You recall that Greg sold his soul recently by picking up Barry Bonds and was quickly rewarded with a horrible slump (Buy high, sell low?).A recent SI article probed into the attitude of the Bay Area towards their antihero - Chris Ballard's "He's Barry, but he is our Barry" piece interviewed politicians to tailgaters to local media honks, even an attempt to interview the Big Head himself. Even Little Leaguers had an opinion:
For some, that choice is simple, as is the case with the 11- and 12-year-old Little Leaguers in Albany, a 15-minute drive from San Francisco. It's a Saturday afternoon, and the preteen Giants are warming up for a game, a dozen boys in replica Giants hats and jerseys fielding grounders (sometimes) and firing them back to their coach. They are not of one mind about Bonds. Some, like 11-year-old Joe Franco, believe Bonds cheated by using steroids and shouldn't break Hank Aaron's record because, you see, Hank didn't cheat. Twelve-year-old Clayton Langbein, on the other hand, believes Bonds didn't take steroids on purpose, that maybe his agent put them in his drink. "It would make sense because his agent gets 10 percent," explains Langbein.A particularly dark wrap up to the article tells me all I need to know about how Bonds has treated teammates and staff alike...
Such moments may be rare. A half hour earlier, as he prepared for batting practice, Bonds sat in the dugout, alone. Looking closely, you noticed something: Around Bonds and on the field, every one of his teammates was involved with another human being, whether it was fielding balls, taking swings, joking around or chatting with a reporter. Above Bonds, in the stands, fans stood together and talked, holding beers. But there in the dugout was Barry, a human island. He'd already shooed away the visiting New York media (he would not be talking today), so he fiddled with his bats, then sat on the dugout railing, staring at the field.
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