Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is a left fielder for Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants. He holds many MLB records, including most home runs in a single season (73) and is currently tied for second on the all-time career home runs list with Babe Ruth at 714, trailing only Hank Aaron's 755.
Bonds is generally considered to be among the greatest players of all time, although his achievements have been marred by his role in a MLB steroids scandal. He has won a record seven MVP awards over the course of his career, the majority of which were awarded during what would have been the waning years of a typical player's career. Statistically speaking, Bonds is typically regarded as one of the best hitters in the history of the game. He is the only player in baseball history to have hit at least 500 home runs and stolen at least 500 bases (no other player has reached even 400-400). Additionally, Bonds has won eight Gold Glove Awards for his defensive prowess in left field, and he is a 13 time All-Star.
Bonds has generally been known as reclusive in the clubhouse, and is not a favorite with the media. Teammates often pointedly remark that they do not have any conversations with Bonds. In addition to his problematic relations with the media, Bonds has become the most frequent target of the anti-steroids backlash that has hit Major League Baseball in recent years.
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Achievements
3 Resurgence
4 2005 injury problems
5 2006 season
6 Chasing the all-time home run record
7 Career statistics (as of May 21, 2006)
8 Salary
9 Controversy
9.1 The BALCO Scandal
9.2 Game of Shadows
9.3 Perjury Investigation
10 Bonds on Bonds
11 External links
Background
The son of former All-Star Bobby Bonds, Bonds was born in Riverside, California and graduated in 1983 from Junipero Serra High School (San Mateo, California), excelling in baseball, basketball, and football. Although originally drafted by the San Francisco Giants (the team with which he would later star), Bonds chose to go to college first, playing baseball at Arizona State University. He began his major league career in 1986 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who selected him with the 6th overall pick in the 1985 draft. In 1993, Bonds left the Pirates to sign a lucrative free agent contract (worth a then-record $43.75 million over six years) with the Giants, with whom his father spent the first seven years of his career.
Bonds' uncanny combination of speed and power in the early and middle stages of his career recalled his father's abilities, though it is generally held that Barry is an even more talented player than Bobby was. In addition to his famous father, Bonds has an outstanding athletic pedigree: Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is his godfather; Reggie Jackson, another Hall of Famer, is his distant cousin. His aunt, Rosie Bonds, finished 8th in the Women's 80-meter hurdles (extended to 100-meter hurdles in 1971) at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
Achievements
In Sports Illustrated (June 5, 2000), then-Giant Shawon Dunston said of his teammate Bonds, "He's not going to hit 70 homers, but he believes he can. That's frightening." The next year, Bonds set the single-season home run record, hitting 73 to break Mark McGwire's 70-homer mark set in 1998. Some analysts consider Bonds' 2001 performance among the greatest hitting seasons in history; besides the home run record, he set single-season marks for walks (177) and slugging percentage (.863) (topping Ruth's records of 170 and .847, set in 1923 and 1920, respectively).
In 2002, Bonds did not repeat his 73-homer feat, belting only 46 long balls. Bonds bettered his own record for walks with 199, which contributed greatly to a .582 on-base percentage, breaking Ted Williams' 1941 record of .551. He also won the National League batting title with a .370 average, becoming the oldest player to win the honor for the first time. In 2004, he won his second batting title with a .362 average. He also broke two of his own records: OPS, with 1.422, and on-base percentage, with a staggering .609 mark -- the only time a player has bettered .600 over a full season. He also slugged .812, only the second time in history that a player has bettered .800 twice. Babe Ruth was the other, with .847 and .846 in 1920 and 1921, respectively.
Bonds has been voted the National League's Most Valuable Player a record seven times: in 1990, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. He is the first player in baseball history to be named MVP in three (much less four) consecutive years, and no other player has won the award more than three times. Bonds also finished second in the voting for the award on two occasions: in 1991, to Terry Pendleton of the Atlanta Braves; and in 2000, to then-teammate Jeff Kent. He also had a fourth-place MVP vote in 1994, and two fifth-place finishes, in 1996 and 1997.
