Bonds hit homers but, again, not the jackpot
They kept showing videos of the swing, so powerful, so effective. Then they kept showing the differential between the votes Barry Bonds received and the votes he needed — and painfully, for one last time, failed to receive.
The man could play as well as anyone who ever played. Baseball, that is.
But he didn’t play by the rules, or more accurately by the standards created to keep the playing field level — even though, level or tilted, there was no doubt that the field belonged to Bonds.
He's off the Hall of Fame ballot now. His decade is done. His journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame is unfinished, and no matter the optimistic predictions of a rescue by the Hall’s veterans’ committee, it may remain unfinished forever. Along with the journey of Roger Clemens.
Bonds, who hit more home runs in the history of America’s most historic game, 73 for a season, 762 for a career, and Clemens, who won the Cy Young award seven times, did everything possible to improve.
Which is the problem.
They are acknowledged to have used products known as PEDs, performance-enhancing drugs, which because they allowed more repetitive workouts resulted in greater strength and resilience.
That each was a probable Hall of Famer before using the PEDs — Bonds was a seven-time MVP — is not the issue. He and Clemens were tainted. They always will be tainted.
So much of this is about timing. Barry’s was impeccable when he stood at the plate, not so much when it came to his place in the overview of the sport.
Maybe if Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire hadn’t made Bonds jealous by the attention the country gave to their 1998 home run battle, Bonds would have been content to go about business as usual.
He was great, to his justified way of thinking, greater than anyone. But the big boys got the big praise.
Remember that commercial, “Chicks dig the long ball”? So did everyone else, as Bonds quickly enough discovered.
True, Bonds had a prickly personality, which seemed modified after he retired. To get an interview required patience and luck. He rarely said hello or addressed journalists by name, but Barry knew every one of them.
As I learned during the BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative) hearings.
This was the first day at the San Francisco Federal Building. The writers came down one elevator, the defendants and lawyers another. We waited on the ground floor. Suddenly, Barry yells my name and greets me with a hug. Who knew?
What we do know is this: whether he ever gets into the Hall, he was a Hall of Fame player, learning baseball from the time he was toddler, the son of a man, Bobby Bonds, who could hit home runs and steal bases as few others could.
Bobby in reality was the first 40-40-man, home runs and stolen bases, well before Jose Canseco, although he lost one of the home runs because of a rainout.
They say Barry always felt he had to overcome the burden of being Bobby’s son. Whether that was the case, Bobby delighted in being Barry’s father. Once, when the media was down on Barry, deservedly or not, Bobby walked by and without any bitterness said, “Be kind to Barry.”
Now after the rejection — Bonds received 260 Hall votes this time, well short of the 296 required to reach the 75 percent figure that gets a player in — he definitely needs more kindness.
His own disappointment may not be known for a while, if ever, but the disappointment for fans of the San Francisco Giants, his team after a career start with the Pittsburgh Pirates, is apparent.
He was their guy, the one who could hit balls into the bay almost on command. Unfortunately, he’s still waiting to hit the jackpot.