Bonds Says Comparisons Are Wasted

It seems like five minutes ago that Barry Bonds was being called the best all-around player in baseball. Now, Ken Griffey Jr. generally receives that accolade.

Not so fast, Bonds said at the All-Star game last week during a long discourse on dues paying and how Griffey’s accomplishments aren’t comparable to his own.

“You’re trying to compare me to a young kid,” the San Francisco Giants’ left fielder said. “My birth certificate is a hell of a lot earlier than his. My statistics speak for themselves. You can’t compare him to me. That’s like trying to compare me to Willie Mays. That doesn’t make sense.

“What [guys like Griffey and Frank Thomas] are doing now, I’ve been doing for years. They’ve just finally come up to where I was. . . . I mean, they’re saying Junior is the best player in the game. How am I compared to Junior? He hasn’t done what I’ve done. Not yet. Not yet. He’s going to do a lot more than me as the years go on, but he hasn’t done what I’ve done yet.

“He’s a great player, a hell of a player and I tell you what, he’s going to excite people for the next decade. He’s going to put numbers up that only the great players put up, but until that time comes, he’s got to go step by step, like everybody else. That’s the way it is. That’s only fair to me, to him and to baseball.

“I mean, I’ve got three MVPs and he ain’t got none. I’ve been in three playoffs and he’s been in one. I got stats in my book that he ain’t begun to have.”

Bonds, 32 on July 24, is in his 11th season. He had 315 lifetime homers and 360 stolen bases at the break and 23 homers, 68 runs batted in and 20 steals this season, headed for a fourth season of 30 homers and 30 steals.

A five-time Gold Glove winner, he wears his credentials on a gold necklace: “30-30, 3 MVP.”

The paycheck reflects what the Giants think, but it’s as if Bonds is taken for granted in the same way Tony Gwynn is. He smiled, shrugged. Put up the same high numbers every year, he said, and people get spoiled, forget to show respect. Human nature.

“Thirty-thirty would be a career year for most people, but in my case it’s often made to seem like an off year,” he said.

Now he’s shooting for 40-40--and more.

“I want to be remembered as the best left fielder ever to play baseball,” Bonds said.

It will probably take a fourth MVP award, he said, to be considered in that context and to ensure Hall of Fame induction.

He said he has not done enough yet to get to Cooperstown and has no interest in even visiting until he does.

“I don’t want to see it until I can walk in with my plaque on the wall,” he said. “It’s something you dream about as a kid and I want to keep the dream alive until I have enough statistics to go in as a member of the Hall.

“I want to do what I’ve been doing for eight more years, then I’ll have my own section [in the Hall]. If not, I’ll be up there with everybody else, but I’ll still be happy.

“I told my dad [Giant hitting instructor Bobby Bonds] that my two goals are to be voted into the Hall and to have my number retired, like my godfather Willie Mays.”

In the meantime, Bonds said, he keeps all of his memorabilia, establishing “my own museum” as a reflection “of my life and career.”

“Willie told me he gave everything away and doesn’t have anything with which to look back on,” Bonds said. “I don’t want that to happen.”

ALL-STAR NOTEBOOK

--Vince Piazza’s drive to help his son develop his skills has been chronicled, but Mike Piazza related a new anecdote to reporters who kept asking about the relationship:

“One day, we were driving along and--you know those little cones on the road? Well, don’t tell anybody, but we took one of those cones to use as a batting tee,” the Dodger catcher said. “Please don’t tell anybody. Really. I can see the highway department suing me for the cone, although it was just one cone and I pay my taxes, so I probably paid for it anyway.”

They used the cone until it splintered, then taped it and continued to use it, Piazza said.

“[Dad] was always inspiring to me,” he added. “He’d come home from work, and a lot of times I’d be sitting there and I’d be tired and I didn’t want to go, and he’d insist.

“He threw to me every day and I still think that’s why I hit left-handers so well. As a left-hander, he was pretty crafty.”

--The development of Eric Young as a hitter is evident, but his improved defense had people talking in Philadelphia. Roasted for his fielding during the playoffs last year, the Colorado Rockies’ second baseman has become a complete player, which only makes the Dodgers’ decision to expose him in the expansion draft that much more questionable.

Said Atlanta and NL Manager Bobby Cox, “He’s as big a surprise, defensively, as anything I’ve seen this season.”

Said Philadelphia Manager Jim Fregosi, “I’ve never seen a guy come so far so quick. He has made some outstanding plays against us, plays I never thought he could make. I didn’t think he had good hands. I thought he was really stiff. I didn’t think he’d ever be able to play second base. You have to give him credit. He’s made himself a hell of a player.”

KIRBY FALLOUT

The Minnesota Twins had come to grips with the probability that Kirby Puckett would not be back in 1996, but they had not given up on 1997.

