E.K. NATION

Isaac Davis: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? You know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, you know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.

Party Guest: There is this devastating satirical piece on that on the Op Ed page of the Times, it is devastating.

Isaac Davis: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.

Like I said before, hell yes, I have an opinion about this Michael Vick story. And it is difficult to decide the best way to express it. A heartfelt, honest open letter saying how disappointed I am in some of humanity? Is satire the best way? A venom-fueled invective?

Or bricks and baseball bats?

Michael Vick should know one thing: It is my aversion to violence, my aversion to violence alone, you scum-sucking psycho, that will allow you to live as long as you wind up living. You mess with dogs, and you mess with me, but lucky you that I am not capable of performing acts similar to yours.

At the very least, Vick the Prick should be subjected to the same kind of punishment he and his weak-minded posse inflicted on those poor dogs. And if it were possible to inflict anything worse upon them, they would deserve that too. But swinging dogs' bodies over their heads and slamming them down onto the ground, and then electrocuting them, you know, I guess a similar fate would be good enough to deal with these human viruses.

By the way, it is irony or is it coincidence that Michael Vick, with a prison term looming, now undoubtedly has a hang-dog expression on his face?

In nicer, better-looking news: Happy 18th birthday, Hayden.

I'm talking about fantasy football. I've hated fantasy football for a few years.

But I'm going to play fantasy football this year.

We have to establish some rules:

1. Just have a good draft. Be smart. Don't take all 49ers. That doesn't work. I originally thought I could be the one guy in the league who would totally mock fantasy football and just take all 49ers, all the time. And of course that isn't going to work, on several levels. So I've actually been reading one of those fantasy football magazines. And I am actually going to try to be good at this. I can't believe it myself.

Exception: Take Brady Quinn, as a mockery. But then sit calmly as he racks up big numbers, as if I knew that was going to happen.

2. Never, ever root for anyone whose success might disrupt that of my actual favorite team. One of my friends, Andy the bartender, once screamed out "Go Edgerrin!" right before Arizona's game against the Bears. His favorite team is the Bears. He had Edgerrin on his fantasy team. This is unacceptable.

Corollary: Don't say the phrase, "Well, I didn't want them to score, but if they had to score, I'm glad it was (someone on my fantasy team)."

3. Never, ever be the guy who walks up to a stranger at a bar who is watching an NFL game and ask something along the lines of, "How's Ocho Cinco doing?" Because I know what that guy is doing: asking me to keep track of stats for him. Do I look like I'm writing stuff down, punk?

4. Never, ever answer a question like that from a stranger (I suppose doing it for a friend is okay). Just say, "No idea." Better yet, say, "I don't keep track of stats for fantasy junkies who randomly approach me asking me to provide them with stats. Not my job, punk."

5. Better yet: Never root for anyone on my fantasy team (unless they are 49ers), but rather just wait until the end of the week to find out if I won any money or not.

Good luck with all this, me.

Speaking of something that is in no way related: A few nights ago I fell asleep with NBC's broadcast on the TV. At some point around 2 a.m. or whenever, I had the distinct pleasure of waking up while the performance in this clip was playing. I swear, I have never been happier to wake up in the middle of the night in my entire life. Her name is Marie (pronounced mar-ee-EH) Digby, and she's been putting clips of herself playing the guitar and singing covers and originals on YouTube for a couple months, and she's getting national recognition now, and my god how I do love her. I have decided that my relationship with Katharine McPhee is not working out.

I believe she's going to hit it big, folks. You will all be witnesses. (At my wedding. To Marie Digby. That reminds me: I guess I have to decide to want to get married now.)

For a while I wanted Barry Bonds to break Hank Aaron's record on the road. Maybe Atlanta, which would stick it to Hank Aaron for not being too responsive to the home run chase. Maybe in Dodger Stadium, for obvious reasons. Or maybe Milwaukee, Bud Selig's backyard. That'd show him. Although he'd probably be as clueless as to the record-breaking moment as he was in San Diego (Yo, Bud, that was what's called a "home run"...see, that man rounding the bases just hit a baseball over the fence--never mind.)

