Leading OFF
Bonds finally gets celebration more like he envisioned
SAN FRANCISCO – This is the way Barry Bonds wanted to leave baseball a decade ago, standing in left field one final time at AT&T Park, watching the sellout crowd stand up, screaming until the fans’ lungs hurt, giving him the final send-off in a Giants uniform.
Finally, he got his day on Aug. 11, 11 years after his career ended a year earlier than he wanted, with San Francisco celebrating one of its all-time greats, the Giants retiring his number and giving him a party he’ll forever remember.
“The park means more to me than the number,” Bonds said to a handful of reporters two hours after the 75-minute ceremony, munching on a chocolate chip cookie. “Because I built this park. That’s all. When I walk into this ballpark, I know whose house it is. It is our house as a unified city, but I know who did that.”
It was vintage Bonds, never lacking in confidence, full of braggadocio, calling himself a “six-tool” player because of his intelligence, traits that made him baseball’s all-time home run king.
Sure, it will be argued that performance-enhancing drugs also helped create baseball’s home run champion, with Bonds hitting 762 homers, seven more than Hank Aaron. Yet he was a Hall of Famer before any suspicions of steroid use, before anyone knew of BALCO, before federal government investigations.
Willie Mays, who even wonders whether it should be Bonds, and not himself or Aaron, as the greatest living ballplayer today, reminded the sellout crowd that Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame. The crowd of 41,209 erupted, and all of the Giants and Pirates players who were standing on the top dugout steps watching the ceremony cheered right along.
“I wish (the Giants) would give him a statue across the little bridge over there,” said Mays, who has his own statue in front of the entrance to AT&T Park. “Let him have it. Let him have the honor, because I might not be here forever. I might be gone.
“I want him to have his kids say, ‘That’s my daddy over there.’ ”
Mays implored the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to put Bonds into the Hall while he’s alive.
“On behalf of all of the people in San Francisco, and all over the country, vote him in,” Mays said.
In many ways, this was Bonds’ own Hall of Fame ceremony, as if he were standing behind the podium in Cooperstown, New York.
Bonds’ former managers, Jim Leyland and Dusty Baker, spoke in reverence of Bonds. Former teammates Bobby Bonilla and Kirk Rueter talked about the glory days.
Giants President Larry Baer and former owner Peter Magowan regaled the crowd about the greatest free agent in Giants history, signing Bonds to a sixyear, $43 million deal in 1992.
The happiest moment of Magowan’s ownership, he said, was the day he signed Bonds even before he officially became the owner, having to sign an agreement that would pay Bonds his contract even if the Giants’ sale collapsed.
“But the saddest was when we fired Barry,” he said.
It was not technically a firing but rather the simple decision not to bring Bonds back after the 2007 season. Bonds hit 28 homers and drew a league-leading 132 walks that year, with a .480 on-base percentage and 1.041 on-base plus slugging percentage.
“I really thought someone would sign Barry,” Magowan said, sitting on the Giants bench before the game. “It never happened.”
Simply, no one wanted the baggage that came with him, the scrutiny, the media circus and the constant sideshow.
His career ended prematurely, before he could obtain 3,000 hits, hit 800 home runs and perhaps win a World Series, which has long pained Bonds, but this was a night that helped heal many of the wounds.
It wasn’t so much the jersey retirement, the words from Mays or the stories from everyone from former Dodgers AllStar closer Eric Gagne to video board messages from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (heavily booed by the crowd) to Warriors All-Star Stephen Curry (wildly cheered).
It happened after Bonds rode around the outfield with his family, when, with Giants starter Ty Blach throwing his warm- up pitches on the mound, Bonds ran out to left field one final time. He wanted to wear his full uniform but only had time to wear his jersey.
“I thought it was a great idea, because I wanted to be in left field one more time,” Bonds said. “I probably ran faster there than in my career. That’s where everybody saw me, and that’s where I thought people should see me last.”
It was the closure Bonds so badly wanted when the Giants said goodbye and every other team shunned him.
“I don’t deny it; I wish I had one more year,” Bonds said. “The way it happened was not right. But it’s OK. I’m definitely OK with it. You never heard me say anything nasty about it.
“I gave everything I had out on that field. I wish I had the opportunity to do it a different way. But this is OK the way they did it because, I tell you right now, I’m one little happy person right now.”
Bonds, 54, a special assistant in the Giants organization, will mostly be out of sight now until that day he gets elected into Cooperstown. He’ll still show up occasionally at AT&T Park. He’ll keep riding his bicycle up in the streets of San Francisco. He’ll spend a week or so with the Giants in spring training camp, attend fundraisers, but he has no interest in returning to the field as a coach.
His number will stand forever, right between that of Mays (24) and Juan Marichal (27).
Bonds has four years left on the ballot to be elected into Cooperstown. If it happens, he’ll be overwhelmed, maybe even be as emotional as he was Aug. 11, speaking about his late father, Bobby Bonds, and his mother, Pat, and siblings.
If it doesn’t, he’ll always have this evening, and a number that will stand forever, belonging to him.
“I can always look up there, see No. 25, and be proud,” Bonds said. “This means more than you’ll ever know.”