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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
Many baseball fans will never adore the San Francisco Giants' moody superstar. But en route to perhaps the greatest individual season in the sport's history, Bonds emerged as the wounded hero of a wounded nation.
Apr 1, 2002 | One of the many nutty things I did on Sept. 11 was get weepy -- twice -- about how the history-changing terror attack would ruin Barry Bonds' history-making 2001 season. Even if he broke Mark McGwire's 1998 home run record, I thought darkly, who would care? With a staggering 63 home runs by Sept. 9, Bonds already was getting far less acclaim than he deserved, because the sports world hadn't figured out how to love the arrogant and awkward but hard-working and hugely talented San Francisco Giants superstar. The shadow of Sept. 11 would only further obscure -- if not obliterate -- Bonds' huge achievement if he passed McGwire's 70 home runs.
But he wouldn't. I was sure of it. Contrary to stereotype, Bonds' problem isn't that he's a callous asshole, but that he's way too sensitive. Sadly, even sheepishly (because I'm a big Bonds defender), I thought to myself: Barry's probably the last person who could play through all this pain and chaos and distraction, and persevere to break the record. I didn't hold it against him -- I grew up loving the New York Mets, then the Chicago Cubs and for the last decade the Giants (who have collectively won exactly two World Series in my lifetime; that's 43 seasons times three teams, for a 127:2 disappointment-exhilaration ratio); I expect to get my heart broken by baseball. Besides, I'm a Bonds fan because of his frailties, not in spite of them.
What does it take to love Barry Bonds? Exactly that: Seeing him as shy and strangely fragile and slightly tortured, rather than as a pampered prima donna. I gave it up to Barry only recently, so I can sympathize a little with his detractors. I know their grievances, and so do you: He's standoffish and not wildly popular with his teammates; he won't run out routine ground balls; he's a jerk to reporters; he's not exactly Mr. October, batting around .200 in the playoffs; he's got that big leather recliner, a huge TV and three lockers in the Giants' clubhouse.
Three things turned me into a diehard Bonds fan: Watching the loving way he treats kids (as opposed to adults, especially sportswriters); watching him play through pain; and finally, Rick Reilly's Sports Illustrated hatchet job last August, in which the Giants' star second baseman, Jeff Kent, blasted Bonds for not being a team player. "On the field, we're fine, but off the field, I don't care about Barry and Barry doesn't care about me. Or anybody else," Kent told Reilly. "Barry does a lot of questionable things ... I was raised to be a team guy, and I am, but Barry's Barry."
The Reilly article forced me to a conclusion I'd been resisting for years: that race plays a small but sorry role in the negative way Bonds gets treated by the media. And no amount of arguing, even with black friends who don't like Bonds, will ever convince me otherwise. Watching the often-sullen Kent get off without a sports-world raspberry for ripping his teammate in the middle of a pennant run -- not to mention the home run chase -- convinced me there's a double standard for black and white prima donnas. (And pardon this digression, but it's hard not to feel vindicated by the recent incident in which Kent claimed he broke his wrist washing his truck, but did it doing wheelies on his motorcycle, a contract no-no. Before the truth came out, "team guy" Kent blasted folks who scoffed at the truck-washing story with a little swipe at his teammates: "People making fun of a guy who washes his own truck, that's sad," Kent told reporters. "I'm not like everybody else. I don't have maids, I don't have car-wash guys. I don't have nannies." Now that it's clear Kent was not just bashing his car-wash visiting, nanny-hiring teammates, but also lying about his injury, I certainly hope Rick Reilly writes about it.)
So yes, I'm a huge Bonds fan -- but even I doubted he'd break McGwire's record after Sept. 11. He'd had a great run until then: He hit a home run on Opening Day, 2001 -- the third straight year he had homered in the season opener -- but with only five home runs to go to join the 500 club, he fell into a slump. He went 0-for-21 on a swing through Los Angeles and San Diego, and told reporters he was having a hard time with the spotlight. "Now I've probably figured out why I don't hit in the playoffs. The spotlight. It's tough," he confessed, with disarming but unnerving honesty (which didn't bode well for his breaking the home-run record). Then the slump ended and the McGwire chase really began: He hit five home runs in five days, including No. 500 on the first game of a home stand April 17. We didn't know it then, but a dazzling history-making season had begun.
