Southland fans’ nemesis Bonds is actually local

Soon a twist of the wrists, a switch of the hips and maple thwacking cowhide will coronate Barry Bonds as baseball’s new home run king.

That powerful swing encroaching on Hank Aaron’s record 755 home runs started when the surly slugger slapped Wiffle balls at age 2 in a modest Riverside home. Elizabeth Bonds, Barry’s grandmother and matriarch of the family, still lives there.

For years, fans have flocked to Dodger Stadium to boo Bonds’ every swing, step and breath. But those boo-birds may find no comfort in knowing that Bonds is a native Southern Californian with a rich history in the area.

“He is definitely a Riversider,” said Rev. Jerry Louder, a longtime family friend who presided over the funeral of Bobby Bonds, Barry’s father.

“I want our city to be completely proud of what he’s accomplished because he’s about to break the biggest record in all of sports.”

Barry Bonds -- dogged by allegations of illegal steroid use that threaten to overshadow his accomplishments on the field -- was born July 24, 1964, at Riverside Community Hospital.

His father was a city legend as a ballplayer at Riverside Poly High and would become a star with the San Francisco Giants.

“His dad was an incredible ballplayer,” said Nick Tavaglione, a Riverside businessman and a friend of Bobby Bonds. “Maybe Barry’s personality doesn’t make him the people’s choice, but if you judge him as an athlete, he’s the greatest. A big part of that is he came up knowing the game from the ground up because of his dad.”

Bobby was hardly the lone Bonds athlete known throughout Riverside.

Rosie Bonds-Kreidler, Barry’s aunt, was a top high-hurdler who competed at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. His uncles, Robert junior and David, were also star multi-sport athletes.

During Bobby Bonds’ first full season in the majors in 1969, the family moved to the San Francisco suburb of San Carlos. Barry was 4.

“I didn’t stay here long, but I have ties here because my family and my history is here,” Bonds told the Riverside Press-Enterprise at a Little League fundraiser in 2002.

But Bonds, who declined to be interviewed for this story, does have another history with the county.

He lived in a mammoth Mediterranean-style mansion in Murrieta, just north of Temecula, during the early 1990s to escape the media limelight that followed him as a rising star of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The 11,000-square-foot house on 1.3 acres has six bedrooms, a gym, pool, sauna and waterfall. It overlooks a private golf course and the Temecula Valley.

Bonds bought the home from Rod Wright, his agent at the time and an attorney who represented Bobby Bonds on several drunk driving charges.

“I was about as close to the family as you can get,” Wright said. “I did five drunk driving cases for Bobby, and he never went to jail.”

The home was an off-season palace of solitude, and Bonds worked out consistently over the winters, building from lithe leadoff hitter to bulky bomber. He often lifted weights at Gold’s Gym in nearby Temecula.

Murrieta resident Ron Quick, who worked out at the gym then, said he thought Bonds was a snob after the ballplayer declined an offer to work out together. Still, he said, Bonds was focused, and Quick understood the demands on his time.

“He was in there training hard and getting big,” Quick said. “But he was nowhere near as big as he is today.”

Bonds’ former trainer in Riverside County remains loyal to Bonds and declined to discuss his history with him.

“If this is a request for a positive report, I’ll give you all the time you want,” said Ira Kelly, who worked at the Temecula gym and then trained Bonds from 1993 to 1995, in an e-mail. “If it hints at negativity, I have absolutely no time available.”

A more recent Bonds trainer in Northern California, Greg Anderson, also has a strong allegiance to the ballplayer -- and was jailed for refusing to testify against Bonds in a grand jury probe concerning his alleged steroid use.

Along with ardent supporters, however, Bonds has critics.

Despite a long history between the Bonds family and Wright, Barry Bonds unceremoniously fired him without warning. The move came just before Bonds accepted a $43.75-million, six-year deal with the San Francisco Giants in 1993.

Wright, who had worked tirelessly to prime Bonds for that big free-agency payday, said the firing left him in financial disarray and he eventually left sports representation.

“I’m not a vindictive person,” said Wright, now a real estate developer in Destin, Fla. “I’m very forgiving, even though what he did was wrong. It was very heartbreaking.”

Riverside hairstylist Shirley Lewis also bickered with Bonds while he lived in Riverside County.

Lewis filed a $25-million lawsuit against Bonds in 1995, saying the Giants’ star “terrorized her like the Gestapo,” by verbally assaulting her at work. After the incident, Lewis complained she suffered from headaches, nightmares and insomnia.

The lawsuit was dismissed by Riverside Superior Court Judge Stephen D. Cunnison, who ruled that the incident didn’t amount to assault. Lewis’ son also had harassed relatives of Bonds, which is why Bonds visited the shop in the first place, court records allege.

There is also the occasional gracious side of Bonds.

At a 2002 fundraiser at Riverside’s Patterson Park, the field where Bobby Bonds and Dusty Baker grew up playing, Louder recalled Barry Bonds arriving straight from Japan, weary but obliging to fans.

“Barry would not leave until he signed every single autograph,” Louder said. “He looked at me like he was angry that I wanted to go.”

Bonds hosted a golf tournament in 1992, raising more than $40,000 for the Murrieta Valley High School athletic department.

“We were an up-and-coming school that had just opened, and he was very generous with his time,” said Geniel Moon, the school’s activities director. “It was a very profitable event because of him.”

But Jeff Pearlman, an author who spent two years interviewing more than 500 of Bonds’ teammates, friends and acquaintances for the book “Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero,” said Bonds is respectful only when he needs to be.

“That’s a recurring theme in his life,” Pearlman said. “Either he needs something from the people or he’s looking for some type of in. If he gives money to charity, his people are going to publicize that to death.”

With each swat that brings him closer to Aaron’s record, there are those from his birthplace watching closely.

“I think it’s part of the Bonds family legacy that the city wants to uphold when Barry breaks the record,” said Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge, adding that the city may hold a parade to commemorate the record.

jonathan.abrams@latimes.com