It is an erasure of mind-numbing proportions.
If you have ever watched "The Prisoner" TV series and wanted to know what it actually felt like to be No. 6, just come to AT&T Park.
Or imagine what it would be like to be Winston Smith in 1984, after the thought police have moved in.
And that's the fandom for your San Francisco Giants at Pac Bell, er. SBC, er AT&T Park.
It's not merely a rebranding that has noodled with the Giants' fans. No no. Now a far deeper blow has been inflicted...a numbing of the mind, a completely unsubtle reversal of what was known, true, and given for years. It is all now enforced in a conspiracy of silence.
Quite literally, no one—owner, players, media, and lowly fans included—is barking about it. Everyone appears to be going about their business and pretending not to notice.
Last year at this time, you couldn't swing a dead bat without hitting a Bonds tribute, jersey, or piece of hawked memorabilia. AT&T was Bonded—boy was it ever—and whirring with the financial joy and accompanying jubilation in the stands that the phenomenon that was No. 25 continued to be.
Now, there is a little orange sign, on the facing of the outfield wall, that is quite literally the farthest spot from home plate, with his name and the number 756 on it. That's it.
While the Giants are still toying with the exact identity of their new love interest (Zito having spit the bit), the fact that they have completely discarded Bonds could not be clearer. Or more unspoken.
The conversation about this tends not to be had at the ballpark, but at the dinner table, and then only after enough water has been tested to know that it is safe to broach.
Certainly the reverberations are echoing around the league. If it's good riddance to bad rubbish from the Giants, there is literally no chance that this guy is going to latch on anyplace else.
There are a lot of crosscurrents here that a mind like my own is reluctant to tackle. But I can tell you that I regret what the team that has captured my allegiance has done here very much, both to Barry and to me.
I predict that the exclusion of this very productive and exciting hitter from all major-league teams at the twilight of his career will later be viewed with regret.
The guy boarded a very full steroids train and got bad legal advice when he and a few of his fellow passengers were forcibly disembarked.
And for this, the pernicious nature of big-league marketing has been laid bare, and I have been turned into a sheepish baseball-fan. Baa. Humbug.
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3 months ago
I find the treatment of Barry Bonds disgusting. The scapegoating, character assassination, and deep hatred of Bonds really got to me when he was playing; the silence now that he's been forced out is equally disturbing. I live in Chicago, and you would not believe the grief I got while Bonds was playing when I went to another ballpark wearing a Giants cap. The mob hatred was worst in Milwaukee. Very disturbing to witness a big crowd, overwhelmingly white, not only booing, but wishing that he hurt himself, and calling on the pitchers to bean him, etc., around where I was sitting. It's really shaken my love of the game to have seen all this shabby behavior.
3 months ago
To most fans, baseball can be a game, a sport, or even an art.
To the players, it can be the same with one difference; it is also their livelihood. This means it can be their identity, career, or simply a job where a time clock is punched.
To the owners, I think it is business, pure and simple. And in any business, the ability to make money drives everything.
The fans shell out money to the owners to see the players ply their trade; the owners in turn pay the players. Untimately, it is the fan base that decides who is popular and who isn't by court of public opinion.
The Giants' front office decided to peddle Barry for profit; and they did it masterfully. Some fans didn't need it; they were pulling for the slugger come good press or bad. In sad honesty, the commissioner's office weakly rode the fence on it all. All of the drama which ensued around Bonds was only going to fuel interest and a profits for a while. The thrill is gone and there is no more money to be made; but Barry rode his wave of fame.
So did Milli Vanilli, Tonya Harding, Mark McGwire and Marion Jones.
Now, I do not condone or support the vile, hateful things I have heard from Major League crowds in the "spirit of competition". That is indeed shabby behavior; but Bonds' well-documented egotism could hardly be called exemplary either.
Barry seemed to enjoy sticking it to people. It has been said my many players that he enjoyed telling pitchers off whom he'd homered, "I GOT YOU!" while waving his finger in their face. Well, now the people are sticking it to him and saying, "WE GOT YOU BACK."
On his level, I do not believe that Barry respected the game as a means by which he could provide for endearing fans while lavishly earn a very good living by playing a game; respect and disrespect come through just like anything else- regardless of the PR.
To Barry, it was merely a business- a means to use his marketability to make as much money as possible. He seemingly purposefully made himself a product and not the endearing sports icon he could have been.
Now that he is no longer marketable, he has gone the way of the 8-Track, mainframe computers, and the Yugo- and I believe he has no one to blame but himself.
from 3 months ago
Great comment, you should submit it as it's own article, definitely long enough and fleshed out enough. However, I disagree with your final point—Barry definitely loved and still loves baseball. He loved it in his own not-running-out-a-groundball way, but he loved it and that was clear to anyone who watched him play on a regular basis during his great career.
