Column: Barry Bonds will be back in 2007
JIM LITKE
AP Sports Columnist
Barring a major league-sized outbreak of sanity, Barry Bonds will be back in 2007. And you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Chances are Bonds doesn't, either. Not that it will stop him from trying to return.
"My intentions are to see to it he's in a big-league uniform next season," his agent, Jeff Booris, told the Los Angeles Times, carefully choosing his words. "Those are my marching orders."
Considering Mike Tyson announced Thursday that he, too, wants back in between the ropes, one way to think about Bonds' return is this: It already qualifies as the lesser of two evils. Whether it's anything better than that is something we'll decide for ourselves, perhaps sooner rather than later.
Since finding his stroke shortly after the All-Star break, Bonds has been doing a passable imitation both of a teammate and a power-hitting left fielder. He's not quite as powerful nor anywhere near as graceful as he used to be, but he isn't the stiff-elbowed, lock-kneed hitter or lumbering defensive liability he was during the first half, either. He actually seems happy for the first time in a long time.
Bonds stretches with teammates before some games and sticks around after others longer than he used to, even with the Giants eliminated from the playoffs. Playing with less pain, and under the radar since he passed Babe Ruth, Bonds has raised his average to a respectable .271 and hit 10 home runs in his last 89 at-bats - a clip that compares favorably with some of his most productive stretches ever.
His 26 homers this season are the most ever by a 42-year-old player, eight better than Carlton Fisk hit at the same age. Even allowing for another slow start, advancing age, and the fact that Bonds plays roughly 20-25 percent less than most of the regulars, he's on track to collect the 22 homers he needs to pass Hank Aaron's 755 sometime late next season.
Squirm all you want at the possibility; commissioner Bud Selig certainly will. But by now it's practically an obligation. Considering how long Bonds has been at it and how much he endured already, quitting now would be the most unsatisfactory ending of all.
He's been bulked up by performance-enhancers he told a grand jury he didn't know he was taking, hamstrung by injuries, hounded by the feds and reviled almost everywhere but at home in San Francisco. One way or another, this is a drama that will be worth sitting through to the bitter end.
The opinion we'd like to hear most right now is Aaron's, but he didn't return phone messages left Thursday at his office or home. His previous comments on having Bonds break his record have been mixed. Unlike Bonds, little of the adversity Aaron faced was because of things he did himself. But trouble is trouble. For Bonds to walk away with the outcome still in doubt would - fair or not - cast a little of his large shadow over Aaron's remarkable achievement.
Just as troubling, it would let baseball weasel out of a debate that's long overdue. Everybody who had a part in supersizing the game these past dozen or so years - and that means everybody - has had enough time to prepare.
Bonds has taken most of the heat because guys like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa melted into the background the first chance they got. So maybe it's only fair that Bonds gets to spread around a little of the discomfort. If you think Bonds' pursuit of Ruth struck a nerve, just wait. And how much would you pay to listen in on Selig's call to the party planners if and when he zeros in on Aaron?
All this becomes moot, of course, if Bonds is serious about driving the car pool or more likely, if he told his agent to hold out for a number anywhere close to the $18 million per year in the five-year deal with the Giants that's about to end. He can't command half that much from any other club, crazy as some of the guys entrusted with the purse strings are on occasion.
Even assuming Bonds agrees to become a designated hitter, his No. 1 choice, Oakland, probably would re-sign a resurgent Frank Thomas for cheaper. The few other American League outposts that could benefit at the turnstile with Bonds - think Kansas City or Tampa - are hardly places he wants to be.
San Francisco, on the other hand, is the perfect place for Bonds to exit stage left. He practically built the new stadium for owner Peter Magowan and the town, pounding enough baseballs over the right-field wall to backfill the cove behind it.
Magowan is not a particularly sentimental guy, but he'll have to be to find a salary figure he and Bonds can agree on. If it's higher than Bonds' present-day value, that's the price Magowan should pay for being his enabler. Besides, he always can console himself with the knowledge that the only thing more embarrassing than financing the circus will be watching Bonds put on the all-time home-run crown under somebody else's big top.
