Barry Bonds’ legacy: He did it his way

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MIAMI - Limping and tired and damn near broken, Barry Bonds chases the most sacred record in sports with a labored trot. Stubborn and defiant, right until the end. Ted Williams and Willie Mays and even Babe Ruth are behind him. The greatest, in other words, slain by any means necessary. Only Hank Aaron, the king, remains left to conquer. Bonds is 21 sweet spots away. He will overthrow him, whether you like it or not. Like the first visitors to the moon and the first pictures of Mars, he will have visited a stratosphere where no man has gone before. And he will plant his flag there his way.

He will not be universally embraced on this quest. It is hard to put your arms around something this prickly. He has never behaved like gentleman Cal Ripken Jr., who avoided giving opinions because he knew how to play the media game. But you know those moments when Bonds has connected just so? The moments when he knows the ball is gone a fraction of a second before everyone else in the building, from the feeling in his hands, and he stands there at plate to marvel at his work? Sports fans will all be forced into that batter’s box 21 sweet spots from now. We will all have to stand there in attention and marvel in awe at what he has done.

The first time I met this generation’s greatest baseball player? It was rainy and cold in Pittsburgh, 15 years ago, and I remember the weather all this time only because of the dreary chill that day gives me still. I was a kid reporter walking up to his locker for one of my first interviews of a superstar. I was really nervous. For no reason that I could discern, Bonds lit into me by way of introduction. Loud. Hostile. I was so unprepared for it and overmatched that teammate Bobby Bonilla, whom I did not know, came over to get between us and ease my stammering discomfort.

So Bonds had me at hello.

I gravitate toward the interesting ones in sports, since the very beginning. Give me difficult, different and deviant. Too much of what you get in locker rooms and clubhouse is packaged for your perusal, athletes giving sound-byte cliches they think fans want to hear. Crafted spin, soaked in agenda, meant to please the agent, publicists, endorsers, management and the constituency. But Bonds, warts and all, was real. Not a very nice kind of real. But, man, a real unlike any I had ever seen.

And I’ve seen it often from him over the last decade and a half. Seen him cry, talking about how lonely he is. Seen him vulnerable and scared, talking about his father’s death. Seen him insecure and immature, loudly barricading his locker with chairs so the cluster of reporters awaiting new teammate Deion Sanders (a bigger star at the time) wouldn’t trample his precious little space.

If I had to bet on it, I’d guess that he doesn’t even know my name. But we’ve sat down a dozen times through the years for some of the longest, most revealing interviews of my career. He would always push me back at the beginning of my approaches with different levels of loud discomfort, a media defense mechanism. But 45 minutes later, we would be into an interview so meaty and raw that sometimes he would be weeping.

I still don’t know whether he enjoys my questions or merely tolerates them. I just know that, for whatever reason, he almost always answers them - even though he refers to me as a member of “them” (the media) and is often loudly argumentative before we start, contradicting just about anything I say, bullying me to remind me that he can.

A complete picture? That’s pretty impossible. He’s too complicated, too multidimensional. And I don’t have one anyway. You don’t get that in a dozen interviews. Yes, he’s capable of being a jerk. But that’s not all he is. Yes, he’s the best baseball player I’ve ever seen. But that’s not all he is. I think part of what so often gets him in trouble is that he seems completely unfamiliar with the concept of tact. And he isn’t terribly humble because humility is not his truth. It isn’t real. Part of why he’s great is because he knows it. But I can’t pretend to know him. All I’ve seen are snapshots, revealing though they might be.

Like later that day in Pittsburgh 15 years ago, while his teammates were stretching on the ground. He touched each of them on the head duck-duck-goose style, like a child, and then loudly announced he was just giving them a little bit of his talent. I wrote this down feverishly, but nobody else around me - people more familiar with Bonds and his behavior - seemed to care or even notice. They were used to him being angry and moody and gifted and childish and loud. They had fallen asleep to the noise like you do when watching TV late at night.

I have followed him a lot of places in the past 15 years and talked to a lot of people about him. Pittsburgh. Houston. San Diego. San Francisco. All-Star games. Playoff games. Historic games on the route to 73 homers in a season.

What follows are some of the voices that have surrounded the greatest baseball player I have seen, including his own, an oral history that might shed some light on a cold and dreary day in Pittsburgh 15 years ago:

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Tigers manager Jim Leyland: “Barry does his best work amid chaos. He is not as good a player calm. He had to be angry to be at his best. He is going to piss people off because of how he is - Lord knows he pissed me off as much as any player I’ve ever had - but that doesn’t make him bad, just different. I could call Barry for anything - comfort, compassion, money, advice - and he’d be there. I think the world of him.”

Bonds on his image: “The media made me a jerk. Once you get that bad-guy stamp, you can’t erase it. Stamp. Stamp. Stamp. It doesn’t come out. It takes something fatal before some players can be good people. People said bad things about Roberto Clemente once, and it took a plane crash for people to love him. Same thing with Ted Williams. People say he was a jerk, but now that he’s sick, they say how great he is. Why not say it when he’s healthy? People are so hypocritical. My image won’t improve until I die.”

Former teammate Jay Bell: “Look, I never say anything arrogant because I’m not so sure I can back it up. Barry knows he can back it up. And he does. On the field, nobody does it better. But Barry has a wall built up, and it’s very difficult to get inside. He isn’t very open to approach.”

Bonds, on the most hurtful thing he has read about himself: “(Laughter) There’s too many. That list is way too long. I can’t dwell on that, or I’d always be upset. Negativity is like the stock market. Watch it too long, and you’ll always be disappointed. Better to just check in once in a while.”

Former teammate Matt Williams, pausing for 15 seconds after being asked if he likes Bonds: “It’s hard to say. How can you say when you really don’t know how people feel about you, either? He’s respected, I know that. For how he plays the game.”

