Baseball

AT&T Park - Now Barry Free

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Barry.

That seems to be the sentiment in San Francisco right now, as they try to move out of the Barry Bonds era, apparently into the “no one’s at our ballpark” era. The Giants continued to move on this week, as they stripped AT&T Park of anything and everything Barry.

No more 756 or 762 signs. No more pictures of Barry throughout the park. The Giants plan to put up a plaque honoring Bonds’ final home run as a Giant.

Not a bad way to treat the guy who paid the rent for the past decade, huh? The Giants aren’t even waiting for the proverbial body to get cold before getting remarried. The Giants basically survived on what Bonds provided for the past few seasons, and not only did they not offer him a contract for this year, but they are in some kind of hurry to remove any memory of Bonds as a Giant from baseball fans.

I don’t mind that they didn’t offer Bonds a contract this year, but it would be nice if they didn’t become all hypocritical now, and completely run from the fact that Bonds was a Giant. Not only was he a Giant, he was the Giants. Did you see the crowds at AT&T Park after Bonds broke the record, or when he was out for the last month with his injuries.

Barry Bonds is the reason that San Francisco no longer plays at Candlestick Park. Bonds is the reason they had the All-Star game last year. Bonds is the reason that that team has made a fortune in the past few years. You didn’t see them tearing down Bonds’ pictures last season when he was paying their bills, but how quickly they forget.

We’re now officially into the 2008 season, and Bonds is still unsigned. In my opinion, he is being blackballed. Why wouldn’t a team want the league leader in on-base percentage? Steroids? Come on, you think that these teams care about having steroid users on the roster? Because you know how tough it was for Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi, Garry Sheffield, Paul LoDuca and the rest of the stars of the Mitchell Report to get employed.

Baseball’s stance on steroids and now more recently Bonds is just too hypocritical to believe. The man can still hit a baseball as well as any man in the world, but nobody wants to sign him. He’s been convicted of nothing, and teams that are refusing to sign him for PR reasons, or to blackball him should be ashamed of themselves.

But none should be more ashamed than the San Francisco Giants. This man was the face of the franchise for the last decade, and they go out of their way to make sure you forget it.

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