756.

It is probably a number worth repeating.  756.  It is a number that has never been used in compiling the regular season home run total for a single player in Major League Baseball history.  Until now.

Barry Bonds is Major League Baseball's All-time Home Run Leader.  That is not a statement of advocacy.  Or a condemnation.  It is now simply a statement of fact.

The instant bat met ball last night at AT & T Park Barry Bonds' moment in history was distilled to its most basic element: a baseball player hitting a baseball.  And if only for that instant, what actually happened in between the lines of a baseball diamond took its place above all else.

And in focusing squarely on that pitch at that moment in that park and the reaction and technique Bonds used to drive it out of the ballpark, one can appreciate the richness of the act of a home run itself.

Balance, speed, the proper timing of the hands, the correct angle of the bat, knowing a pitcher and what pitches he throws at what speed and with what degree of movement, considering the count and game situation and how that might effect pitch selection - a hitter needs all of that all at once, all in the time it takes to blink.  And if he is fortunate enough to square the ball and hit it solidly, he then has to watch to see if the defense makes a play on the ball.  If after all of that, he's driven the ball solidly and squarely enough for it to leave the ballpark, then, and only then, can he relax and complete his circuit around the bases.

Fans see home runs hit every day, and most likely underestimate the difficulty it takes to produce just one.

Multiplied by 756 against the highest level of competition in the world, Bonds' home run yesterday has to create some pause, some momentary suspension of the circus.  With the maelstrom swirling about everything that led up to Bonds' moment in history and everything that will undoubtedly follow it for the foreseeable future, I thought, for just this instant, it might be refreshing just to consider the moment.  Not the character of the player in question.  Not the validity of allegations of back room dealings and mystery elixirs.  Not the significance of bronze plaques and lines in record books.  Rather, just consider the simple perfection of a hitter squaring up a fastball and sending it into the heavens.

In that sense, baseball is still a beautiful game.  It is still principally about a pitcher, a hitter, 60'6", and the pitched ball.  And what happened last night was still principally about that as well: a pitcher, a hitter, and a pitched ball.  In this case, the hitter just happened to hit it out of the ballpark and was able to round the bases.  For the 756th time in his big league career.

And if anyone says that's something they've seen before, it wouldn't be true.  Certainly not as true as who MLB's new All-time Home Run Leader is.