Bonds, admitting that he cries alone sometimes in his hotel room: “Come sit at my locker and have nobody to talk to and see how it makes you feel. It ain’t that nice. Nobody comes around to talk to me. Stay here long enough and you’ll see it. Every day it’s lonely.”

Bonds, on what he says when fellow hitters approach him for secrets near the batting cage: “Talent. My talent is different. You can’t teach that. You don’t have it. There’s no secret. I’m good. It’s the truth. The Bible says speak the truth. It doesn’t say anything about you having to like what I say.”

Former teammate Benito Santiago, on Bonds” greatness: “It’s a joke, man. The rest of us should just spend all our time in the dugout bowing to him.”

Bonds, on if he sees fear in a pitcher: “I’ve never, ever had that thought process in my life. I have never, ever in my life taken a pitcher for granted. That’s what gets the best out of me, the challenge, and I don’t disrespect that. I don’t care if it is Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson or some rookie coming up. If I don’t take the challenge and treat it like it is Curt Schilling, that pitcher is going to beat me. I respect the challenge in front of me, always.”

Bonds, on retiring: “I’ll just know when I’m done. When I become complete and satisfied, I’ll be done. Right now, I’m not complete or satisfied. A title doesn’t signify completion to me. If it did, Derek Jeter would have retired a few titles ago, right? Michael Jordan, too. A lot of guys have won titles and not felt complete. (Laughter) If guys quit and felt complete every time they won a championship, I’d be the only one out there anymore. I’d be out there playing by myself.”

Bonds, on his persecution complex: “I’m not among the select few. The press won’t allow it. Charles Barkley, he’s the only one who can be a bad boy and be cool. Me? I’m just going to be gone one day. My kids love me, man. My girlfriend, my mom and dad - they love me. That’s all that matters, right? Right? You can’t try to make everyone happy. You’ll go insane. Jesus died for everybody and some people still didn’t love him, so what can you do?”

Bonds, on a legendary claim that he once walked into his own clubhouse, pointed at each of his pitchers and announced one by one that he had hit a homer off each of them: “I never did that. Voice rising in his clubhouse. But I have hit them off everybody in here.”

Bonds, on being disliked by teammates: “If you were to survey this locker room about who likes me and who doesn’t, I’d win.”

Bonds, 45 minutes later: “They like me because I help them win. Outside of that, I wouldn’t bet on winning that vote. He points above his head, to a stadium filling with fans. If you asked them, I think I’d win that battle. Well, maybe not. I don’t know.”

___

Bonds, on different standards applied to his volume: “Mel Hall or Shawon Dunston can hit a huge home run and come back to the dugout saying, `Man, I crushed it,’ and everyone would be happy for them. If I do that, the whole locker room would turn upside down. There Barry goes, bragging again. So I just stay to myself. It’s easier that way, you know? They want you on their team. They just don’t want to hear you.”

___

Bobby Bonilla, when asked to reveal something about Bonds no one knows: “He’s the best player in the game. No one better on the planet. Ken Griffey Jr. is a good friend of mine, and I’d tell him the same thing. But Barry and I have promised each other we’ll never talk about our friendship, ever. I owe him that much because he’s very private.”

Padres pitcher Greg Maddux: “Barry is real good at not missing his pitch, that I know. I know this, too: You walk Barry. Just walk him. You can have first base, Barry. That’s his fault for being so good. That’s his punishment. Sorry. I’m trying to win. I’m not trying to boost my ego and be macho man.”

___

Bonds, on if opposing managers didn’t shift infielders to the right: “I’d hit .400.”

___

Bonds, on if he hit more to the opposite field: “I’d hit .400.”

Bonds, on if he bunted: “I’d hit .400. Problem is, when I bunt, the other dugout gives me a standing ovation. They don’t want me to swing. Art Howe has told me he’ll pay me to just single.”

Giants teammate Rich Aurilia: “People don’t understand his greatness. He does so much with so few opportunities. If they hadn’t walked him so much the year he hit 73, if they had just pitched him the way they pitch the rest of us, he would have hit 90, easy. Seriously. There are so many things he can do that the rest of us just can’t.”

Bonds, on how he stands in the box and admires his home runs: “I can call a cab or a limo. What difference does it make? I get the four bases anyway.”

Bonds, on how he feels when a manager summons a lefty to face him: “You just did me a favor. Thank you. Because now I know I’m going to get pitched to.”

Bonds, on alleged steroid use: “I use the same things everyone else uses - protein, supplements, vitamins. There’s no justification for my talent. I’m good because I’m good. There’s no secret. I’m just good. A-Rod is good. Just accept it.”

Bonds, on the media: “The media says I’m disliked, but I’m not interested in some non-survey done by hypocrites who squeeze the blood out of another person to reap their rewards. They have to look at themselves in the mirror at night and live with themselves and their families. People have a perception of me based on what others have written of me and what others who are jealous of me say. It’s just a perception, though. It isn’t reality. They don’t know me.”

Bonds, on whether that perception is hurtful: “Disappointing. Not hurtful. There’s a difference. Hurtful is losing my dad. You better have broad shoulders to be a superstar.”

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Bonds, on what it is like to be him: “It’s a lonely place on top. You take the burden for everyone else. I feel isolated at times. If we win, it’s us. If we lose, it’s me, my fault. Every one of my teammates say they wouldn’t want the pressure of being me. I take the pressure off them, though. I take it for all of them. I don’t mind. I’m strong enough. I don’t break.”

Braves pitcher John Smoltz, after trash-talking with Bonds and telling Bonds that he was going to him strike out: “Unfortunately, he hit a home run. Not only that, he hit two.”