Recent Trades Should Have Pittsburgh Pirate Fans Rethinking McLouth Outrage

(Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty Images)

Growing up, the Pittsburgh Pirates were really good. They were always good and they were in the playoffs. Besides Barry Bonds who was the anchor of the teams, his notable teammates also included Bobby Bonilla, Andy Van Slyke, Jeff King, Al Martin, Tim Wakefield, and Doug Drabek.

I remember the 1992 playoffs for example when the Pirates who should have went to the World Series to face the Toronto Blue Jays, lost in seven games to the Atlanta Braves. I was a Bonds fan and while I couldn't afford a Barry Bonds bat, I had his name written on an old plastic bat in black marker to show my affiliation.

One of the particular playoff games, Bonds hit a home run and the Pirates went up 8-0 on the Braves. My dad, always one to like a winner, was going crazy watching the game on the couch. I remember getting up mad saying "You only like them because they are good" as I left the room.

While I wasn't a Braves fan, I respected them and they had a similarly young and exciting team to the 2008 Rays and I wanted a long series which at that point didn't look to have the makings.

Bonds defects to the Giants

After the 1992 season however, a very young (and supposedly still clean) Bonds left the first place, and perennial contending Pirates to sign a massive contract with the forth-place San Francisco Giants to supposedly play for the team of his Godfather Willie Mays.  

The six-year $43.5 million dollar contract was the richest ever given at the time. It even topped the five-year $36 million dollar contract the irrelevant at the time New York Yankees were offering. Of course, the Pirates, with an entire 1992 payroll of $32.59 million.

Had the Pirates made it to, and won the 1992 World Series would Bonds possibly have stayed thus keeping the power system in check? Likely he was destined for San Francisco but we will never know.

If you want a comparison to what this may be like in contemporary times to how this affected the balance of power, it would be like 29 year old Albert Pujols leaving the St. Louis Cardinals at the prime of his career, to sign with the Washington Nationals similar to when the then-28 year old Bonds defected to the irrelevant Giants.

The Pirates were never heard from again, having endured sixteen consecutive losing seasons as a direct result, and the Giants making the playoffs several times including one World Series appearance in 2002.

It was this reason, this, single-handed franchise-kiling fashion, that to this day, I never forgave Bonds for leaving a young, exciting, and up-and-coming team on the cusp of returning to their past days of glory.

He left for selfish reasons but as we've come to know later, this should hardly be of any surprise. In a conversation I had in high school where I remarked to a classmate how I didn't like Barry Bonds anymore because he left the Pirates" the kid replied (at the time) "Dude, that was like, ten years ago!"

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