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Thursday, April 6, 2006
Legends back up Bonds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
San Francisco — The greeting was warm, even though my words on the big guy with the even bigger smile that I was approaching on Thursday in the San Francisco Giants clubhouse have been chilly. “I’ve followed what you’ve written, and if I were on the other side, I’d be more supportive of you,” said Barry Bonds, softly, referring to my frequently stated belief that neither he nor the others involved with baseball’s steroid mess is a Hank Aaron clone in character.
You probably know about Aaron, baseball’s king of home runs, with only 47 more than Bonds’ 708. You probably don’t know that the rugged exterior that Bonds often shows is a fraud. As was the case with me before the Giants’ 6-4 victory in their home opener over the Braves — without much help from the man of the moment this time — Bonds just wants to be loved. He really does, and to show as much, he nodded toward a little office across the way that featured two of his favorite people on earth.
They also happen to rank among the game’s all-time greats. Not only that, they both starred for the Giants, and they both answer to “Willie,” as in Mays and McCovey. Said Bonds, with a twinge of emotion, “Since my dad (former Giants standout Bobby Bonds) died (two years ago), they’ve been very supportive of me, and they’re always here. Especially Willie Mays. It’s just great to know that they both are around for me to talk to whenever I need their advice on something.”
With hearing and sight problems taking over his nearly 76-year-old body, Mays preferred to sit in a chair inside that office and not discuss the controversies or anything else surrounding his godson. “Not this time,” Mays said, politely, nodding across the way toward McCovey, 68, another crumbling icon with knees so bad that he needs a pair of walking canes to move through life. There is nothing wrong with McCovey’s mouth, though. He had much to say about the ugliness surrounding Bonds since he broke Mark McGwire’s record for most home runs during a season in 2001, and that was along Bonds’ way to entering this year just six shy of Ruth’s 714 and in hot pursuit of Aaron’s mark.
“You guys don’t even know the half of what Barry is going through,” said McCovey, shaking his head, glancing at a spot on the floor. “You saw what Hank Aaron went through (while chasing Babe Ruth’s record), so you can imagine what Barry is going through.”
Translated: Hate mail. Lots of it, and from the sea of derogatory signs hoisted toward Bonds in normally docile San Diego during the Giants’ first road trip of the season (“Cheaters never prosper,” “Mr. Asterisk,” Greatest hitter/cheater ever”), somebody hurled a plastic syringe without the needle his way. “I don’t know why people want to hear other people say it, but you know what’s going on, and everybody knows it, because people aren’t dumb,” said McCovey, suggesting that Bonds is getting bashed for racial reasons.
This is the same McCovey who grew up in the segregated South. In fact, he is a native of Mobile, Ala., Aaron’s hometown. “I got a lot of what Barry is getting now. For whatever reason, I got a lot of that stuff near the end of my career (in the late 1970s). As for Barry, it’s obvious that things aren’t the way that they should be in 2006.”
Definitely not, but only if you’re referring to Bonds’ existence away from AT&T Park, whose 42,795 inhabitants on this afternoon couldn’t get enough of their hero who was raised in nearby San Mateo. He acknowledged the roar from the stuffed house with a toothy grin and a slow tip of the cap when he trotted onto the field with his teammates during pre-game introductions. Moments later, he did the same after he received a loud and lengthy standing ovation from fans along the left-field area. So it only figured that folks almost went hoarse from yelling during each of Bonds’ four trips to the plate.
He was intentionally walked twice with boos flying everywhere, and then he grounded out weakly to first before striking out. Still, they cheered. Afterward, with half of the free world gathered in the vicinity of his locker, Bonds refused to speak. Said a Giants spokesperson, “He doesn’t want to talk to you guys today.”
Actually, that wasn’t true. He did talk at least once, and I was a witness.
Permalink | Comments (178) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Rocky road for Rocco
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Augusta — If shouts of, “Way to go, Rocco! You’re on TV!” seemed like atypical background noise for a Masters Thursday, well, it’s not like Rocco Mediate was exuding confidence either at the start of the day. Or any day.
The late George Burns joked he began every morning by reading the obituaries. The punch line: “And if I’m not in there, then I have breakfast.”
Mediate begins every morning wondering if he’ll be able to step out of bed. The punch line: If his back doesn’t lock up, he’ll take at least momentary hold of a major.
A year ago, he followed a blur of back problems and flab issues by taking the first-round lead in the U.S. Open. A sixth-place finish secured a spot in this year’s Masters. That’s fortunate, because nothing he has done since was going to get him through the front gates Thursday.
