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Finally, 715!

It had been almost 2 weeks since Barry Bonds' last home run, but Barry has finally gotten to 715. I was not too surprised at the fact that only San Francisco Giants' fan's where happy to see it, but I was surprised on how relatively small of a celebration there was for him. Of course the packed house at AT&T Park forced him to do a few curtain calls, there wasn't any congratulations from anybody else. The Giants player's all stayed in the dugout which was pretty surprising to me. Only Todd Greene exited the dugout to congratulate Bonds'. It was kinda like "oh, just another Bonds' home run," rather than "Wow, we just witnessed history." I know Barry has been under heavy scrutiny this season and a whole lot of people want his records erased or marked with an astrisk, but he still has hit 715 home runs and still had to do something right other than rub illegal creams or shoot up steroids. In my mind he has still been the best player over the last 2 decades, but I know in a lot of minds he's tainted. I posed a poll over the last 2 weeks on what reaction Barry would get when he hit 715, and surprisingly 80% of the voters said they would cheer for him. Most of the voters could have been Giants fans but they where spread out all over the nation. I am still asking myself, what does this mean to baseball, and where do we go from here? The most storied record in all of sports is being approached by a man that most of America wants to retire and go live under a rock. Barry will be gone sooner rather than later, we should try and enjoy what the guy has done. I wouldn't cheer him because I think his 73 home runs where legit, but I would cheer him for all the 40-40's, gold gloves, all-star appearances, and because he was the man behind the building of AT&T Park. All of which was done far before any alleged convictions of steroids.

Back to the the Giants, who got beat 2 out of 3 by the lowly Florida Marlins. Barry Bonds took the series off and the Giants' offense really showed how much they need him in there, even if he is not quite his old self. On the bright side, Jason Schmidt had his seventh start in a row in which he gave up 2 or less runs, not to mention he struck out 10 Marlins on route to the win. Schmidt looks like he may be the Giants' lone representative at this years all-star game. Matt Morris however, has continued to struggle. He did not pitch that bad Monday night in Florida, and got no help from the offense, but his numbers don't really lie. 3-6 with a mid 5 era is far from what the Giants where expecting when they gave him that lucrative 3 year deal this winter. Morris isn't too old, and he still looks like he has decent enough stuff to win, but he just isn't getting the job done. He looks a little shell shocked to be out of St. Louis, but I think he will eventually adjust, get his era down a point and get back to .500. The 15-17 win season doesn't look like it's in the cards for Morris this season as I was expecting, but he still needs to turn it around and help this team in the second half or else it will be very tough for the Giants to make a playoff run.

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