Bonds received at least some MVP votes in 15 consecutive seasons, from 1990 to 2004, tying with Yogi Berra for the second-longest streak after Hank Aaron's 19. (Ted Williams received MVP votes in every season of his 19-year career, but his streak was interrupted twice by wartime service.)
During the 2002 season, Bonds became the fourth man to hit 600 career home runs, and he also set the record for most home runs hit in a single post-season (8). Bonds hit .471 with 4 home runs and 13 walks (seven intentional) in the World Series, thereby slugging 1.294 with a .700 on-base percentage. All but the batting average were World Series records, but Bonds' Giants lost to the Anaheim Angels, four games to three. Before the historic outburst of 2002, Bonds had hit poorly in the postseason, batting .195 with one home run and six RBI in 27 playoff games, as his teams lost five straight series.
Bonds' eight Gold Glove awards as an outfielder are the third-most ever for that position. He has been named to thirteen National League All-Star teams, in 1990, 1992-1998, and 2000-2004.
Bonds became the first 400-400 player (400 home runs and 400 stolen bases) on August 23, 1998, when he hit home run number 400 off of Florida's Kirt Ojala. He had stolen his 400th base on July 26, 1997 against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Candlestick Park. On June 23, 2003, Bonds recorded his 500th stolen base in the eleventh inning of a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Pacific Bell Park. Bonds later scored the winning run. By chance, his ailing father Bobby was in attendance that night. With 633 career home runs at the time, Bonds became the first 500-500 player in baseball history, already the only member of the 400-400 club. Additionally, in 1996 Bonds became the second of the three current members of the so-called "40-40 club", signifying 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in one season. The other two members are José Canseco and Alex Rodriguez.
Bonds is among the many power hitters of recent vintage who "crowd the plate", standing in such a way that his body is almost over the plate (and thus closer to the strike zone, allowing his bat to cover more of the plate when he swings). In 2001, because of Bonds and others like Mo Vaughn (each of whom wear large padded elbow protectors when batting), Major League Baseball instructed umpires to call a slightly different strike zone, calling more high inside pitches strikes. The new regulations also banned hitters from using hard protective gear apart from helmets (e.g., hard elbow or chest guards), which enabled them to get closer to the plate. MLB officials ruled, however, that Bonds could continue to sport his own particular elbow guard, due to medical reasons.
On April 12, 2004, Bonds hit his 660th home run, tying him with his godfather Willie Mays for 3rd on the all-time career home run list in a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at SBC Park. Larry Ellison caught the home run and returned it to Bonds. He hit his 661st home run at the same venue the next day, placing him in outright third behind Babe Ruth (714) and Hank Aaron (755). Ellison also caught number 661, but kept it for himself with Bonds's blessing. (Ellison was in a kayak in McCovey Cove, an arm of San Francisco Bay that lies behind the right-field stands at SBC Park, so this wasn't quite the amazing coincidence it appears at first sight.)
On July 4, 2004, Bonds passed Rickey Henderson to take the all-time lead in career walks, drawing his 2191st free pass. Later in 2004, he broke his own single-season record for walks, becoming the first player with over 200 in a season and ending the season with 232. His total of 232 walks was 105 more than the next closest leader, Lance Berkman, Todd Helton, and Bobby Abreu who all had 127. Included in Bonds' 2004 total were 120 intentional walks, the most issued since MLB began recording them separately in 1954.
Bonds also has the second- and third-highest single-season intentional walk totals, with 68 in 2002 and 61 in 2003. He has been the league leader in the category for 13 of the past 14 seasons. Oddly, though, he did not lead in 2001, when he hit a record 73 home runs, finishing with 35. Sammy Sosa led the NL with 37.
