Bill Simmons Obviously Wasn't A History Major

I wonder if the Jesuits at Holy Cross cringe when they read Bill Simmons' ramblings. It must to be as obvious to them as it is to the rest of the world that Simmons liberal arts education just didn't take hold.

I am referring to Simmons latest piece on Barry Bonds and how he's been airbrushed from the national consciousness this year. In particular - it is this line that gets under my skin.

It [the Baseball Hall of Fame] can't pick and choose its lessons, for the same reason the Smithsonian doesn't ignore nadirs in this country's history like slavery, Hiroshima or Vanilla Ice.

First off there can only be one "nadir". You can only have one lowest point just as an artist can only have one "masterpiece". I've long given up on the idea that ESPN.com actually has editors who would catch things like that.

That first point is picky. I grant you that. The second point, however, is not picky at all.

Hiroshima was not a nadir in the history of the United States. Far from it. The Manhattan Project was one of the few instances in US history where the full resources of the Federal Government were harnessed successfully. The US set off to be the first to develop an atomic bomb and we were successful. Harry Truman really had no choice but to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. It was the culmination of a chain of events that started with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.

The US had no choice. It was either use the bomb or invade mainland Japan. The military expected such a great number of casualties from such an invasion that a huge number of Purple Hearts were ordered. The number of Purple Hearts ordered was so great that the military has been awarding those very same medals in every conflict since WWII and we still haven't used them all up (and hopefully never will).

The atomic bomb was terrible in its destruction but it was necessary to end a war that the Japanese forced upon us. It was hardly a "nadir" in our history. If Bill Simmons wasn't skipping history classes to watch Match Game back when he was in college - he might know that.