CINCINNATI -- Barry Bonds has no thoughts on the matter, which is just f------ great. I've spent 90 minutes chugging water inside the visitor's clubhouse, waiting for Bonds to emerge from seclusion, waiting for his thoughts on a certain topic. And he has none.
|
|
| Barry Bonds is in position to break Hank Aaron's record next year -- if he has a team. (Getty Images) |
"Hell f------ no," he says.
See? He has none.
The topic seemed important enough. It included collusion, cheating and Bonds' place in baseball not only for 2007, but for the rest of time. That's a long time, the rest of time. Almost as much time as I'd spent waiting on Bonds, trying to stay invisible or at least out of the way as the Giants prepared to play the Reds on Monday.
You know how they prepared? It's ridiculous. This is what you miss by not being a sports writer. You miss leaning against a wall inside a clubhouse as millionaires play cards, ogle girlie magazines or watch a fashion show on the channel E! The exclamation point wasn't mine. The channel is called E!
Omar Vizquel was the last Giant to enter the clubhouse, if you care. He wore a tight blue pullover, jeans and white boots. He was wearing sunglasses inside. It was cloudy outside.
This is what you do while waiting for Bonds. You people-watch. And you get people-watched. Baseball players are a suspicious bunch who notice strangers in the clubhouse and make it clear with a look that loitering isn't OK. Steve Finley keeps looking, but I'm not loitering. There's a water fountain nearby, and I'm drinking it dry. I'm busy.
So is Bonds. He's watching TV in the players' lounge. There are 14 TVs in the clubhouse but he's in the lounge, where the media can't go. Probably unintentional.
I can see him in there, and let me tell you something: If Bonds' head is truly enormous from HGH usage, as sports writers everywhere have written, I'm not smart enough to see it. I was expecting something befitting a moose, plus or minus the antlers, but his head looks no bigger than mine. Maybe his head has shrunk. Maybe mine has gotten bigger? That's a question for another day.
Today's question is important. Columnists around the country are suggesting that all 30 baseball teams will act in unison next season and not offer Bonds a place to play. His contract with the Giants expires after this season, which will end with Bonds 20 home runs short of Hank Aaron's all-time record of 755. Currently he has 730.
The columnists are acting in the best interests of baseball, as only baseball columnists can act. They don't want yucky Barry Bonds replacing classy Hank Aaron as owner of baseball's biggest record. And so they're trying to build momentum for their cause, which was advanced in papers in Philadelphia (on Friday), Charlotte (Sunday) and Chicago (twice on Monday). If nobody in baseball gives Bonds a contract for 2007 -- regardless of what happens with the steroid investigation -- he cannot pass Aaron.
It's simple. It's plausible. It's also illegal. It's collusion, and if it happens to Bonds on the brink of catching Aaron, he would own Major League Baseball -- if he sued. That's what I wanted to know from Bonds: Is he aware of the growing buzz that baseball should administer a one-man lockout next season? And would he fight such a thing legally?
