Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants completed a $15.8 million, one-year contract Monday night after the slugger spent hours at the ballpark being examined by team doctors.
The club announced the deal, which was finalized nearly two months after the sides agreed on financial terms Dec. 7, the final day of baseball’s winter meetings. Bonds had to pass a physical, and the parties had to work out complicated language regarding Bonds’ behavior and what would happen if the slugger were to be indicted.
A federal grand jury is investigating whether Bonds perjured himself when he testified in 2003 in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid distribution case that he hadn’t knowingly taken any performance- enhancing drugs.
Two baseball officials said the slugger’s trainers – Harvey Shields and Greg Oliver – would no longer be on the Giants’ payroll. That means neither will be allowed in the clubhouse or any other restricted area in any big-league ballpark, the officials said. If they were to make road trips, it would be on Bonds’ dime or their own.
“I have no problems with it,” Bonds said. “(Oliver) and Harvey will be with me, just outside the ballpark.”
Bonds, who is 22 home runs from breaking Hank Aaron’s career record of 755, can earn another $4.2 million in bonuses based on how much he plays. If he matches last year’s effort – 493 plate appearances, 130 games – Bonds, 42, would receive the entire amount.
Red Sox: Right-hander Curt Schilling said he will not retire at the end of the 2007 season as previously indicated and plans to pitch in 2008.
Schilling’s contract with Boston ends after the 2007 season, but he said he was in discussions for an extension. If Schilling, who acts as his own agent, can’t work out a deal in Boston, he will pitch for another team – but not the New York Yankees.
Rangers: Sammy Sosa and Texas wrapped up weeks of negotiations and agreed to a minor-league contract.
Sosa, 38, is fifth on the career list with 588 home runs, but hasn’t played in the major leagues since 2005. He will have to earn his spot on the roster with the Rangers.
Astros: Nolan Ryan was at Houston’s pitching camp and said he was feeling well after a stint in a hospital over the weekend.
“I have a condition where I have a spasm of the artery that leads into my heart,” the 59-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher said. “So when it does spasm, it’s treated with medication. I basically hadn’t been on medication for three or four years now, and I just had a flare-up. So what it indicates is that I’m probably going to have to stay on medication.”
Dodgers: Art Fowler, who pitched for Los Angeles’ 1959 championship team and became a pitching coach for five major-league clubs, died at his home in Spartanburg, S.C. He was 84.
