Home run maintains its majesty

There is, in baseball, that moment. It isn’t when nine players take the field. Nor is it when the pitcher rears back to deliver a fastball. It’s not even the precision teamwork when the ball goes from shortstop to second to first, Tinker to Evers to Chance, in a double play that ends the inning.

Baseball has one unique moment above all others, and it’s a uniquely American moment, too, in all its living-large glory, its lack of subtlety, its exuberance that jumps to center stage when a horsehide-covered sphere leaps from a pillar of wood and crests into the distance.

Dismiss baseball as an anachronism if you will. Put football and basketball on their American pedestals, the former with its beefy, regular-guy triumphalism, the latter with its serious street cred. No matter. There is nothing else like one thing that the national pastime keeps giving us:

The home run.

High, hard and far. Going, going, gone. Over the fence. Outtahere. A small white nugget disappearing into the afternoon – or, better, into the night. Nothing subtle about the home run. It’s a product of America, and it could have been born and raised nowhere else.

Going into tonight’s game against Houston, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds had homered 713 times in his career and was a lone long ball away from tying Babe Ruth’s immortal record – a milestone that stood for nearly four decades until Hank Aaron broke it. Even now, more than 30 years after Aaron hit No. 715 off Al Downing on April 8, 1974, the Babe’s tally, 714, remains an American magic number.

Magic, of course, does not occur in a vacuum. It is of the culture, by the culture, for the culture. For America, here’s why the home run is what it is.

The home run has mystery. One swing and things change. One man, one bat, one definitive statement.

The home run has staying power. It’s the Viagra of ballfield achievements, accomplished with a hardwood stick. It’s utterly irreversible: Connect bat to ball, even solidly, and you could simply fly out; double, and you can be thrown out at third. But homer over the center-field wall and you claim the bases at your leisure. Don’t worry about looking back; nothing might be gaining on you.

The home run is a reflection of American power and self-image, a showpiece for a nation of big dreams that has always been suspicious of subtleties. We’re loud, adolescent, flexing our muscles, proving ourselves. The homer is an emblem of power incarnate: That ball is gone, thank you, and it’s not coming back. Katie bar the door.

The home run is a metaphor. Boss to underling: Nice job on the Doubleday account; you really hit that one out of the park. Average Guy No. 2 to Average Guy No. 1 in bar as Guy 1 hits on the best-looking woman in the place: Boy, you’re really swinging for the fences. Rarely in the American-guy testosterone lexicon do you hear, “Goooooooaaaaaallllll!”

The home run is generational. Its kings belong to eras or even, you might argue, create them. My father saw Babe Ruth play (though he didn’t homer that day). I’m 38, and Hank Aaron belongs to me and my people. Barry Bonds belongs to now.

The home run is about big. Big like the Hummer. Big like the gluttonous all-American, all-you-can-eat buffet. Big like the 44-ounce Super Big Gulp at 7-Eleven and that Babe Ruth-sized burger at Hardee’s that has all the eat-healthy advocates choking on their tempeh. Big like the Babe himself. And that was pretty big.

Forget the details for the time being. Forget names like Baker and Ruth and Aaron and Killebrew. Forget your Mantles and Mayses and Stargells and McGwires and Sosas. Forget the controversy over whether Bonds’ numbers are legit or steroid-driven. Forget whether you even like baseball or not.

Forget everything – except that moment when the bat hits the ball. The moment when it’s not a home run yet, though it’s obviously going to be. We know that already as it starts to rise.

A journey is beginning, and we have no idea where it’s going to end. It’s going to be a distant journey; this much is certain. It’s going to be a triumphant journey. It’s going to be a journey that gets a lot of attention and makes a lot of noise.

And the details? Eh. We’ll worry about them later.

That’s the home run. And that’s the America that produced it.

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