever experienced before, and even though then-Astros manager Larry Dierker was not happy about the fans’ jubilation, none of us in the ballpark that night felt guilty for cheering Bonds’ milestone.
Some lucky fan caught the ball, and more than likely wound up making a ton of money. I forget exactly what happened to this person, but more and more this sort of thing is becoming all about an opportunity to make some serious coin. I’m not at all certain this trend is a positive comment on the state of our society.
“I didn’t catch the ball, the ball was on the ground,” said Steven Williams, a mortgage broker’s assistant. “I don’t know how nobody found it.”
The ill-bred little disagreement in Section 139 of the left-field bleachers over Barry Bonds’ 700th home run ball was one that failed to bring out the best in baseball fans, or the human species.
Hands grabbed at it, fingers clutched for it, feet kicked at it as the rest of the ballpark crowd — the ones who didn’t stand to make any dough from getting their hands on the ball — erupted in cheers.
An 11-year-old boy at the bottom of the dog pile wound up with scrapes on his arms and tears rolling down his cheeks.
“A scene like this comes from greed, not from love of the game,” said Stefanie Berntson, who had it, too, for a moment. “It was money that did this, not baseball.”
When adults are willing to trample an 11-year-old boy without so much as a second thought, it makes me wonder about the future of our society. Have we become such a dog-eat-dog, kill-or-be-killed, I-got-mine-you-get-yours society that even the welfare of our children are subjugated to the pursuit of The Almight Dollar? Apparently so.
Yes, I suppose Steven Williams has something to be proud of. He’ll make a bunch of money and he knows it. I hope he’s happy….
“It made me kind of mad,” Jack said. “I had it, and then I didn’t.”
His father was even madder.
“What happened was sick,” he said. “My son disappeared under five grown men. They just jumped on him, literally. Five grown men. His heart’s broken. It’s sick. It made me so sick to see it, I almost threw up.”
Welcome to our Brave New World, where the pursuit of The Almighty Dollar really DOES trump everything- including perspective and human decency. I hope that young Master Harrington will take a lesson away from this demonstration of the dark side of adulthood. Greed may facilitate paying the rent and putting food on the table, but it is hardly a positive when it comes to deciding what kind of human being you’re going to be.
I hope that Steven Williams and the other denizens of Pac Bell Park’s Section 139 are honest enough with themselves to admit that this incident hardly displays their good sides. When they look at themselves in their mirrors, I wonder if they’ll have the honesty to admit they gave in to their greed and avarice.
