Main League Baseball placed on an exquisite present final week at Rickwood Area in Birmingham, Alabama. The sport between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants served as a celebration of the Negro Leagues and as a memorial for Corridor of Famer Willie Mays, who died two days earlier than the sport.
Barry Bonds, maybe the early Twenty first-century face of performance-enhancing medicine, was outstanding within the weekend festivities and through a pregame ceremony honoring Mays in San Francisco on Monday.
MLB’s house run king and the longtime Giants star is Mays’ godson, making his presence virtually important at each occasions. But many are nonetheless shocked to see Bonds across the sport. The stain of steroids will do this.
Over the weekend in Birmingham, Bonds captained the superstar softball sport with Derek Jeter. Then, he appeared on Fox’s pregame present with fellow stars Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Ken Griffey Jr.Â
Bonds dealt with the eye properly, juggling interviews whereas coping with his godfather’s dying.Â
Regardless of his steroid use, Bonds has obtained a welcome from MLB to return to its stage. In 2016, he served as Miami Marlins hitting coach. Two years later, the Giants retired his No. 25 and in August, the Pittsburgh Pirates will induct him into their Corridor of Fame.
Bonds, practically 60, has been retired for 17 years, however the steroids difficulty will canine him perpetually, honest or not.Â
In 2021, Bonds earned a excessive of 66 % of votes in his tenth and closing yr of eligibility for the Corridor of Fame (gamers want 75% to be inducted). In 2022, the Up to date Baseball Period Committee gave him simply 4 votes from the 16 voters (12 had been wanted to qualify).Â
Bonds can have one other probability with the committee in 2026, however he should not maintain out hope that he’ll ever be enshrined in Cooperstown.
On one hand, he was an electrical participant with HOF-worthy numbers earlier than steroids entered the image. Moreover admitting to taking steroids, Bonds was prickly with the media and teammates. Followers liked him in his metropolis, however he did not get pleasure from common adulation as Griffey did.
His story is compelling and bewildering.Â
The sport’s historical past cannot be instructed with out Bonds, who received seven MVPs. To a technology, he was the best participant ever.Â
Time heals wounds, and maybe it is slowly therapeutic the wound many really feel Bonds and different steroid-fueled sluggers left within the sport. To some, he is the king. To others, he is a villain.Â
Perhaps each could be true.
