Breaking Bonds

Play or not play, stay or leave, Barry Bonds spent 15 years in San Francisco polarizing a community and the baseball world.

This was, last summer, the most cynical deal possible between a sports team and an athlete, the Giants unwilling to say goodbye to the troublesome outfielder knowing he could attract huge crowds and revenues in his historic home run chase, and Bonds happy to take another year's enormous salary. The Giants undoubtedly knew they would not be able to fashion a winner with Bonds as the central figure, and Bonds himself appeared like he could care less about that facet of the sport.

You can't even say it went sour because the Giants announced last week that they won't be bringing Bonds back next season.

The team got what it wanted. Bonds got what he wanted, even if he's been booted out, rather than ending his San Francisco run in triumph.

When it was officially all over, it left a crowd of confusion. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, which has doggedly pursued Bonds and accusations of steroid use, couldn't quite decide how it felt, and in a unique decision printed two separate versions of its front page on Saturday to reflect to very different attitudes towards the aged star.

It's not that unusual for a relationship to end like this between a team and a star. It happens all the time, mostly when the star is unwilling to say his skills have deteriorated and the team decides it can no longer win with that player or wants to spend money elsewhere.

But it doesn't usually happen immediately after a season in which an historic accomplishment is recorded. You couldn't see Green Bay just dumping Brett Favre now, for example.

And its not like Bonds, who is hitting .279 with 28 home runs (he's at 762 now) and 66 RBIs in only 337 at-bats can't play at all anymore.

"He's still their best player," said former teammate Moises Alou.

But the Giants don't want him anymore because from a business point of view, they've decided they no longer need him. The profited from their cynical deal and now want to move on.

But it seems so very likely some other team will decide it does need Bonds. This isn't over yet.

Comments

[Guelphdad]

Interesting that Barry Bonds will be moving on after breaking Hank Aaron's record, who moved on himself to Milwaukee the year after breaking Babe Ruth's record. Though in that case Aaron had indicated he wanted to go to Milwaukee. Still, not sure how many fans he would have put in the seats at that stage of his career.

If George has anything to say, I'll put down a nickel (Canadian one at that), that says Barry ends up in a Yankee uniform after ARod leaves town.

[Garth]

I live about 60 miles south of San Francisco and there is no question about the unconditional love for Barry Bonds from both the media and the fans. Before Bonds signed up for another year there was some speculation that the Giants were going to start rebuilding the team and not resign Bonds but there was definitely a lot more interest in watching Bonds hit no 756 than having the Giants field a reasonably competitive team. While Bonds has been fairly productive at the plate he has been a liability in the field. The Giants were not going to win anything this year with Bonds in left field.
In the past couple of weeks with Bonds playing a lot less and now not playing at all and the Giants having a stranglehold on last place in their division there have been a lot of empty seats at AT&T Park. Giants management must be cringing at the thought of what next year's attendance is going to look like without Bonds and a lousy team.

[Sam]

I'm not surprised that the Giants released Bonds given a) his age, b) the media uproar that follows him and c) his cost. I imagine SF could overlook all these if they were in contention, but it's simply time for the organization to rebuild. Bonds stated that he was hurt by the manner of his departure, so I imagine it has to do with how he and the organization communicated over his departure these last few months.

Bonds will land with a competitive team since he seems to still have the batting skills to compete - I mean, Frank Thomas is making $10M - surely Bonds is worth at least that much. Maybe the Yanks, but somehow I doubt it. Boston has Ortiz. He'd look good in Oakland and he wouldn't have to move.... wonder how the SF fans would react.... Bonds might lose his main fan base, lol. In any event, I expect he'll land in the AL as a DH. Too bad about the Thomas signing because I would rather Bonds hitting behind Wells in the 4th spot.