He is winless since 2002. He has failed to even make the cut in four out of six tournaments this year. But he is becoming somewhat of a majors specialist. In Mediate’s first major since the Open, he fired a career-best 4-under-68 at Augusta National to rank second on the leaderboard.
From Mediate, dipped in sarcasm: “Oh yeah, I’m a big majors player. I scare the crap out of everybody. Like, ‘Oh no! He’s coming again!’ “
Hey, he’s upright again. Always a good start. In 1994, he had surgery for a ruptured disk and needed a special medical extension to return in 1996. He dropped about 60 pounds from a high of 260. (“I was big boned.”) He won a few events, but the back issues returned.
He tried chiropractors, acupuncture — everything short of incense and Yanni.
It got so bad one day in March 2004 that his back locked up while alone at home in Naples. After his first round at the Open, he recalled, “I have a trophy case in the house, but to take the pressure off, I kind of placed myself on the thing and no one was home for 3 hours. I was stuck, couldn’t move. Then I remember having to crawl up the stairs to bed.”
He took up Pilates, lost a few more pounds and improved. He now stretches every morning. “I wonder every morning,” he said. “I wake up and go, ‘OK, I’m good right now.’ It’s just how it is. I’ve come to those terms. I know, once it goes, it goes.
“If I would’ve lost my game because I lost my game, it would’ve been a different story. But I never lost my ability. My body was just saying, ‘You can’t do this any more.’ That’s why I was always very upbeat about playing golf.”
He stood upright in the minority Thursday. He didn’t bogey. “I would’ve taken 18 straights pars,” he said.
As it was, he hit par the first 10 holes, then birdied 11, 13, 14 and 15. “I made about a 10-, 15-footer on 11. You’re not supposed to do that. I actually kind of apologized to that hole as I left.”
As Mediate’s score dropped, more fans predictably started following him. Others probably just wondered what he was doing in the tournament. “I’d tell them to just look at last year’s U.S. Open and shut up,” he joked. “But you know, I wouldn’t blame them. I haven’t been playing a lot of golf. But it’s all been body related. Otherwise, I probably would’ve killed myself by now.”
He looked comfortable at Augusta, despite all of the course changes, and can’t understand the complaints from his fraternity members. “It’s their tournament, and if you don’t want to abide by what they do, then don’t come,” he said.
“The golf course may beat me. But I won’t let it beat me before I play.”
Now if he can just carry that aggressiveness into poker. Mediate played in the World Series of Poker last year. He finished about 600th. Or, as he prefers to put it, “I was in the top 10 percent of 6,000 [entries].”
He has become close friends with professional poker player and 2004 champion Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, who was in the gallery Thursday. Raymer tutors Mediate in poker. Mediate reciprocates in golf.
“I think he’s helped me more than I’ve helped him,” said Mediate.
When asked if a Masters upset would mean he wouldn’t have to play as much poker, Mediate said, “Actually, it would mean I could play more.”
And poker players get to sit.
Permalink | | Categories: Golf, Jeff Schultz
Spectators have harder course
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Augusta — I have just returned from visiting the scenes of the alleged crimes against tradition at Augusta National. I have followed the routings outlined for spectators, those worshipful creatures who would sacrifice an offspring for a week of Masters watching. And I am asking you this:
What the hell are the players complaining about?
Have they tried to walk this course following the spectator routing? They have it easy. They can stroll inside the ropes. Let ‘em try it outside the ropes, lugging a chair, a supply of water, field glasses, sandwiches and other stuff mama piles on him. And no caddie, understand. Then check their blood pressure.
You’ve read, I’m sure, of all the changes made on the fourth, the seventh and the 11th holes, not to mention the first and 15th. To pilfer a line from the old “Oklahoma” show, “They’ve gone about as fur as they can go.” As the lay of the course goes. You’d much rather play the course than have to walk it, following the course the poor, belabored spectator has to toil.
Once upon a time, there was a gathering ground just below the clubhouse, behind what was then the first tee. Spectators milled about, meeting and greeting, then watched the players tee off, then went on meeting and greeting, moving to and from the ninth and 18th greens. Not any more. There is no longer passageway between the first tee and the practice green. To get from the clubhouse to the golf course, you circle the practice green or move down the first fairway. Crosswalks have been closed, but at least the Eisenhower tree has been allowed to continue to use its space.
You’ve read, or heard, of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer blistering the changes in golf magazines. Well, what they said wasn’t really as ferocious as the headlines, but what they meant was, the course they see now is the gracious old course wearing a gorilla mask. Nicklaus, however, has already softened the blow. “I think they’re trying to do the right thing,” he said.
OK, you have to understand Jack. He’s a member now. He comes to interviews dressed in his green jacket. And, being a course designer of world-wide stature, he confesses that even he is confused. Golf architecture, where goest thou?
