Up to Barry Bonds I go with an introductory hello and a business card. It is a couple of hours before the first pitch at Coors Field. He is in the San Francisco clubhouse stretched on a sofa. He is watching the NBA playoffs.
“I don’t need your card,” he grumbles.
Uh-oh. Here we go.
George on Bonds.
Bonds on George.
I was not looking for a scrap. Looks like one is coming.
I had met him for a minute back in the early 1990s when he was with Pittsburgh. I wanted to see for myself what Bonds is about today. And what I am seeing is what I have heard. It is not good.
But the conversation spins and unfolds in an instant.
And what I find is what I had figured: There is always something a little more, something important and meaningful, something intriguing beneath the surface with Bonds.
There is so much spit and venom out there with Bonds.
Some of it comes from baseball purists. Some of it is simple and pure hate.
Before we get to more Bonds, let us get to this: These eleventh-hour investigations into Bonds’ alleged steroid use and possible perjury charges are drivel. The people pushing these agendas want to preserve Babe Ruth as their icon. They talk about Bonds passing Ruth in home runs as if Ruth has not already been passed. Hank Aaron did that 32 years ago.
I do not like revisionist history. Neither does Rockies outfielder Cory Sullivan, who said exactly what I believe on this subject:
“Barry Bonds is arguably the best hitter of all time, unparalleled, and that should never be trivialized or marginalized. Baseball did not have a sweeping drug policy. Now it does. Move forward from there. You cannot solve a problem with a player.”
Giants outfielder Steve Finley added: “Everybody gets pushed. Barry gets pushed beyond the norm. You could go back in the ’70s, the ’80s, all the way back and find problems with perceived and real drug enhancement. And it would not just be one person.”
Bonds cranked No. 709 into the left-field stands his first time up.
I guess those suggestions that elbow and knee injuries and time have caught up with him, that he will never be the same slugger, were premature.
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Giants manager Felipe Alou said about Bonds’ supposed decline. “And am I going to see it? Never, as long as they don’t pitch to him.”
A curious thing was that some of the same people who booed Bonds before his initial at bat were piling down the aisles to get to their seats during his first plate appearances. An odd scene, aisles full of people streaming in like they stream out when exiting a lopsided game in the late innings.
Like a car wreck, like moving scared silly through a horror house, they peek.
“I look at it this way,” Bonds said about his status. “I’m going to play as long as I can play. And then I’m gone. That’s it.”
What about a photo I saw recently that showed you on one side of the bench and teammates on the other, Bonds was asked.
“That was probably when guys were up to congratulate a teammate and I stayed back, off my feet,” Bonds said. “My teammates understand. That was somebody trying to downplay me. They try to keep Barry Bonds in a negative light.”
Why is that, I asked.
He asked me why.
I said I do not know enough about him to know.
He said he did not know enough about others to know.
“I wanted to do something that has never been done before,” Bonds said about the film crew that follows him incessantly. “There is no video documentation of Babe Ruth. Or Hank. This will be documented. Documented every day on and off the field. Everybody will be a part of that. The media, everybody.”
I tell him I am not sure if that is such a good idea, my involvement.
He said too late.
The cameras are rolling. Our interview is being filmed. Anytime you are around Barry Bonds, you become a part of the squall. The process.
This type of fanfare has to be a constant adjustment for his teammates. Alou said it has been like this for four years, only now it is “more visible” and “more louder.” Some Giants handle it better than others.
“I played in New York; I know what pressure is,” Giants reliever Armando Benitez said. “It is part of humanity that you should respect everybody, at least at the start, in your words and deeds. People say a lot of stuff about me. They don’t even know me. There is only so much of that I am going to take. Same with Barry.”
Some Rockies said they see Bonds not as focused at the plate or in their games. They say he looks distracted.
I saw a player who missed most of spring training, who is healing physically and mentally, who plays despite a noticeable limp, who is defensive because he is under attack.
His fans and critics will continue to track him.
Because with Bonds, beyond the surface, there is always a little extra worth discerning.
Always a little more.
Thomas George can be reached at 303-820-1994 or tgeorge@denverpost.com.
