Fun to Boo Barry

For the second night in a row, Barry Bonds was not in the lineup at Chase Field. This time I was there, and I was pleased that he was in dugout instead of on the field. The Dbacks were up 1-0 at the end of 8. In came José Valverde from the bullpen. At this point, instead of hero's welcome with fanfare and excitement, which would be fitting for the guy who is (at least off and on) leading the NL in saves, they have this dumb "guess the attendance" contest on top of the home dugout, which is nothing more than a paid commercial for the Arizona Republic. Some of us try to cheer Valverde on as he makes his entrance but are drowned out by the loudspeaker "Is it A? or is it B? or.." and so on. Then I hear a groundwell of boos. The crowd realizes how tacky this is, I think for a second, but then I realize that in the on deck circle, swinging bats, is the devil himself, the pride of Arizona State University, Barry Bonds. The boos get louder, so do screams of "steroids", "you belong in jail", "you are an embarassment", "criminal", etc. I have to admit that I was amazed just how much fun this was, joining the crowd in its uniform (well not completely, there were some Giants "fans" there but not as many as usual) distaste for this man who has defiled the game. The boos and the taunts continued through his at-bat, followed him to first on his base on balls, and back into the dugout when has was replaced by an actual athlete as a pinch runner. This was a very enjoyable negative experience. The crowd, who could not begin to agree on immigration, global warming, the war in Iraq or whether the U of A winning the NCAA Softball Championship was a good thing or a bad thing, were unanimous on one thing. Barry is bum. And the Diamondbacks won 1-0.