Barry Bonds hits his 754th career home run last night in San Fransisco.
San Fransisco Chronicle
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Around the batting cage Friday evening, Barry Bonds chatted with ex-teammate Armando Benitez, now wearing his billowing uniform in Florida Marlins colors, and laughed a lot. He had poured his emotions all over the park the day before, telling reporters that he was confused, overwhelmed and grateful to come from a terrific gene pool.
Now, it was Peter Magowan's turn to share his angst. The team owner took the media baton and said that the Giants might become a better team after Bonds replaced Hank Aaron as baseball's home-run king.
The magic number was still three as the team owner stood near the Giants' on-deck circle, wearing an orange shirt and a slightly fatigued expression. "No, I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it. I'm just not enjoying losing," he said, just after stating that he was looking forward to the end of the record chase. "I don't think any of us are, and I think we'll start winning more consistently once this is over with."
Barely 21/2 hours later, the magic number had dropped to two. Bonds drove home run No. 754 over the fence in left-center, and the entire club, breathless for all the wrong reasons this week, could finally exhale, if only for a few seconds.
Bonds still looked a little drained as he left the dugout after the homer and headed to his place in left field. He doffed his cap briefly to the crowd, and then on the scoreboard, the face and voice of Michael Jordan appeared, offering congratulations and good luck to No. 25. Bonds saw the video and pointed, like a basketball player acknowledging an assist. When the tribute ended, Bonds pantomimed a swing.
It had been eight days since he hit two home runs in Chicago, pulling to two behind Aaron and three from a new landmark. In the interim, he played five games, and, in 18 at-bats, collected three hits. Only two of his 15 outs reached the outfield. Bonds became a font of grounders to second and popups.
His best swing of the last week was the one he took at HBO's Bob Costas after a show that underscored Bonds' alleged connections to undetectable steroids and his disconnect from authentic baseball history. On Wednesday, Bonds called Costas a "little midget man who knows absolutely jacks- about baseball." The following day, he made nice, backing off the midget reference. He settled for calling Costas an irresponsible journalist. His temper had, at least publicly, gone as cool as his bat.
Did 754 represent the end of the strain? It certainly ended the fearlessness that pitchers had displayed against Bonds since that game in Chicago. The Marlins walked him in all four plate appearances after he took 22-year-old Rick Vanden Hurk to the mat.
More to the point, the home run came on a night that, unlike so many others lately, didn't turn Bonds into the sole attraction. He had to share the evening with, first, the recently deceased Rod Beck, whose family turned out for the "Until There's a Cure" ceremony, an AIDS awareness event that the late reliever and wife Stacey started 13 years ago.
Then there was the standing ovation for Mark Sweeney, whose 151st pinch-hit placed him second on the all-time list. And the applause for Omar Vizquel's great stop in the eighth inning. And a rousing cheer for the team in general in the sixth.
Before the game, even as he lavished praise on Bonds, Magowan stood up for the other players, who have effectively become the slugger's courtiers. A week earlier, Vizquel played in his 2,512th game, passing Ozzie Smith for second place.
"That makes him second in the whole history of baseball, to play that many games at shortstop, and it's barely covered, even by own local newspapers," Magowan chided. "No interest. It's certainly of interest to him and his teammates, but it doesn't seem to be of interest to anyone else, and it should be. And if you guys weren't here covering Barry, that kind of thing would be a big story. ''
Magowan was on a 25th wedding anniversary trip to St. Bart's when Bonds went deep twice in Chicago, and he didn't rush to Milwaukee to see if the record vanished there. He stayed on vacation. The message was clear. He's weary of people thinking that Bonds is everything, the entire franchise, to him.
He responded to a remark that pitcher Matt Morris made in Chicago, questioning the team's priorities by saying: "I think the only thing that would bother me about that comment is if Matt Morris thought the organization, as an organization, is not as interested in winning as he is because that would not be true. You can read that in one way that all we're interested in is packing the stadium, and we're delighted to be in last place and all that. It's bulls-."
So yes, everyone needed to exhale on Friday. The tension and the public cursing, whether at Costas or the naysayers about the front office's goals, had to end. And after one Bonds swing, amid chants of "Barry, Barry, Barry," it was all going, going, gone.
E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
No comments:
Post a Comment