Bonds Soaks Up the Plaudits for a Surreal Season

The scene couldn’t have been more surreal had Commissioner Bud Selig been standing on the Pacific Bell Park mound, hugging Pete Rose.

It was 12:30 Saturday morning. The Dodgers had just outlasted the San Francisco Giants, 11-10, in the longest nine-inning game in major league history, eliminating the Giants from playoff contention.

Hardly an event to be celebrated, or the hour, but then the race had been almost secondary to the chase, and about 15,000 fans had stayed to cheer and chant for Barry Bonds as he was honored by the Giants and baseball (a task falling to Chief Executive Paul Beeston after Selig opted to honor Tony Gwynn in San Diego) for breaking Mark McGwire’s 1998 home run record of 70.

Bonds had emerged from the marathon game that started Friday night with 72, having homered twice off that tower of tenacity, Chan Ho Park, who might have got everyone to bed at a decent hour had he maintained a 6-1 lead.

Instead, midnight had come and gone, and now there was a makeshift stage in the infield, and there were the somber Giants standing behind it, and among those celebrating with Bonds and his family were Beeston and the legendary Willie Mays and club boss Peter Magowan, who knew what the fans’ chants of “sign him, sign him” and “four more years” meant.

Imagine. As they celebrated his remarkable season in the first hour of a new day, with his overriding hope of advancing to the playoffs and erasing his October failures now gone, Bonds bounced his 2-year-old daughter, Aisha, on his knee, heard Beeston and Magowan each reveal that separate contributions of $100,000 would be made in his name to the relief fund for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, heard Mays, his godfather, endorse the crowd’s chant (“I know I’m jumping the gun, but Barry belongs here in San Francisco”) and then, at about 1 a.m., he would finally stand at the microphone himself, temporarily lose a battle with his emotions, and ultimately say that he, too, found it all surreal because he never dreamed of hitting 70 or more home runs.

In fact, he related, when teammate Shawon Dunston predicted in May he would hit 71, “I told him he was crazy and I made a stupid bet,” Bonds said. “Well, Shawon, that CL500 coupe? You’ve got it.”

A luxury car? Why not?

There has to be some reward for absurdly predicting a season of 71 homers and having it become reality. Some, of course, will call it a mere extension of baseball’s recent offensive trend, that the home run record has become more hollowed than hallowed by an onslaught that finds Bonds breaking the record only three years after McGwire, but wasn’t Bonds the only one to do it?

At 37, at an age when most players have retired or are about to, he wrapped a career of outstanding summers into a summer of unparalleled history leading to what should be the most-valuable-player award, an unprecedented fourth. He has broken Babe Ruth’s record for walks and will shatter his record for slugging percentage while producing an on-base percentage of better than .500.

Dodger Manager Jim Tracy sat in his office Saturday morning and said, “Hey, if he had been pitched to this year, he would have hit a hundred home runs, that’s the kind of swing he has going. He has a tremendous eye in relation to the strike zone and can take you out in any part of the park. The margin of error with him is so much smaller than it is with McGwire or [Sammy] Sosa.”

A veteran Atlanta Brave scout sat behind the plate and said of Bonds: “He has the shortest power swing I’ve ever seen and he spits in the face of the pitcher by standing on top of the plate. What he’s saying is, ‘You can’t pitch me inside because I can handle anything you throw there and I can cover the outside corner at the same time.’ [Bob] Gibson would knock him off the plate, but nobody does that anymore.”

The scouting report on Bonds has also portrayed him as combative, arrogant and surly at times, isolated in a clubhouse of 24 and 1, but he handled his chase with grace, drawing attention to his teammates, showing patience and class in response to the walks, honoring McGwire as the first to reach 70 and the standard setter for power and strength, and insisting no one person can provide the country with a diversion in a difficult time, that the country has found diversion in unity.

An exhausted Bonds did not start Saturday. A disappointed crowd of 41,636 pleaded for an appearance, repeatedly chanting his name. He ultimately delivered a pinch-hit single in the ninth inning of a 6-2 loss to the Dodgers.

Bonds later said there has been a healing process through all of this with the media and fans and “that’s been nice.” He said he hasn’t had enough sleep or stopped talking long enough to grasp the full impact of his record but “there’ll be time to reminisce.”

It’s uncertain, however, whether that will be as a Giant. Bonds is eligible for free agency, and today’s game could end his nine-year tenure here.

Magowan has repeatedly said it would be easier to re-sign Bonds if the club had the benefit of playoff revenue, but he pointed out Saturday that “I’ve also said I wouldn’t rule out re-signing him if we didn’t make the playoffs. We have some holes that need addressing and we have to sort out how Barry fits. He’s had a remarkable season, but I don’t think this will be done quickly.”

Agent Scott Boras is certain to seek market leverage, but the thinking is that Bonds will return to what is now his hometown team, which knows it will face a fan backlash if he isn’t re-signed.

The future is unclear, Bonds acknowledged, but during the early morning ceremony, amid the chant of “four more years,” he had said, “I love San Francisco, I love you fans. My family knows and God knows I’m proud to wear this uniform.”

A bit of clarity in that otherwise surreal setting.