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of BASEBALL HEROES
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How an eager little kid grew up
to be a pariah in baseball
of TheColumnists.com
The Barry Bonds episode is the last straw. No more sports heroes for me.
Barry Bonds is the son of Bobby Bonds,
the great slugger and strikeout specialist of the San Francisco
Giants. Bobby Bonds came to the Yankees for one memorable season
in 1975. He had been traded to New York for a very popular Yankee
player, Bobby Murcer, who seemed to have lost his home run swing
just about then.
Bobby Bonds hit 32 home runs for the Yankees that year and struck
out 137 times, a far cry from his Giants mark of 189. He was
shipped to California at the end of that season for two players,
Mickey Rivers and Ed Figueroa, who became significant players
in the Yankees rebirth with pennants in 1976, 1977 and 1978 and
two World Series titles in those two last seasons.
What made Bonds’ time in the Bronx memorable later was the
skinny kid who hung around with his dad, played catch in the
outfield with him, ran through the clubhouse and sat on the bench
often during games, wearing his cutdown Yankee uniform, serving
as a helper to the batboy.
The kid’s name was Barry Bonds. He was 10 years old that
summer.
I took a liking to him and would often sit on the bench with
him and tell him tales of his Godfather’s time in New York
in the early 1950s when even I was too young to write about him
and later when I did write about him in the early 1970s. His
Godfather is Willie Mays, only the best baseball player I ever
saw and maybe the best player anybody ever saw.
Bobby Bonds was finished after the 1981 season with tales of
alcoholism following him everywhere he went.
The skinny son came to the big leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates
and became sort of an entry with his pal, Bobby Bonilla, as part
of the best young tandem on one team.
I always had this soft spot for him as he started to excel as
one of the game’s premier players. He was suddenly piling
up home runs at a rate that threatened the mark of Henry Aaron.
As the home runs flew out of Candlestick Park and the new San
Francisco stadium, now known as AT and T park after a couple
of name changes for the good of sponsors, it seemed he would
make both the Roger Maris single season mark of 61 in 1961 and
the Aaron career total disappear.
Mark McGwire got there first with his 70 for a season but Bonds
soon passed him with 73. Then came the 755 of Aaron as a goal
and Bonds moved quickly past that in 2007.
All of this was colored by the steroid mess. It went back half
a dozen years or more. The skinny kid I remembered around the
Yankees had grown into a strong, trim athletic man. Then he continued
to grow and grow and grow. More home runs. Larger hat sizes.
And that neck. Wow.
I wasn’t out there on the field every day he came to town
as I used to be in my distant past but I would see him occasionally
in the ball park and every so often when he was honored for one
of his MVP titles or some other baseball mark at the annual dinner
of the New York baseball writers.
I almost always mentioned his dad, a fellow I admired and liked
as a friendly Yankee. I expressed my condolences when Bobby Bonds
passed away a few years ago. Barry appreciated it.
I never mentioned steroids when I talked with him and he never
mentioned any problems he had that filled newspaper columns,
magazine articles and books. I guess I just wanted to connect
with that 1975 kid I knew as a 10-year-old and reminisce
That’s the way it went for the last couple of years.
When he was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice and
faced maybe 30 years in prison, it just gave me a sinking feeling.
He was a guy I knew as a kid. He had become a star. Now he was
a pariah. It was nearly impossible to root for Barry Bonds anymore
in any civil way. He is innocent until proven guilty. That’s
what the Constitution says. In popular opinion, he is so damn
guilty that his Hall of Fame possibilities, despite his incredible
marks, are in doubt.
I am a Hall of Fame voter. In five years or so, his name will
appear on the ballot unless Baseball rules against him, a la
Pete Rose, if he's spending time in jail.
How can I vote for him? He let us down, all of us fans, by cheating
on his fellow players. That’s what steroid use really is,
a crime against your fellow players.
I always tried as a professional journalist to keep my private
feelings away from my objective reporting. Sometimes a kid would
sneak in to my psyche and I would root like hell for him.
Barry Bonds was one of those kids I always rooted for. No more.
I just can’t do it. No more heroes for me.
©2007 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen
caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The Barry and Bobby Bonds
illustrations are an artist's version of photographs. This column
first posted Nov. 26, 2007.
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