Bonds holds almost every major league record in existence for intentional walks: four in a nine-inning game (2004), 120 in a season (2004) and 604 in his career (more than the next two players on the all-time list, Hank Aaron and Willie McCovey, combined). Bonds is an easy candidate for the intentional walk, though some have argued that his opponents' obsession with pitching around him borders on the irrational. Still, the Giants have afforded Bonds little in the way of lineup "protection" in recent years, making the incentive to issue him a free pass even greater. In the first month of the 2004 season, Bonds drew 43 walks, 22 of them intentional. He broke his previous record of 68 intentional walks, set in 2002, on July 10, 2004 in his last appearance before the All-Star break. On May 28, 1998, Bonds became one of only four players in major league history to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded, when the Arizona Diamondbacks elected to give up a run and face catcher Brent Mayne instead.
On September 17, 2004, Bonds hit his 700th home run off San Diego Padres pitcher Jake Peavy in San Francisco and became only the third man to achieve the 700 home run plateau.
Resurgence
In 1999, with only statistics through 1997 being considered, Bonds ranked Number 34 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, making him the highest-ranking active player (next-best was Greg Maddux at Number 39), while Ken Griffey Jr. came in at Number 93. When the Sporting News list was redone in 2005, Bonds jumped up 28 spaces to Number 6 All Time, behind only Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Hank Aaron. However, while Bonds was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team that year, Griffey was actually elected to it. That same year, baseball historian and sabermetrician Bill James wrote of Bonds, "Certainly the most un-appreciated superstar of my lifetime... Griffey has always been more popular, but Bonds has been a far, far greater player." As of 1999, James rated Bonds as the 16th best player of all time, even though his career was far from complete. "When people begin to take in all of his accomplishments," James predicted, "Bonds may well be rated among the five greatest players in the history of the game."
Throughout the decade of the 1990s, Bonds was an exceptionally patient hitter and a great slugger who stole bases and played Gold Glove defense. Bill James ranked Bonds as the best player of the 1990s, noting that his selection for the 1990s' 2nd-best player (Craig Biggio) had been closer in production to the decade's 10th-best player than he was to Bonds.
By the year 2000 Bonds was regarded as a surefire Hall of Famer, but it was in the beginning of the next millennium -- at the age of 37 -- when Bonds would surpass his peers and reach a level of offensive production that only a select few in the history of the game have achieved. Along with Bonds' resurgence, however, the home run hitting accomplishments of the previous decade had begun to receive a retroactive hostility. Many now criticize the homerun records set in the Steroid Era and argue that baseball players alleged to have used steroids should be penalized, with their records marked as "questionable" and their eligibility for the Hall of Fame rejected. Bonds, with his setting of the single-season home run record and his pursuit of the all-time Major League record for home runs, has become the most common target of anti-steroid criticism.
2005 injury problems
On March 22, 2005, Bonds announced that he could be sidelined for the rest of the 2005 season because of surgery on his knee. At the press conference, Bonds also indicated that he was frustrated by the focus on his alleged steroid use and the negative portrayal of him in the media. Later, Bonds sounded positive about his rehabilitation and told fans at the Opening Day festivities, "I will be back!" The chances of Bonds' return to the playing field were covered relentlessly throughout the summer by ESPN, in anticipation of potentially unprecedented scrutiny by the media and baseball fans (baseball had toughened its steroid-testing program since Bonds had last played). On May 4, Bonds revealed on his website that he had undergone a third arthroscopic knee surgery because of a bacterial infection in his knee. This setback led many to assume that Bonds would not play in the 2005 season, and in the process raised much speculation as to whether Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755 would ultimately be out of Bonds' reach.
