As the world watches Barry Bonds chase Hank Aaron's home run record, I have found myself oddly disappointed.

The whole backstory revolving around Barry's alleged steroid abuse has put a damper on what should be the crown jewel of all American sports records, the home run record. This is the record that is most revered, and turns the player who obtains it from iconic to immortal. The player's name reverberates through the annals of time, like that disembodied voice in the movie Field Of Dreams.

But instead, it has left such a bad taste in the majority of sports fans' mouths, that this death march toward 856 has become most unbearable, especially for those of us in the newspaper industry. Every night since he's been in striking distance, we've had to basically plan two front pages for both A1 and the sports section. And because he plays on the Giants, the majority of the games start at 7 p.m., so there's a chance he might hit it right on deadline.

After another such night on Wednesday, I was thinking back to when another hallowed record fell. It was back in 1994, and once again, Southern California was the stage. It was on the lips of many sports fans, and there wasn't a hint of hatred anywhere. And oddly enough, I was working at a newspaper at the time, albeit my college paper.

We were putting the Viking, Long Beach City College's newspaper, to bed that night when Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's all-time goal scoring record with a power play goal against the Vancouver Canucks. We didn't have a television in the newsroom, so I was huddled around an old clock radio that I had found in the paper's dark room. I was wearing my Kings jersey that night, and I spilled Mountain Dew on my desk as I stood up and cheered, sending day-glo green soda everywhere. Thankfully my mom took pity on me and removed the stain when I got home.

I had only been a hockey fan for a few years before then, but I understood that Wayne's feat was truly a remarkable site. It seemed right that "The Great One" unseated "Mr. Hockey" for the all-time goal record. There was some grumbling by Howe when he did it, but no one really paid him any attention. It became, at the time, Wayne's crowning jewel to his career. Fans in the Great Western Forum roared like the Kings just won the Stanley Cup. A career retrospective was shown up on the scoreboards. Gretzky embraced NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who looked estatic to be there. It was a moment to remember.

And if you think back, maybe you can remember what you were doing too.