3 months ago
Yes, we can all agree that Barry did not exhibit acceptable behavior at all times, and did not make the best decisions, both personally or professionally. However, there are numerous ballplayers who play this game. It is shame because these athletes are examples for our children who love the sport. Having said this, I also have to state that things are not always the way they appear. And unless you knew the man personally, you understood the amount of scrutiny, heartache and fan abuse he received, you couldn't really know the truth. I have seen some truths around Barry Bonds from a fan perspective having spent several years sitting near his family at the ballpark and observing. These are the facts that generally aren't highlighted. What I know is that his mother still took video of Barry at his at-bats, I know that he has a very lovely wife and children who adore him as he equally adores them, I know that he is the greatest baseball player I have ever witnessed, and was the reason I went to the ballpark. This man was the SF Giants, and is due the respect and admiration that he earned. I am disappointed that the Giants decided not wimp out and not stand behind the man who was the reason the ballpark was even built and financed. Barry brought back the spirit of baseball to SF, and now we are being forced to erase him from our memories, just like he never happened. When baseball becomes a business, it becomes boring, and to me, the Giants without Barry, is just that - boring.
from 3 months ago
Very well put, Lisa - I agree 100%
from 3 months ago
I have no doubt that there are many, many ball players in the majors and minors that exhibit questionable behavior at best, unacceptable behavior at worst. And I freely admit that I do not know him or his family; but then again, I don't know Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken, Greg Maddux or their families, either. Baseball seemingly has not turned their back on any of them.
However, when someone decides to be a pro athlete, he or she does indeed become a public figure and are therefore subject to the court of public opinion- whether they like it or not. And as sad is it is in America, arguably the biggest capitalist nation in the world, one's marketability is predominantly driven by public opinion. One may call that unfair or even just plain wrong, but it is what it is; and Barry certainly knew that as far back as his Pirate days.
Barry had no problem with public opinion when fans lavished affections on him; now he has a problem when his behavior is scrutinized by that same public opinion. His link to a steroids dealer who specialized in high profile athletes, his demands for special concessions in the Giant clubhouse, his willingness to blame teammate Mark Sweeney for something he did, and his initial selfish refusal to allow Cooperstown to have any of his memorabilia (to say the least) are all indicative of one who did not respect the game well. The accounts of Barry's family and his mom are quite touching, but they are Barry fans who have a vested interest in his personal success.
Many of us are baseball fans with no particular vested interest in one player, but in the game. Those players that respect the game tend to have the respect of the fans, too.
It is without question that Bonds was a gifted athlete and ball player- long before he put on a Giants uniform. I saw him play here in Atlanta in the 1991 and 1992 NLCS while he was a Buc; as good as he was back then, he was not the franchise although accounts by former Pirates indicate that he thought otherwise.
I am very sorry to hear that you believe that Barry WAS the SF Giants; I don't think he was any more than David Justice was the Atlanta Braves. It has always taken much more than one player (regardless of his skill) to make an entire team; in fact, such mentality is toxic to any team concept necessary for unity. Sooner or later, a GM and/or manager worth his salt is going to rein in someone who thinks they are indispensible and flaunts it.
It is my opinion that Barry thought that he was an entire franchise, too- which is most likely why he was not re-signed. Hats off to the Giants for willing to sacrifice talent for team unity- which will be better for the Giants and baseball in the long run; that takes guts and forethought.
Baseball existed in Pittsburgh and SF long before the arrival of Barry; and baseball continues to thrive in Steel Town. For many fans, baseball is not a business; but to Barry, I think it was not only that, but one to be exploited. And because he did, the game exploited him right back and he doesn't like it.
In my opinion, he is merely reaping what he has sown; the same way Pete Rose and Roger Clemens are doing so now. And while I don't know these players or their families, I am a baseball fan with nothing more than an opinion.
3 months ago
Don't believe it is Barry Bond's personality that created his media treatment and the abismal response of major league baseball to him not being hired to play in 2008.
One cannot open up the daily sports page without reading about the latest exploits of a multitude of bad actors playing professional sports that make Barry Bond's actions pale in comparison.
It is the professional sports media sanctimonious purists and magor league baseball's arrogance in which they have used their overwhelming superior power of public relations spin to shift their blame for not reporting and managing their own business to deal with the steroid abuse in professional sports. Steroid abuse is involved in professional baseball but it pales in comparison to the damage done to young athletes amateur and professional in almost every other sport it is rife in.
Yes Barry Bonds has an ego and does not have the personality of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, or even the media created myth of Babe Ruth as America's baseball hero and so called humanitarian hitting home runs on request for terminally ill children.
Babe Ruth was perhaps a greater athlete than Bonds when considering his pitching record, upbringing, and the era in which he played. But the sad fact is Ruth's personality and substance abuse was perhaps even more deserved of the scorn that is heaped on Bonds. Like so many other professional athletes, Ruth's current adulation was mostly media and major league baseball PR created after his career was long over. What adulation Ruth received while playing was profit motivated by his team, the league, and the sports writers who chose the positive side of Ruth. Witness his final years forced to bounce around to several second rate major league baseball teams.
The current media and Major League Baseball management scorn placed on Barry Bonds has been manupulative from the start playing into the same type of public fascination that gets millions of people watching Jerry Springer television programs. Those viewers take solace and perhaps personal gratifaction in watching and concluding they are not as bad a person as that.
The current treatment of Barry Bond's is spin using the classic method of blaming the "empty chair". In business as well as in trial situations, the "empty chair" defense is used to shift blame to someone else that everyone assessing the blame finds a benefit to do so.
Bond's can't possibly respond adequately. Besides being a criminal defendant for saying falsely or truthfully he didn't now what was in the cream he put on his legs, but also because he cannot compete with the sports media and MLB's resources to manipulate public opinion.
In Bonds' case the scorn benefits sports fans, congress, sports media, and MLB management in ways that keep on giving.
More insidiously, while fans derive only satisfaction, the sports media, MLB management, and even Congress profit handsomely from manipulating the treatment of Barry Bonds and what should have been his last year or two playing and shattering more major league baseball records with, steroids or not, an incredible amount of talent.
2 months ago
I think Barry Bonds is a Baller.
Well written article Brucey!
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