With one swing of the bat on Friday against the Pirates, Barry Bonds brought his career home run total to 737, 19 away from breaking Hank Aaron's career total of 755. In light of the steroid allegations that have followed Bonds and his tremendous home run numbers, coupled with the high probability of Bonds breaking Aaron's record this season, we, at the Daily, do not want to see Bonds desecrate this hallowed sports milestone with his tainted statistics. Today we present our list of sports achievements we would like to see this summer - statistics we hope will overshadow Bonds' more-than-dubious feat.
10. A horse - any horse - winning the Triple Crown. With no Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, a thoroughbred capturing the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes this year would absolutely garner headlines.
9. Frank Thomas hitting 500 home runs. The Big Hurt entered this season with 487 home runs, and slugged No. 488 in Tampa Bay on April 7. What better way to overshadow our generation's most infamous steroid-inflated slugger than a milestone achievement by one of its best pure hitters?
8. A Federer-Nadal rematch in the French Open finals. No matter the outcome of this contest, the winner would receive critical acclaim: Federer for capturing his 11th Grand Slam title and completing the Career Slam, or Nadal winning his third-straight French Open title at age 21.
7. Tiger Woods winning his third-straight British Open. The Open is the oldest of golf's four major championships, and no American has ever won three-straight - the last golfer to accomplish the feat was Aussie Peter Thomson in the mid-1950s. Tiger has a chance to match that feat this summer.
6. Ken Griffey Jr. playing an entire season. Like Thomas, Griffey was one of baseball's biggest stars in the pre-steroids era of the early nineties, and like Thomas, he's begun to fade away. The reason is simple - he hasn't avoided the disabled list for a whole year since 1999. Maybe he can survive this season. It's not too much to ask - he's only 37.
5. Somebody winning the Tour de France without steroids. This would kill two birds with one stone. Barry Bonds and last year's Tour winner Floyd Landis could both use a little overshadowing.
4. The Cubs winning the World Series. Okay, so there's pretty much no way this one could actually happen. But it would be an incredible feel-good story, seeing as this is the Cubbies' last chance to win it all before their losing streak hits the century mark.
3. Terrell Owens retiring. Hey, his old quarterback called it quits - why can't T.O. follow suit? In the wake of Drew Bledsoe's retirement, we can't help but hope that this old favorite target in Dallas, the biggest head-case in the NFL, retires as well. The loss of one of the sports world's biggest jerks would be a big step toward counteracting the record-breaking feat of another.
2. Steve Nash finally winning a ring to go with his third MVP. If and when Nash wins the MVP award again this year, it would be his third-consecutive such honor, putting him in the elite company of Larry Bird, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. One other thing those three men have in common is a slew of championship rings. Nash's Suns have a chance to earn their first.
1. Bonds not actually breaking the record. Unlikely, but not impossible. Bonds could get injured, he could get released ... he could even get arrested. Or, if he has a sudden change of heart and becomes a decent human being, he could retire out of respect for Aaron, deciding not to tarnish one of the greatest records in sports history.
-by Evans Clinchy and Thomas Eager
