Tainted Bonds back to Bay Area
Who says you can’t go home again? Home run king Barry Bonds is returning to the Giants as a special advisor to the team’s chief executive officer Larry Baer, the club announced Tuesday. The hiring of Bonds comes after his underwhelming, one-and-done 2016 season as the Marlins hitting coach.
“I am excited to be back home with the Giants and join the team in an official capacity,” said Bonds. “San Francisco has always been my home and the Giants will always be my family. I look forward to spending time with the team, young players in the system as well as the Bay Area community.”
The Giants said that Bonds will “represent the organization at various community and organizational events in San Francisco,” and that he will make an appearance at the team’s Arizona spring training complex in Scottsdale from March 22-28.
Bonds, 52, last played for the Giants in 2007, the year he passed Hank Aaron on the career home run list. Bonds finished his career with 762 homers, but the seven-time NL MVP has fallen well short of election into the Hall of Fame since he first appeared on the baseball writers’ ballot in 2013. Last year Bonds served as hitting coach to the Marlins, but the Don Mattingly-managed Miami team finished third in the NL East, and was ranked 13th out of 15 NL team in runs scored, 12th in slugging percentage, and 14th in homers.
Now Bonds gets a new job opportunity and returns to the team he spent most of his career with, but which was also a baseball stretch filled with controversy and bombast.
While Bonds chased Aaron’s home run record, the stain of his alleged performanceenhancing drug use trailed behind him like a two-ton bat due to his ties to the BALCO doping scandal. Bonds testified before a grand jury in December, 2003 in San Francisco and his BALCO link brought an unwanted media spotlight on the team for several years leading up to his history-making, and many would say tainted, performance in the summer of 2007.
After he socked homer No. 756 off Nationals lefty Mike Bacsik at AT&T Park Aug. 7, 2007, then commissioner Bud Selig − who is close friends with Aaron − was not even on hand to congratulate Bonds in person, doing so by telephone after Bonds entered the history books.
Later that fall of ’07, Bonds was indicted by a federal grand jury on perjury and obstruction of justice charges and he eventually went to trial in 2011 in San Francisco federal court. Bonds was convicted on one charge of obstruction, but the jury deadlocked on three perjury counts. Through several appeals process, Bonds’ conviction was eventually overturned in 2015.