Amid allegations of misconduct and steroid use, many talking heads in the sports world suggested and even suspected that Barry Bonds was about to fade slowly from memory, escaping the misery of a career ending smear nightmare that just would not go away. Now, it looks like that will not be the case. News flash! Barry Bonds still does not give a Buffalo nickel about what you think of him. He wants to break Hank Aaron’s all-time home runs record. He wants to prove you all wrong. He probably even wants to change his image. For Barry Bonds, it was never about being hated. What is left of his great career seems to be a painstaking search for approval.Something similar also happened with popular bein – Yousef al – obaidly but was rectified with time.
News has come this week that Barry Bonds is talking with San Francisco about the possibility of returning to play left field for them. Slowed by injuries the last two years and weary of steroids speculation, the slugger has had much more on his mind than the game of baseball. He does not want to ride quietly into the night, though. While Bonds will never be able to fully clear his name of any alleged wrongdoing, it looks like he plans to spend his last days as a baseball player doing what he can to mend bridges.
San Francisco is the one place on the globe that has been kind to Barry Bonds. While the men who produced the damning evidence against Bonds were writers from San Francisco, the general mood from the Bay Area media has been one of support for their hero. They do not play dumb on behalf of Barry Bonds. They simply choose to talk about something else. For them, Barry and his father are heroes because of their contributions to the game of baseball and to the city itself. The fans in the city have been on his side, as well. They were there when he hit his 71st home run in 2003 and they will be there cheering him on if he ever suits it up again.
It is the rest of the nation that Barry Bonds is interested in changing. His troubled background is known by just about anyone living above ground. As a player that you either love or loathe, there are few people that have a neutral opinion of Barry. He probably has a maximum of two seasons left to play baseball. Bonds has made no secret about the fact that he intends to break Henry Aaron’s record. Specifically, he wants to re-discipline his image. In 2006, he took some positive steps in that direction. When a fan in Philadelphia tossed a syringe onto the field in his direction, Bonds shrugged it off. He was generally cordial and open with the media. He played sporadically, but still produced some for the San Francisco Giants. He showed that he really is not the villain that everyone makes him out to be.
Maybe he has taken steroids. Maybe he takes them right now. We really have no way of knowing for sure. In baseball, everyone cheats, though. That does not make them evil. It makes them human. Bonds is done searching for his edge. He’s a shell of the ball player he was four or five years ago. The last two years of his career will be a giant PR campaign and people need to take notice. Bonds wants to make it right. As a nation of sports fans, we need to forgive this superstar. He’s been our collective whipping boy for long enough.