Barry Bonds is the best ballplayer since Willie Mays, maybe since Babe Ruth, yet he's the most underappreciated player of our generation. His greatness isn't romanticized like Cal Ripken's streak or Mark McGwire's power or Derek Jeter's Yankeeness.
When the Giants win, it's because of Jeff Kent's big year or Dusty Baker's magic. When the Giants lose, it's Barry's fault because he popped up with two runners on in the fifth. He's ripped in the local papers, vilified on the radio, criticized at the water cooler. He gets called every name in the book -- except winner.
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Look, one of the appealing
characteristics about sports is that objectives and
goals are clear cut: you're trying to win a game.
And over the course of his career, Bonds has done
that better than any player in the game. He deserves to
be rightfully acknowledged for being the best. |
I guess that's why I root for Barry Bonds. I like that he chokes up on the bat, that he wears wristbands with his picture on them, that Buck Showalter once intentionally walked him with the bases loaded. But mostly, I root for him to excel because it seems everybody else is rooting against him.
Underrated and hated? He is by the fans. In my five years of working at ESPN.com, we've run many polls along the lines of "Who's the best player in the game?" Ken Griffey Jr. always wins. Bonds? Never. Doesn't come close to winning. And if we put a poll up right now asking, "Who's been the best hitter over their career, Bonds or Tony Gwynn?", Gwynn would win in a landslide.
Which is a joke. Gwynn is a chunky singles hitter; Bonds produces chunks of runs. Gwynn has scored 100 runs or driven in 100 runs a combined three times in his career. Bonds has done it 17 times. Despite Gwynn's higher batting average, Bonds still gets on base more and obviously has more power. Gwynn has played 140 games seven times in his career, just once since 1990. Bonds has played 140 games 12 times. While Bonds is labeled as selfish, Gwynn sits at home all winter watching video of himself hitting, eating ice cream sundaes and getting fat.
Yet, there's Bonds, 37 years old this summer, still in great shape, still one of the game's elite players. He posted a .688 slugging percentage last year, the best of his career (and higher than any single-season total by Griffey). Bonds goes out, puts up monster numbers year after year, wins Gold Gloves, steals bases, plays hard. Griffey is just 31, but has been in a steady decline since 1997. You think he'll be competing for MVP awards when he's 37?
Look, one of the appealing characteristics about sports is that objectives and goals are clearly defined: you're trying to win a game. And over the course of his career, Bonds has done that better than any player in the game. He deserves to be rightfully acknowledged for being the best -- but still has trouble winning that respect.
Take last season's MVP balloting, when Bonds finished a distant second to teammate Jeff Kent (a very deserving winner, I might add) in trying to become the first player to win four MVP awards. Kent's primary reason for winning, even though Bonds had a higher on-base percentage, higher slugging percentage, more home runs and more runs scored was RBI -- Kent had 125, Bonds 106. According to Stats Inc., Kent drove in 125 of 1,036 available RBI (12.1 percent). Bonds drove in 106 of 761 (13.9 percent). In other words, Kent had 275 more RBI opportunities than Bonds.
But what did you hear? Not that Bonds set the table for Kent. You read that Bonds drove in "only" 106 runs. That he wasn't driving in the clutch runs. That Kent was the key to the Giants' division title.
Me? I was rooting for Bonds to win that fourth MVP award. I believed he deserved it, that without him being on base so often, Kent wouldn't have had all those RBI and all those meaty fastballs down the middle of the plate. Feared? Ask National League pitchers who they fear the most.
You know, most of the time, we cheer for the underdog, the nice guy with a funny quip, the scrappy infielder who survives on heart and hustle.
I'm usually like that as well, but in this case, I prefer to cheer for the ultimate overdog, the guy everybody else loves to hate.
David Schoenfield is the baseball editor at ESPN.com.
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