The San Francisco Giants should have run away from Barry Bonds as if he were carrying toxic waste, not a maple baseball bat. Yet the Giants are addicted to Bonds, and Bonds seems fueled as much by drama and money as baseball. So the marriage endures, with no end in sight.
“I said I’m playing till I’m 100,” Bonds said Tuesday. “Get used to me.”
This was probably an attempt at humor, but maybe not. Unless Bonds is dressed as Paula Abdul, as he appeared one day last spring, it’s hard to know where his ego ends and the farce begins.
When Bonds’ contract expired at the end of last season, the Giants could have cut the cord. The team has gone nowhere as he has grown older, missing the playoffs three years in a row. The march on Henry Aaron’s career home run record long ago began to be marked mostly by cynicism and bitterness in the fallout from his place at the center of baseball’s steroids scandal.
Yet even at 42, an age when no other player has hit more than 18 home runs, and even with a recent history of knee and elbow injuries, Bonds’ talent is hard to ignore.
Just ask Matt Cain.
The 22-year-old right-hander, considered among the top young pitchers in the major leagues, whizzed a fastball past Bonds during live batting practice Tuesday, the first day of full-squad workouts for the Giants.
“I had a big smile on my face,” Cain said. “It went off in a hurry.”
After swinging and missing, Bonds yelled to Cain, “Throw it again.”
“OK,” Cain said. “Here it comes.”
Bonds drove the fastball high into the air, and the ball carried onto the grassy slope beyond the fence in right-center field at Scottsdale Stadium. A small group of fans in the stands cheered, and Bonds came out of the batting cage smiling.
“I’m ready,” he said twice, softly the first time, almost to himself, and loudly the second time as he played to his audience.
In the months that lie ahead, as Bonds continues to block out the federal investigators who have jailed his former strength coach and relentlessly pursue indictments against him, as the spotlight focuses ever more brightly on his attempt to add to his total of 734 home runs, hoping to pass Aaron’s 755 this summer, we will see if he is ready.
At this point in his career, Bonds still has the ability to keep a team relevant, if not competitive. So there he was Tuesday morning, checking in for his 22nd season, his 15th with the Giants. He arrived at 8:30 a.m. in a silver SUV that was driven by his marketing rep and carried a well-dressed bodyguard.
Bonds dressed down in a long-sleeved black T-shirt, distressed jeans, shades with silver frames and a thick silver chain around his neck.
He walked past a group of 15 or 20 fans, mostly there to get autographs, and went into the clubhouse. He dressed quickly for a workout, at one point turning his cap backward, the only player in the room trying that look. Perhaps 30 to 40 reporters watched his movements, almost outnumbering the players and coaches who sat or stood, mostly watching the reporters.
It was an awkward moment, as so many around Bonds are.
The one guy who doesn’t seem to feel too awkward about the spectacle is Bonds.
Barry Zito, the newly signed ace, requested a locker next to Bonds’ after observing his mental toughness during off-season workouts in Los Angeles.
“That makes him special,” Zito said. “He deals with that [personal] stuff in a special way. The masses don’t understand how his mind works, how he’s able to compartmentalize things. It’s amazing how he’s able to focus on things.”
Two things about the upcoming season seemed clear upon Bonds’ arrival.
The first was that he caught a good break when Zito turned down the New York Mets, Texas and Seattle to sign his seven-year, $126 million deal with San Francisco. Zito gives the Giants a headliner with charisma, which should ease the burden on Bonds, and he seems genuinely excited about the chance to play alongside a guy who hasn’t often fit in with his teammates.
“It’s exciting being next to him in the clubhouse, feeling his vibe,” Zito said. “To be able to see what he’s going to do this year, to be part of it, that will be special.”
Late in Tuesday’s workout, Bonds and Zito changed into matching T-shirts that Bonds brought with him to camp. On the back were the words “Don’t ask me . . . ask Barry,” with arrows pointing to the side. It provided a light moment, the kind there haven’t been enough of around Bonds in recent years.
It was also clear that Bonds is feeling a lot more healthy than he did throughout most of 2005 and ’06, when he constantly seemed to be recovering from knee surgeries. He started trusting his knees again late last season and came to camp ready to pick up where he left off.
“I feel good,” he said. “I feel real good.”
Bonds smiled and even laughed a little during a group interview that broke up after about 15 minutes, adjourned by Bonds and the Giants’ staff when he started to get hard questions about his 2006 positive test for amphetamines and the continuing attempts to show he lied before a federal grand jury investigating steroid use.
“I’m very happy,” Bonds said, and his demeanor was in marked contrast to a memorably surly session in spring training two years ago.
Bonds said the federal investigation “doesn’t weigh on me at all.” He said he was only being courteous when he issued a public apology to teammate Mark Sweeney after the New York Daily News reported that Bonds had attempted to blame Sweeney for his positive amphetamines test.
“I did not blame Mark Sweeney, and I have no comment on it all,” Bonds said. “You guys started talking about it. I thought it was unfair [for Sweeney] to be accused of something untrue.”
Bonds said he wasn’t upset about reports that Aaron and Commissioner Bud Selig might not be on hand when he is on the threshold of hitting his 755th or 756th home run.
“That’s you guys,” Bonds said. “That’s the whole media commotion.”
Apparently healthy and at relative peace, Bonds might have a strong season in him. If so, it will be one for the ages, as he turns 43 in July.
Carlton Fisk’s 18 home runs in 1990, when he was 42, and then the same number the next year, are the most anyone has ever hit at such an advanced age.
Bonds was asked what he could do this season.
“I’m capable of doing more than that,” he said.
He’d better hope so. This sideshow can’t go on forever, though the Giants seem to want it to.
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progers@tribune.com