“I was pretty much taken aback by the completeness of the results,” Paul Molitor said of Puckett’s retirement in the aftermath of a surgery that showed irreversible damage to the right retina.

“The idea in [the clubhouse] was that Kirby wasn’t going to play this year, but people were holding on to the optimism that somehow, some way, this thing was going to turn around [for next year],” Molitor said.

The Twins announced that Puckett would be paid the remainder of a five-year, $30-million contract calling for a $6-million salary this year and $7 million in 1997. A $775,000 insurance policy enables the Twins to recover $2 million this year and $4.67 million next year.

With their potential Hall of Famer (hard to argue against a player who collected more hits in his first 10 seasons than any player in this century) now definitely gone, the Twins’ main priority is to retain Chuck Knoblauch, who will be eligible for free agency after the 1997 season and, perhaps, after this one if a labor agreement provides players with service time lost while on strike.

In the meantime, wrestling with Puckett’s departure, Molitor said:

“I might have lost a teammate, but I sure haven’t lost a good friend. Along the way there may be people who encourage others, and Kirby falls into that category.” Puckett even displayed that trait with his upbeat demeanor during the retirement news conference. “I think he saw the emotions his teammates carried into that room and he dug down deep to be a light to us,” Molitor said.

MARLINS MOVE

When Don Baylor and Rene Lachemann were hired by the Rockies and Florida Marlins for the 1993 season, the average tenure for expansion managers was about 3 1/2 years, or 576 games. Baylor continues in his fourth season, but Lachemann was fired a week ago after 506 games.

The first guess is that he will end up in St. Louis with his former Oakland A’s boss, Tony La Russa.

In Miami, Lachemann went out with class. He gave each of the club’s female employees a yellow rose and called each person on the baseball side--scouts, minor league personnel--and left a voice mail message of thanks.

As Lachemann walked through the club’s office atrium, heading for the exit, several dozen employees lined the overhead balcony and gave him a five-minute ovation.

Who knows what to expect from unlikely successor John Boles, the club’s personnel director, other than a stern, no-nonsense demeanor.

Boles never played professionally, hasn’t managed in 10 years and had never worn a big league uniform.

The last person to manage in the majors without pro playing experience was Braves’ owner Ted Turner, who was kicked back upstairs after one game in 1977 by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. The only other big league manager who never played professionally was Judge Emil Fuchs, the Boston Braves’ owner, who managed the team to a 56-98 record in 1929.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Boles said of the lack of experience. “You are either too fat, too skinny or too short. There’s always something.

“I like pressure and I don’t have anxiety. I’m not trying to solve the Middle East crisis or cure cancer. It’s baseball.”

Boles’ immediate objective is to improve the offense and get to the bottom of a nonexistent team chemistry.

The Marlins seemed to be so comfortable under Lachemann that in the end, he probably hung himself.

Gary Sheffield, who often remained in the air-conditioned clubhouse while teammates did their pregame stretching under the Florida sun, seemed to have one set of rules, teammates another.

Veterans Terry Pendleton and Andre Dawson, potential leaders, were either too wrapped up in their own struggles, in Pendleton’s case, or bit roles, in Dawson’s case, to help correct the situation.

Sheffield met with club President Dave Dombrowski for 90 minutes Thursday and emerged saying that he wanted to stay with the Marlins, this only a few days after saying he wanted to leave. He was assured by Dombrowski that he wasn’t being shopped, but Dombrowski stopped short of guaranteeing he wouldn’t be traded.

Boles has begun meeting with players individually and registered one early success, getting Devon White to agree to drop to fifth in the order, a move he had resisted under Lachemann, to help provide protection behind Sheffield.

The goal, of course, is to provide a cure.

“If there’s a cancer on the team bringing everybody else down, that’s when I go to the general manager and say, ‘Can we trade this guy for a broken bat or bag of balls?’ ” Boles said. “We have to intensify the effort, that’s for sure.”

NAMES AND NUMBERS

--While the struggling Angels have employed 20 relief pitchers, Bob Patterson, the valuable left-hander allowed to leave as a free agent despite financial differences that would not have strained the budget, made a National League-high 45 appearances for the Chicago Cubs before the All-Star break with a 1.80 earned-run average and a 3-2 record.

--To whom does La Russa, the St. Louis Cardinals’ manager, compare his top-10-hitting first baseman John Mabry?

“Guys who hit well into the [.300s] and take every at-bat like it’s their last--Molitor, [Wade] Boggs, Thomas,” said La Russa.

Responded Mabry, “I’ve got him fooled, don’t I?”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Tale of the Tape

A look at Ken Griffey and Barry Bonds at the same point in their career (the All-Star break of their eighth season): *--*

Category Bonds Griffey AB 3,881 3,701 R 743 632 H 1,088 1,117 2B 244 214 3B 40 21 HR 200 212 RBI 627 645 BB 678 464 SO 637 578 AVG .280 .302

*--*