Tygiel, the nation's foremost authority on racism in baseball and author of Baseball's Great Experiment-The Jackie Robinson Story, told an audience of Wabash students, faculty, and staff that there were a number of other factors that contributed to America's indifference to Bonds.
"I'm a season ticket holder for the Giants at Pac-Bell Park," said Tygiel, a history professor at San Francisco State University. "I had the good fortune to be present for his first home run of the season and his 73rd home run, and for many of them in between."
Contrast the 2001 season to 1998 when Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' home run record, there was "a tremendous build up and anticipation" in 1996 and 1997 when McGwire hit 52 and 58 home runs respectively. McGwire, whom Tygiel referred to as an "overgrown Huck Finn and American hero complete with red hair," also had a sidekick in Sammy Sosa, the likable Dominican-born Chicago Cubs slugger.
Tygiel, recently was asked by Newsday to write an op-ed piece on why Bonds, the San Fransisco Giants outfielder, got so little attention, and believes that Bonds' race was not a factor.
"Bonds' own complex personality made him less accessible and less likable to the fans," says Tygiel. "McGwire's season had occurred during a time of giddy prosperity...Bonds year began against the backdrop of the presidential election and during a year of economic recession. And finally, the events of September 11, which occurred just two days after Bonds hit three home runs in a game in Colorado, placed the home run record in proper perspective.
"But none of these reasons had anything to do with race," says Tygiel.
However, "there is a racial dimension to the home run record," he adds.
Beginning with Baseball's Great Experiment - Jackie Robinson's successful integration into the sport-African American players began to break first single season records and later, by the 1960s, career records held by white baseball legends Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth.
As Hank Aaron closed in on Ruth's all-time home run record of 714 while a member of the Atlanta Braves, race did become an issue. "Aaron's pursuit of the legendary Ruth reawakened the latent racism in the national past time," said Tygiel. "The experience left a deeply bitter stain for Aaron, and he still feels cheated over the glory he feels he deserved."
However, Tygiel says that the vast majority of Americans were behind Aaron's pursuit of Ruth's record. "They enthusiastically rallied around Hank Aaron. His calm, unassuming dignity under pressure and his good natured acceptance of the media circus that surrounded him captured the public imagination.
"The wonderful irony is that Babe Ruth's record, long a symbol of unattainable standards, fell to a man whose career had begun in the Negro Leagues," adds Tygiel.
Tygiel is left to wonder what the major league records might have been without segregation - if Negro League players had been permitted to play in the same era as Ruth and Cobb.
Tygiel argues that even with the profound transformation of racial attitudes in the United States - as evidenced by the nation's first African American Secretary of State and National Security Advisors-America still hasn't come close to the vision of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson in the 1940s.
"The Jackie Robinson saga, whether myth or reality, has always appealed to the better angels of our nature. Today, 50 years and more after he first graced us with his pride, his courage, his passion, and his vision; amidst our current failures, disappointments, and often dispiriting political drift, our nation has yet to produce a more compelling prophecy of a just, interracial society than that which we envision when we invoke the memory of Jackie Robinson."