On August 1, in an interview with MLB.com, Bonds stated that he would most likely not return before the end of the 2005 season, due to continued buildup of fluid in the knee. On August 5, though, he stated on his website that while he was unsure of his status, he remained optimistic. In September, Bonds started working out with the team while they were in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers. On September 10, the Giants announced that Bonds would be activated on September 12. He was indeed activated that day, and immediately returned to being a starter in left field. In his return against the San Diego Padres, he nearly hit a home run in his first at-bat, but the ball was ruled to be only a double due to fan interference. Bonds finished the night 1-for-4 with a double. Upon his return, Bonds mostly continued his pre-injury dominance at the plate, hitting home runs in four consecutive games from September 18 to September 21 and finishing with five in only 14 games.
2006 season
A sign counts down to Barry Bonds' 714th home runOn February 19, 2006, Bonds announced in an interview with USA Today that he plans on retiring at the conclusion of the 2006 season, with or without the all-time home run record. "I've never cared about records anyway," Bonds said, "so what difference does it make? I'm not playing baseball anymore after this. The game (isn't) fun anymore. I'm tired of all of the crap going on. I want to play this year out, hopefully win, and once the season is over, go home and be with my family. Maybe then everybody can just forget about me." Bonds also claimed in his interview that he wasn't as athletic as he used to be.[1] However, the next day, Bonds softened his stance and said he would perhaps play in the 2007 season if his knee improved.[2]
On March 9, 2006, after his first game of the preseason with the San Francisco Giants, Bonds said that he would know around the All-Star Break and in a time period ranging from July to August 2006, whether or not he would be returning for the 2007 MLB season.
Bonds started the 2006 season with a slump. Bonds hit under .200 for his first 10 games of the season. Bonds didn't hit a home run until April 22nd, it was his biggest home run slump since the 1998 season.
Many speculate that after he passes Ruth in home runs, he will hang it up, based on this quote from an interview in 2003:
755 isn't a number that's always caught my eye -- the only number I'm concerned with is Babe Ruth's. As a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out. That's it. And in the baseball world, Babe Ruth's everything, right? I got his (single season) slugging percentage, I got him on on-base, I got him on walks and then I'll take his (lifetime) home run record and that's it. Don't talk about him no more.
In a recent interview with MLB.com, Bonds stated that his knee may not hold up much longer, and that catching Aaron's 755 homeruns is unlikely. When asked if he thought he would catch Aaron, his exact words were "Heck no".
Chasing the all-time home run record
On May 7, 2006, Bonds drew within one home run of tying Babe Ruth for second place, hitting his 713th career home run into the second level of Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, off pitcher Jon Lieber in an ESPN nationally-televised game in which the Giants lost to the Philadelphia Phillies. The towering home run, which was one of the longest in Citizens Bank Park's two season history, traveling an estimated 450 feet, hit off the facade of the third deck in right field and was Bonds' first pulled home run of the 2006 season. Curiously, and perhaps revealingly, the jeers from the Philadelphia crowd that had haunted Bonds earlier that night turned noticeably into cheers as he completed his swing, watched the flight of the ball, rounded the bases, and touched home plate, all this to flashbulbs exploding everywhere throughout the stands. The mixed and often paradoxical reaction to Bonds' impending achievement exemplifies the polarizing effect of his controversial career on baseball aficionados and casual observers alike.
On May 20, 2006, Bonds tied Ruth, hitting his 714th career home run to deep right field to lead off the top of the 2nd inning with a 1-1 count. The home run came off of left handed pitcher Brad Halsey of the Oakland A's, in an interleague game played in Oakland, California at the McAfee Coliseum (formerly known as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum or the Oakland Coliseum). Since this was an interleague game at an American League stadium, Bonds was batting as the designated hitter in the cleanup spot in the lineup for the Giants. The Bamino's 714 mark was tied by Bonds who hits left handed, the pitcher Halsey pitches left handed, and the fan who caught it is left handed; all this to tie arguably the best left handed hitter in history.
Ik noem een Tony van Heemschut,een Loeki Knol,een Brammetje Biesterveld en natuurlijk een Japie Stobbe !