The savior is coming but it is important to note what Barry Bonds will be
trying to save.
This ”pennant race” in which the Giants supposedly find themselves …
it’s like they have a bit of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of their cleats.
It’s unsightly, quite ugly actually, but no matter how vigorously they try to
shake it — as they did Saturday with another stinko loss — they just can’t.
So, to be completely accurate about this, Bonds isn’t really the savior.
He’ll be more like a fashion consultant. Get rid of the toilet paper. Make the
Giants look presentable. That’s possible. That’s realistic. That should be the
extent of it.
Unless, of course, you believe in baseball miracles, like Gibson taking
Eckersley deep in the 1988 World Series, Dent clearing Fenway in 1978, and the
1969 Mets. This would be one of those miracles: Bonds in the short span of
just 20 games propels a team that was at least 12 games under .500 when he
joined them into the playoffs.
”It’ll be a return to normalcy,” beamed Larry Baer, the Giants’ CEO and
executive vice president. People who grasp at the slimmest of straws, hoping
to transform the straw into a life preserver, talk like this.
Truth to tell, there is nothing normal about the NL MVP in 2004 missing all
but 20 games of the following season, suffering from a bad knee, a headlock
from a non-adoring teammate and a continuing steroid whisper that has become
his permanent background music.
Nothing is certain about Bonds’ being activated before Monday’s home game,
including his still being healthy at that time. Why, Bonds could suffer a
strained back muscle from all the back-slapping his euphoric teammates give
him when they greet him at SBC Park. Or maybe they’ll treat the moment as
business as usual, giving him the wide berth Bonds both requests and is
granted willingly.
A photo opportunity will exist Monday. Who will be the single Giants player
to greet Bonds warmly upon his arrival? No one knows who that could be. Just
the mention of his name the last few months curls lips, creases faces to a
frown and sends the conversation plummeting to silence.
See, the players have been scuffling for months, together since spring
training, overcoming the disappointing pitching, the spotty hitting, the
frustration at being unable to catch a mediocre team (San Diego) while seeing
the club’s highest expectations in years turn to dust.
So mentioning Bonds’ name is an insult to them, that he alone can rescue
them from themselves. Add to that their 64-77 record and what they feel about
him as a person and, well, it’s not like the players see Mister Rogers playing
left field for them Monday.
”Not really,” first baseman J.T. Snow said Saturday when asked, somewhat
sarcastically, if he could feel the electricity in the clubhouse now that
Bonds is returning. ”We just lost. That’s what I am thinking about now. I’m
going to wait until I see his name in the lineup.”
Giants management, however, had no such reticence. They announced Bonds
will be activated Monday during the seventh inning Saturday with a message on
the scoreboard. It drew cheers from the stands and jeers from the dugout.
There was some grumbling in the clubhouse afterward that the announcement came
during play.
Why, with more than 48 hours before Monday’s game time? To boost ticket
sales. The Padres have never drawn well in San Francisco. Monday night is a
school night. And no one, deep inside where honesty roams, believes the Giants
are a playoff team.
Realistically, in the last three weeks of the season, the only advances
this team can make are at the turnstiles. Barry Bonds is good for business.
This we know. Amid so much uncertainty, it is the one thing we always have
known.
You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or
bpadecky@pressdemocrat.com.
