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Thanks Again, Barry!

I remember stopping folding laundry. Growing up in the Bay Area, the Giants game was always on TV while I pounded away at my weekend chores. Then Bonds would come up and I’d stop everything, a pair of socks in each hand as I mouth-breathed while watching the TV. There stood everyone’s favorite Giant, hovering over the plate from the left side armored in black plastic, waving his bat back and forth coiled up to crush the pitcher’s soul into McCovey Cove. And if not a record threatening home run, at least contact would be a long fly to the wall that would make Kuiper’s voice shake as he sounded out the word “deeeeep”.

Barry Bonds and his home run chases. The Giants wins and losses were quite secondary. It was the Barry Show, in ’01, ’02, ’03… we couldn’t get enough of our polarizing super star. And as much as the rest of the country would not admit its intrigue, he filled up stadiums across the continent – all wanting to see if he’d hit one far into their night sky. Houston. New York. Los Angeles.

We’d admit it only to ourselves that there was something false about his heroics, but if the Giants wouldn’t deliver a World Series trophy to us, at least we could cheer on a guy who was destined to crush every home run record in the fabled books of baseball. While other people tried to take that away from us, we would only cheer louder, loving what everyone else hated. Bonds was on steroids, they’d say, and we could care less. He was our guy, and we loved him, as long as he knocked them out of the park at an astonishing rate.

Then Bonds slowed down. Then he really slowed down, and then he came to a stop. Then came Barry Zito from across the Bay, then came Tim Lincecum, then came Matt Cain. And then came these lovable misfits, and soon we couldn’t get Bonds and his recliner and entourage far enough away from us. Just go away, Barry. But hadn’t he done what we wanted him to for us? He made me stop folding laundry. He made you stay at the bar for the rest of his at bat. He made you stop in the Best Buy TV section. He made you sit in the bleachers instead of along third base.

But now he is no one’s. He tried to resign with the Giants, even for a league minimum salary, and he was not wanted. He passively petitioned for a job as a hitting coach for the club. He was rejected. And now, as our Band of Misfits Part Deux finishes up in the desert sun, Bonds goes to trial a few miles away from where he set his records for perjury, for lying about using steroids to a federal jury. The national media will follow this trial, because as San Francisco and the Bay Area ignored their long lines of Pedro Gomez’s reporting live from AT&T Park, we smiled and played dumb when our pals from other cities asked how we could cheer on a cheater.

But for us, aren’t we as guilty as Barry? We didn’t stick a needle in our arm, but we turned the other cheek on the accusations as much as he did. We filled the Park, we watched on TV, we turned up the radio when Bonds came to bat. We were with him. But we sure aren’t today as he climbs the steps to the courthouse. We’ll read about Brian Wilson’s oblique and Brandon Belt’s chances more than we will about Bonds’ trial. Barry did all this, in part, for us, and are we in turn hanging him out to dry? I didn’t see the same fan-fare at the courthouse as he entered today – there were no signs, no crowds of people, no jerseys with the number 25.

Just Barry. And his entourage. Taking on the federal judicial system while we get to act like we weren’t part of it. This game of shadows…we’ll just hide in his.

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