Bonds won't ruin Giants party --- even if he doesn't come

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August 8, 3:49 PM

by David Bush, S.F. Baseball Examiner

 

 

Barry Bonds (left) and Willie Mays could be reunited.

The Giants have spent the season not so much trying to ignore the present as making it secondary to the past. The fact this is the 50-year anniversary of the team’s arrival in San Francisco has made that easy to do, and the team is going about it the right way.

Even indecision by one of their most famous alums can’t spoil the fun.

The saluting of players, significant and not so, from their five decades in the Bay Area has been a season-long indulgence in nostalgia. They chose to compartmentalize the celebration by position, honoring each group separately. Extending the celebration and keeping the focus off 2008 as much as possible.

First came the infielders, then pitchers and catchers, and this weekend the outfielders, undoubtedly the glamour position of the team’s time in San Francisco.

Three of the five SF Giants to win MVP awards were outfielders: Barry Bonds (five times), Willie Mays (twice) and Kevin Mitchell (once) were outfielders. And others including Jeffrey Leonard, Jack Clark, Bobby Bonds and Felipe Alou were on numerous all-star teams.

The Giants organization is showing the way in this type of event, by making it special to its three “estates”, the fans, the media and the players themselves.

When the players gather several hours before the game, the media is given pretty much unfettered access for an hour to interview them, with the questions pretty much limited to exploits or pratfalls from the past.

Then the players are hosted to a private banquet (lunch or dinner depending on the game time) in which they get a chance to reminisce unfettered by prying tape recorders and note books. The stories there are undoubtedly colorful and perhaps X-rated.

Then just prior to the game they are paraded one by one across the field, allowing the fans to pay tribute to those who they watched years ago or maybe just saw on grainy news film.

It is always an emotional event, and the good feelings wash away whatever negatives might have been associated with any respective player during his time in San Francisco.

Even Barry Bonds “will he or won’t we?” waffling was not enough to wreck the occasion this weekend. The younger Bonds is keeping his own counsel on this, but some reasons for his reluctance to participate are pretty obvious.

He certainly would not want to face the media, something hard to avoid at a time like this. And despite the collective indifference to him from other teams, he may not consider himself retired, and this party is for former players only.

But he should know that AT&T Park is the one place on the planet where he is loved unconditionally. The Giants loyalists, who ignored the steroids issue and his grumpy personality while he was playing in front of them, would no doubt do so again. More than one standing ovation will come forth the next time he walks on that field, whenever it is.  

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