Los Angeles – Barry Bonds’ traveling circus played in the City of Angels again Wednesday night. Once again, Bonds failed to make history.
The 43-year-old slugger went 0-for-3 with a walk and remained stuck on career home run No. 754 as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants 6-4 behind Nomar Garciaparra’s eighth-inning home run.
Facing Dodgers left-handed starter Mark Hendrickson, Bonds popped out to right field in the second, grounded out to first in the fourth and flew out to center in the sixth when Juan Pierre made a terrific, diving catch.
In the eighth, right-hander reliever Jonathon Broxton walked Bonds intentionally with two outs and Rajai Davis on third.
Bonds needs one home run to tie Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 755. The last time Bonds hit a longball was Friday in San Francisco off Florida Marlins pitcher Rick VandenHurk. Since then, he’s 1-for-12 with eight walks.
As always the case with Bonds, there were plenty of sideshows Wednesday:
Al Downing, the man who on April 8, 1974, threw the pitch Aaron hit for No. 715 to pass Babe Ruth, said he won’t consider the record tainted when it belongs to Bonds.
“Nothing’s been proven yet,” he said, referring to persistent allegations that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs.
Asked if he considers all of Bonds’ home runs legitimate, Downing said, “They went out of the ballpark didn’t they?”
Downing, a lefty, said if he were on the mound facing Bonds, he’d pitch him high and tight inside.
Downing, whose name has been linked to the home run record for more three decades, said he has no words of wisdom for the man who serves up No. 756 to Bonds.
“I’m not a sage, so I can’t give any advice,” he said. “I just got up the next day, went for a run and got ready or my next start.”
If a fan catches homer No. 756, Bonds said he won’t ask for the baseball to be given to him.
“I had a little kid come up to me and say he’d give it back. I said, ‘Are you stupid? You’d have more money than your parents. They’d owe you,”‘ Bonds said before Wednesday’s game. “I said, ‘I’ll be your trustee.”‘
Bonds, however, would expect a teammate to return the baseball if No. 756 landed in the bullpen.
“Most teams, if it goes in the bullpen, your teammates get it and will give it back,” he said, then took a jab at a reporter. “If you’ve been around the game writing in newspapers long enough, you know the history of the game and you’d understand that’s how it works.”
Commissioner Bud Selig won’t be at tonight’s Giants-Dodgers game. He was originally scheduled to travel to Minneapolis today for the groundbreaking ceremony for the Twins’ new ballpark. However, the collapse of a major bridge across the Mississippi River in that city has postponed that event. Selig said there’s a chance he could go to Minneapolis to show support to that city, or he could go home to Milwaukee.
Selig plans to be in San Diego this weekend if Bonds is still chasing the record.
Selig, on hand Tuesday and Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, heard firsthand the boos and catcalls directed at Bonds.
Asked if he thought those reactions hurt the game, Selig said: “Everybody has to do what they want to do. Obviously if he hits a home run on the road, he’ll have quite a different reaction than he would if he hit one in San Francisco. I think that goes for everybody who plays on the road. That’s just the reality of the situation, so I don’t know if it’s good or bad.”
Staff writer Patrick Saunders can be reached at 303-954-1428 or psaunders@denverpost.com.