That’s for other people to thresh out. What I’m rumbling about here at Augusta National is what they’ve taken away from spectators. Take the 11th hole, for instance. I don’t care if they’ve put the tee in the CBS compound and create unplayable angles; if you’re a spectator you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway. They’ve planted a black forest between you and the fairway, maybe 60-70 feet wide. You don’t catch an uncluttered view of the player until he comes out of the woods at the foot of the hill.
Now, the fourth hole, that’s OK by me. It’s just long, but to do that, they had to gobble up more spectator space. Most of the players I watched hit irons or one of those unisex clubs. There was a bunch of bogeys, including Tiger Woods’, and only three birdies on my watch.
The seventh hole, all that need be said here is that Gene Sarazen once said, “That is the best golf hole on the course, what a golf hole should be. You have to hit two perfect shots, 3-iron or wood off the tee, then an approach that gives you a putting chance.”
They ignored him. They’ve stretched it out, but that’s not it. Once again spectator space and access have been shrunk, and sometimes you get trapped in one of these vacuums and you don’t get out until every player you’ve been chasing disappears. And sometimes, you can’t get there from here.
That’s it. You know that I’m coming to you from the choir of the aged. (And let me say this about Amen Corner: Every small-town church I’ve ever been too had an “amen corner,” where the husbands gathered while the mamas sat with the kids, and the husbands gave the pastor a loud, “A-men!”)
I guess that’s enough dyspepsia for one day.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Barkley comes full circle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Seeing Charles Barkley at the Hall of Fame announcement brought reminded me of the Sunday in January 1982 when I called Mel Pulliam, then Auburn’s basketball publicist, seeking to line up the standard opponent feature. (Auburn was coming to Rupp Arena to play Kentucky, which I covered for the Lexington Leader.)
The Tigers had a player named Darrell Lockhart, whom I didn’t really want to make my subject for a rather personal reason — I hated his baggy uniform shorts. (Little did I know what was coming a decade later.) I mentioned a shooting guard as a possible interviewee, and Pulliam said he wasn’t a terribly effusive conversationalist. So then I said, “What about this freshman who had a big game last week?”
The next day I had a phone interview with the freshman. Two days after that he rolled into Rupp — an accurate adjective, given that he was rather portly back then — and dumped 25 points and 17 rebounds on Kentucky’s Melvin Turpin, who said after the game, “The kid shocked the heck out of me.” To this day, I take credit — not one bit of it deserved — for discovering the kid, whose name was (and still is) Charles Wade Barkley.
Barkley and Kentucky developed an intriguing relationship — he loved playing against the highly rated Wildcats — and I was privileged to bear witness. I was there the night in 1983 that Auburn finally won in Rupp. I was there a month later when, at the rematch in Auburn, Barkley lasted two possessions before being thrown out of the game by referee Paul Galvan for slapping Charles Hurt in the back of the head. (Hurt had, it should be noted, shoved Barkley into the press table — indeed, almost into David Housel’s lap — on a fast break.)
And I was there in the Indianapolis airport in April 1984 when he declared his intention to leave Auburn after his junior season for the NBA. See, he made this declaration to me and nobody else. I’d gone to Bloomington to cover the Olympic trials for the AJC, the paper for which I’d been working all of six weeks, and had driven like mad up the road to Indy to try and catch a few of the departing players for comment before they flew home.
I found Barkley and Chuck Person in the terminal and walked with them to their gate. (You could do such a thing in those innocent times.) Person had a basketball he’d had signed by the other players in camp, and Barkley, naturally, took to dribbling it across the tiles. At the security checkpoint, he told the guards: “You better check him [meaning Person] closely — he’s from Alabama.”
At the gate, Barkley introduced me to Sam Perkins, who was already famous, and Karl Malone, then a little-known from Louisiana Tech. (“Oh, you’re the Mailman,” I remember saying, and I remember him seeming a tad surprised that I knew his nickname.) And then the Atlanta-bound plane flew off and I checked into the Hyatt and wrote a story that actually broke some news, and I remember Gary Caruso, the AJC sports editor who never seemed impressed by anything, almost sounding impressed over the phone.
Charles Barkley has, as we know, gone on to great fame as a player and greater fame as an ex-player, but I’ve never stopped thinking of him as the guy who dribbled the ball loudly in the airport and who then, as every head turned to see what the racket was, threw the ball to his buddy Person. And who, feigning innocence, shouted at Person: “Sonny boy, don’t be dribbling that ball in the AIRPORT!”
That was in Indy. Twenty-two years later, the Hall of Fame announcement was likewise in Indy. Full circle, I’d say.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
