Northern California Baseball Blog and Q&A

Paul Gutierrez
Raised in Barstow, Calif., where he played community college baseball for two years, Paul Gutierrez has worked at Sports Illustrated and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he covered his alma mater's Runnin' Rebels at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. During a six-year stint at the Los Angeles Times, he co-authored Tommy Davis' "Tales from the Dodgers Dugout." He came to The Bee in October 2005 and is now a Bay Area sports features writer who concentrates on baseball during the spring and summer.

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January 28, 2008

Where do Bonds, his recliner and big screen TV end up?

Question: What's the deal with Barry Bonds? Will he play this year? If so, what teams might have interest in him? The legal issues shouldn't keep him from playing one more year, should they? I'd like to see him get to 3K hits and another 25 HRs.

-Bruce Baltzley, Sacramento

Answer: Well, Bruce, the short answer is that Barry definitely WANTS to play ... AT LEAST one more season. He's made that point painfully clear since the Giants announced in September they were divorcing themselves from the Home Run King after 15 star-crossed seasons. Problem is, he still is toxic as the fallout from the Mitchell Report still flitters to the ground, making him untouchable less than three weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Still, it's just got to warm his heart to see the likes of Roger Clemens joining him in the Steroid Patrol's crosshairs (even the Grinch had a heart, right?). The fact that Bonds indeed already has been indicted on perjury charges will scare off most teams, though there were some definite dark horses that might have had interest in him, baggage and headaches notwithstanding. Of course, they were American League clubs so he could make the transition to D.H. Among them - the Detroit Tigers, whose manager, Jim Leyland, was Bonds' first big-league skipper with the Pittsburgh Pirates; the Texas Rangers, whose owner, Tom Hicks, is as seemingly unstable and free spending as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton on a group bender; the Seattle Mariners, which would allow Bonds to stay on the West Coast; and the weak sisters of the poor, the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays. And, my, what a sad ending to a glorious, if checkered, career that would be.

Of course, Bonds, who turns 44 in July, would have to be willing to take a massive pay cut from the nearly $20 million he earned for batting .276 with 28 home runs, 66 RBI, a 1.045 OPS and drawing a majors-best 132 walks in 126 games.

My Spidey-senses have long told me his most obvious destination would be Oakland, what with the A's still residing in his protective cocoon of the Bay Area, where he is as revered as he is reviled elsewhere.

But A's fans booed loudly at the notion of Bonds sporting white cleats and sharing time with The Great Jack Cust during the club's Fanfest celebration on Saturday and general manager Billy Beane all but quashed the idea of enabling Bonds by moving his circus across the Bay.

Beane, who does not comment on free agents, told the crowd as much while adding that he thought this offseason's moves - his gutting of the team in an effort to start a youth movement and rebuilding project - pretty much showed the A's thinking. Meaning, why in the world would the A's add such a high-profile veteran to a young, nondescript club?

Besides, it's not as if Bonds ever has really played the role of elder statesman to the hilt, helping youngsters find their way.

But there is this: With the freakshow factor Bonds would bring to the A's decrepit McAfee Coliseum, he would draw fans. Oh, he would draw fans.

The A's announced a crowd of 12,488 for Fanfest but it seemed less than that - and to be fair, the threat of rain might have kept away some fans - but crowds in excess of 20,000 reportedly had taken in the festivities since 2002.

How many would have shown up had Bonds been introduced to A's Nation on Saturday? And how many would show up on a Tuesday night in August with the A's already an afterthought in the pennant race if Bonds is chasing 3,000 hits and 800 homers? FYI, he needs 65 hits and 38 homers to tap those milestone numbers.

So yes, it made sense for the A's to chase Bonds had they retained Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, Mark Kotsay and Marco Scutaro, because he could have been the one player to take them over the top, as Frank Thomas did in 2006.

Now? Sad to say it makes dollars and cents to think about bringing him on since the A's on-field expectations are low anyways.

-Paul Gutierrez

Posted by Ahmed Ortiz, January 28, 2008 03:51 PM

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