ST. PETERSBURG - When you get to the ticket window, remember to be firm.
If you're offered a seat somewhere low behind home plate, let them know you're not interested. If it is suggested you might want to sit in some fancy seat on the club level, tell them you're no rube.
You want to be at least 340 feet from home plate. Depending on the starting pitcher, maybe 390. You want to be slightly elevated and definitely planted on the fair side of the rightfield foul pole.
What you want is a chance to see history fly by.
Because, you know, eventually it is coming. It didn't happen Tuesday night, which only increases the odds tonight.
Such is the lure of Barry Bonds.
He played at Tropicana Field for the first time Tuesday night and will likely play for the final time tonight.
This is your opportunity, your best chance, to create a memory for the future. To say you saw the best player of this generation, and maybe the best of your father's and grandfather's, too.
To sit in rightfield and wait for home run No. 675 to fall somewhere in your immediate vicinity. Followed quickly, perhaps, by No. 676.
You never saw Babe Ruth, but you can see Barry Bonds today.
Heresy, you claim? Deal with it, I suggest.
Ruth did things no other player had done. Just as Bonds is doing today. Ruth was the dominant player of his era. Just as Bonds is today. Ruth was feared at a level that was nearly comical. Just as Bonds is today.
Yes, it is true, he may have rubbed you the wrong way. After all, that seems to be his most consistent talent next to swatting baseballs.
He can be churlish and rude. He is short-tempered and seemingly pampered. He has ticked off fans, teammates and opponents. And if you were planning a neighborhood barbecue, he'd be the guy whose invitation is lost in the mail.
But there is something grand about the way he stands at the plate. A sense of danger with the way his bat wags back and forth. A feeling almost palpable every time a ball leaves a pitcher's hand on its way toward Bonds.
You may never have seen Ted Williams, but you can see Barry Bonds today.
You know others had the same idea because they were out there Tuesday night. Oh, it wasn't a particularly large crowd at Tropicana Field. A disappointing 13,275, to be exact. But it was top-heavy with fans congregating together beyond the rightfield wall.
What sent them to the cheap seats?
The legitimate hope of catching a home run ball touched by a legend. It's not too often you can say the odds are in your favor to see something memorable, but it's true when it comes to Bonds.
Since 2001, he has averaged a home run every 7.7 at-bats. Which means, on the average, you can expect a Bonds home run at least once in every series.
These days, there may not be another regular-season ticket in sports with possibilities so grand. Even if he is walked twice and hit by a pitch, as Bonds was Tuesday night against the Devil Rays.
Wherever he goes, Bonds is an attraction. And, always, in a variety of ways. When he walked across the field to embrace and chat with Rays coach Don Zimmer, Bonds heard the typical shouts from behind the Rays dugouts. The suggestions of steroid abuse. The insinuations he is a cheater.
Bonds looked into the stands and saluted. When it continued, he offered a thumbs-up signal.
Then he stepped into the batting cage and ripped home runs off the catwalks and the screen protecting the Batter's Eye restaurant in centerfield.
You may never have seen Mickey Mantle. At least not in his prime. You might have seen a shadow of Willie Mays and twilight falling on Henry Aaron.
But you can see Barry Bonds today.
The names are falling. One by one, he is moving past the heroes of bygone days. Bonds moved ahead of 10 hitters on the all-time home run list in 2001. The next year, he added Harmon Killebrew, Mark McGwire and Frank Robinson to the roll call.
Earlier this season, he passed Mays.
Ruth is 40 home runs away. Aaron is 81.
Bonds has won the last three Most Valuable Player awards in the National League. He is hitting .376 and is fourth in the majors with 16 home runs.
Is there any reason to think he doesn't have another 81 home runs in him?
"I don't know. I don't predict the future. Right now, I've got 16 of them. I don't think about 17, 18, 19, none of them," Bonds said. "Whatever happens is going to happen. I might get hit by a car tomorrow, and then what?
"He could have, if he would have just done this, he could have.' Then you'd have another story to write."
