It is a March day at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s my birthday. I am turning four-years old and I only know this by showing how many fingers I’m told to hold up when asked. I am running around the clubhouse wearing multiple wristbands, a jersey with No. 14 on my back, and a hat that was far too big for my head with no cares to give in the world. As always, I have been designated by my father to not touch anyone’s stuff, to not get in anyone’s way, and, most importantly, to have fun.
As I’m flying around the clubhouse occasionally tripping on the over-sized jersey I am wearing, I am all of a sudden floating in air. My hat covers my eyes as I’m being lifted up and all I hear is, “boy, what are you doin’ around my locker?” I’m now being carried around on someone’s shoulder. My hat falls and I see a smiling man carrying me with one arm to my father’s locker then drops me off while laughing the entire way. The man and my Dad talk about something, but I’m not paying attention. It is my birthday, and I’m having a party with cake and presents behind the home plate bleachers underneath the stadium and all I know is that other kids will be there. Other kids that can be my friends.
It’s time for my party. The players’ wives and their kids show up. I am playing with other players’ sons and daughters who would inevitably be my friends for the rest of the season and the gang I would run amuck within the confines of Candlestick Park, always up to no good.
I remember having a good time until all of a sudden there was a ton of chaotic commotion. People start cheering and the energy changes in the air. Walking comes the man that picked me up earlier, this time in uniform. I didn’t realize how big he was until now. The man walks up to me and gives me that same big smile from earlier. He wishes me a happy birthday.
That man was Barry Bonds.
Years later, now an awkward preteen, I would saunter into the clubhouse at AT&T Park (now known as Oracle Park), this time not as a player’s son, but as a former player’s son who is now with the media. This is different. I had to be extra respectful now. I’m instructed to be quiet at all times, only to speak when spoken to, and definitely never ever touch anyone’s bat or glove, as I could potentially ruin someone’s mitt pocket, bat tape job, or worse, ruin a superstitious routine.
As I entered, I am in awe of being in a clubhouse again as it had been years since my father retired. Everything looked a lot smaller and the clubhouse with its contents inside were much nicer. F.P. Sr. snatches my arm and drags me to the right of the clubhouse, where two huge television screens on rollers sit blocking the view of a locker. “Hey come over here. Barry wants to say, hi,” he instructed.
“Boy you’ve grown! You playing ball now? You better not be taking any lessons from your Daddy,” Bonds said. I was old enough to realize who Barry Bonds was now. This was the guy I saw on T.V. every night, the home-run king, the greatest baseball player on Earth, maybe to ever play the game. He knew I was nervous.
“Boy, what are you so nervous for? Why is your face so red?” Instantly, Barry then picked me up, put me on his shoulders, and carried me through the clubhouse. “You’re going to act all nervous when I use to carry you around the clubhouse like this all the time when you were this tall? [motioning with his hands].”
Barry would go around the clubhouse and talk to several players with me on his shoulder, carrying me like a log. I was laughing and smiling again. He put me down and then said, “see I’m still the same guy and I know you are too. How’ve you been? You have a girlfriend yet? The girls better watch out for you! Whatever you do don’t listen to your Dad.” We would go on to talk about my awkward preteen life that consisted mostly of baseball and girls.
I would see Barry many times again for the next few years. The entire time my father was covering the Giants, I was floating around the stadium with him and Barry would always go out of his way to say hi and start a conversation with me. I would tell him I would get in fights at school with kids who would speak ill of him and he would laugh and tell me, “why are you getting in fights over me? Let them think what they want. You know who I really am.”
Years went by. Barry retired. The Mitchell Report happened. The steroid scandal happened. Barry was the most polarizing figure in sports, and arguably still is. I was finishing up college at UC Santa Barbara and was interning at the Giants’ flagship station, KNBR 680. One day, Marty Lurie had a show at The Public House, a restaurant connected to Oracle Park. I heard Barry was coming out to the patio where I was working as it was his Wall of Fame induction day at the park. I was excited. I always told people that Barry and I knew each other and of all the conversations we had about baseball, the girl advice he would give me, and so on… but they thought I was just trying to blow smoke and making it up, so as the years went by I started telling fewer and fewer people.
Barry came out to the patio. As you could imagine, there were a horde of people following him complete with a police escort to help him around the facility. I saw Barry. I wasn’t nervous. Barry taught me not to be nervous around anyone.
I walked up to him to the shock of Marty and others I was working with and said, “you might not recognize me–” he looked at me for a split second and stopping me mid-sentence, “boy, I know who the hell you are!” Then he gave me a big hug. He gave me a good second look – this was the first time he saw me with a beard – then said, “damn, you grew up to be as ugly as your Daddy!” His wit was sometimes faster than his swing. Like no time had passed, we spoke then he took off, celebrating around the ballpark.
Fast forward to present day, I now work as a member of the media in San Francisco and I see Barry around the yard at Oracle Park when he visits and he always makes it a point to catch up with me. Still offering me the time of day; we still talk baseball… and he still asks me about my dating life.
Now, you may ask yourself why I’m telling you some personal stories of Barry Bonds, and these are just a few. But It is because many don’t know the man behind the swing. All most people see is what is portrayed by the media and what the public has framed him to be: a monster.
People don’t know the man who secretly visited children’s hospitals around the Bay Area whenever he could. People never saw the man that was one of the hardest working players in baseball, many times staying hours after the last fan left working on his craft. People don’t understand the countless times he would go out of his way to make someone feel special. People only see a man that was scapegoated into the figurehead for cheating in baseball, despite the fact that his actions were not even regarded as cheating by his peers, rather it was the norm.
To this day I still get in disagreements about Barry with colleagues, friends, and even strangers. Mid-argument, I always stop and end the conversation before I get too worked up and think about what Barry told me all those years ago, “why are you getting in fights over me? Let them think what they want. You know who I really am.”
And this is what people who love Barry need to understand too. If you love Barry and he was your favorite player, you don’t need a Hall of Fame to remember how great he was as a player. Similarly, the people who know him don’t need the affirmation from others to understand how great the man was either.
There is a reason you do not see Bonds in a broadcast booth or going on radio shows or sitting down on one on one interviews or creating buzz to campaign for his own Hall of Fame induction – he knows who he is.
Still, part of me wants the world to know who the real man is and how he was a victim of circumstance during an era of baseball. I hope one day people will take time to get to know the man, not just the swing.