But after all that, I'm glad Barry broke the record in San Francisco.

It wasn't a hate-fest at AT&T Park last night. No idiots holding up asterisk signs in the bleachers* (a nice write-up involving that aspect of the "celebration" here, courtesy of the website Bugs & Cranks). No booing as he came up to bat or went out into the field. And thankfully, no Bud Selig anywhere in sight. In hindsight, I'm glad he wasn't there. His non-reaction to homer #755 was pretty sour. Frankly, Bud, you don't deserve to witness history firsthand.

No, just a nice moment for one of the greats of the game, a true giant. Barry Bonds stands alone now as the home run champion of all-time, and he got all the credit and congratulations he deserved last night. Even Hammerin' Hank showed up, if only by video: A short-but-sweet message of congratulations played on the scoreboard moments after the record-breaking home run.

It was a good show. And now, I hope, the Giants can get back to the business at hand: winning baseball games.

Yeah, they lost last night. I didn't particularly care.

• To Mike Bacsik, the pitcher who gave up #756: Don't worry. You're not a schmuck. Just one of, like, 9,000 pitchers who have given up a home run to Barry Bonds. No shame in that. Nobody thinks Al Downing is a schmuck.

• Imagine being a fan of some other team, in town for one day, and getting tickets to the game, and catching the home run ball that just might fetch a half-million dollars. That's what happened to this 22-year-old. Before they showed him on TV, I said to the folks watching beside me, "Whoever it is, he has a bloody face." Sure enough, he did.

But let me ask this: Since when did they whisk spectators who catch milestone home runs away as though they were presidents being shot at? Do we really need this spectacle of a half-dozen uniformed officers carrying the guy away?

By the way, where's the ball Babe Ruth hit to break Roger Connor's home run record of...138? How much would it fetch today? How much could it have fetched the day it was hit?

• Here's that look back at Hank Aaron's 715th home run in 1974. There's even commentary by one of the fans who ran onto the field to pat Hank on the back as he rounded the bases. (Curiously, the man who caught that home run, Braves relief pitcher Tom House, who was in the bullpen at the time, admitted to using steroids in the 1970s. Geez, man, this steroids thing really has connections, doesn't it?)

*True story, and maybe some of you caught this: One of those aforementioned morons was holding up an asterisk sign during one of the San Diego games. While he was on camera, he looked at the sign, decided he was holding it the wrong way, and turned it onto its side. An asterisk. Yeah. This thing: * Yeah. If you hold it wrong, it sure doesn't look like an asterisk, ya moron!

Barry Bonds finally tied Hank Aaron's all-time record for home runs, with a mammoth opposite-field shot off Padres pitcher Clay Hensley in the second inning at Petco Park on Saturday evening.

Now, of the two players mentioned in the previous sentence, which one do you think once tested positive for steroids?

Answer here. But you don't really need to click on that link, do ya? I wouldn't ask the question if the answer weren't so full of ironicality.

In other words, Barry Bonds defied many laws of physics by actually hitting a baseball very far, over some fencing, a baseball that was thrown by a known cheater, someone who artificially bulked up his muscle mass in an attempt to, I dunno, become the strongest player in Major League Baseball history or something.

The home run still counts, right? I mean, there was cheating involved.

In related news, no one in the park booed Clay Hensley.

In other related news, as is typically the case, the home crowd booed the visiting Bonds...until he took his at-bats. Then all the flashbulbs went off with every pitch, and then he hit #755, and the people mostly cheered as he rounded the bases and accepted congratulations from his teammates and family. And the guy who wound up with the ball in the left-field stands held it aloft as though he had just pulled Excalibur from the stone.

Again, ya can't have it both ways, people.

In yet more related news, Bud Selig, in his Herculean effort to watch baseball games from a luxury box, will not be attending any of the three games at AT&T Park starting tonight.

Yeah, Bud, no need to be there in case the most hallowed record in all of sports is broken. You're only the commissioner.

Oh, did I have to mention I think Bud Selig is a schmuck?

Up next: #756, probably sometime against the Washington Nationals.