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Thursday, June 14, 2007
Braves’ road not taken took Bonds toward 756
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
With No. 755 so close to becoming secondary in baseball’s record books to No. 756, there are several questions to ponder involving Barry Bonds as an almost Braves player. For instance: What if he spends the past 14 or 15 seasons in Atlanta while chasing the all-time home run record held by franchise icon Hank Aaron?
In contrast to now, does Aaron say he will attend games featuring Bonds on the verge of snatching his slugging crown, especially since Aaron is becoming more active as a Braves executive?
Consider, too, that Bonds is from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he has played for the hometown Giants for more than a decade. The BALCO labs also were from that region, and they contributed to Bonds’ controversy with performance-enhancing drugs. If he leaves those wicked influences on the West Coast and spends the bulk of his career in Georgia, does he remain a lean but potent Hall of Famer in waiting? Or does he continue to evolve into just another artificially enhanced slugger with an expanding cap size?
Here’s another thing: Given the Braves Way, which stresses team over individual (no earrings, no lounge chair or big-screen television at your locker, no special group of handlers in the clubhouse), is the Braves’ Bonds a kinder, gentler soul instead of the Giants’ Bonds who is as likeable to many as a stale box of Cracker Jack?
“I would like to think we would have had a great and positive influence on Barry, because off the field, every time I’ve talked to Barry, he’s been great,” said John Smoltz, the Braves pitching ace and resident historian. “It just seems like the scenarios he’s been in and the atmosphere that he’s been in, for whatever reason, have become the news that we’ve known.”
Not good news, by the way. Bonds has served as the poster child in baseball’s steroids mess. He allegedly said during the BALCO investigation that he didn’t knowingly use the stuff, and he also has refused to deny taking amphetamines through the years. As a result, you even had former Braves standout and eternal nice-guy Dale Murphy blasting Bonds last week during a TV interview.
Bonds, a Brave? Just doesn’t sound right for many reasons. Even so, the Braves easily could have had the guy.
Twice.
There was the first time that John Schuerholz discusses in his recently published book. He wrote of agreeing to a deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the spring of 1992 that would have brought Bonds to town in exchange for reliever Alejandro Pena and a couple of prospects. Instead, former Pirates manager Jim Leyland exploded with the secret news, and the Pirates reneged at the last minute.
The second time was a year later, when Bonds was a free agent. He signed with the Giants, but here’s the rest of the story: He told me that summer of 1993 that he was so convinced he’d join the Braves that he went house shopping in Atlanta the previous autumn. That’s when his Pirates played the Braves for the National League pennant. Said Bonds, frowning, “Atlanta just didn’t want me, man.”
Schuerholz said a shrinking budget forced him to choose between Bonds, the huge free-agent slugger, and Greg Maddux, the huge free-agent pitcher.
Right choice? Well, I’m taking Bonds, especially since those Braves teams were loaded with pitching, but Smoltz smiled, saying, “That’s really a tough one to answer. Greg won four straight Cy Young Awards. So we’ve seen over the years, to answer that fairly, what great pitching can do to great hitting.”
Some combination of Cy Maddux, Cy Glavine and Cy Smoltz got the Braves a record 14 straight division titles, but only one world title. With (seven-time) MVP Bonds, they probably win fewer division titles but more world championships.
“As you’ve heard me say before, Barry Bonds is the best player I’ve ever played against,” Smoltz said. “This is one of those questions you can toss up, spit out and not come up with a really good answer.”
Or any answer.
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Course will provide entertainment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Oakmont, Pa.— Before we go any further with this U.S Open, the l07th, if you’re keeping score, there are a few little items that should be brought before the house. First, let me say that there shall be no discussion of the wrist in golf. We all know a wrist is very important to the swing, but haven’t we sort of overdone Phil Mickelson’s? (What about his putting?) And that guy walking along with him on the course holding his hand the other day. Who do they think they’re kidding? (Just kiddin’.)
Nor will we speculate on just how becoming a father will change Tiger Woods’ game. Most of us males have all become a father at some time or another — three times for me — but never did it affect the Earth’s rotation such as this one. I read somewhere the other day this story headlined “Fatherhood Fits Tiger Well.”
Swell. I think that’s just great. I don’t know how the study was made, but I presume that Mrs. Woods was included among those consulted. I’ll say this, that being a father, and raising my three sons, was the highlight of my life.
We’re here, at Oakmont Country Club — the president is a Georgia Bulldog, by the way, Bill Griffin out of Morgan County — to play the national golf championship on a course that’s pretty much the same as it was when it was created in 1903. It was simply plopped down along this acreage along Hulton Road, and here it lies. Greens were laid out on ground the way Mr. H.C. Fownes found it. No bulldozers, no shapers, no false ponds. You might say the original designer was God. It is, to continue its mystique, the only golf course in the country with an interstate highway running through it, I-76. Otherwise known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
You’ve read, too, I’d suppose, about how the course is “treeless.” Stripped over the years by a carefully and slyly managed program, cutting out a few here and a few there until there wasn’t tree left on the course. Well, that’s not altogether true. There are trees all over the place, spreading oaks and elms and beech and so on, but not on the course itself. None of the trees left affect play. The quality of golf was not affected, though Joyce Kilmer would have been crushed. You know, “I think that I shall never see,” and so on.
Hear what Arnold Palmer says of Oakmont. (He lives about 45 minutes away.) “Some golf courses you play and get comfortable with. Oakmont just doesn’t happen to be. I’ve played it since I was 12 years old, and I’m still not sure I understand it.”
Oakmont is a golf course meant for the U.S. Open. It plays hard and it plays mean. It can be stretched out to a length of 7,230 yards, not exasperatingly long by any means. But it’s deviltry is not wrapped up in the length, it’s undulation and harsh greens. Since I first came here in 1973, the year of Johnny Miller’s 63, I’ve parked by the 10th green hours at a time for some of golf’s cruellest entertainment. The hole is 462 yards, all downhill, to a green that’s also downhill, with a serious slant. By the end of the Open, it’s a good bet that the 10th hole will have taken the most blood. It’s like watching a horror movie.
The USGA elves take delight in their clever pairings. For instance, all three of the Spaniards, Jose-Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and Pablo Martin were lumped together. Worked for Jose-Maria, who came in at 70. It had to be in a moment of high humor when Boo Weekley and Bubba Watson, the two drawling Floridians, were paired with Nobuhiro Masuda from Japan, who was heard to say afterward, “Don’t anybody around here speak American?” In Japanese, of course.
Best bet: Not one of the heavyweights will win this Open. Pick your favorite underdog.
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