Member No. 1 remarked in one of these threads recently that he didn't quite understand the animosity toward Barry Bonds.
Well, this anecdote, if true, would go a ways toward explaining part of it.
In an otherwise ordinary
Lisa Olson column in Saturday's Daily News, inspired by the Giants' lone visit to Shea Stadium this year, she ruminates on whether the Big Man will ever return to baseball, given his knee injuries and BALCO and tax liability concerns.
Toward the end, she relates a passage from a book by a former major league designated hitter,
Ron Kittle (presumably
this book). Kittle played 10 seasons and hit 176 home runs, so he had some credibility as a major leaguer.
Here's Olson's relation of the anecdote, through to the end of her column:
An excerpt from Ron Kittle's new book offers another one of those anecdotes that traces Bonds' legacy as much as any hit. Kittle describes a scene at Wrigley Field in 1993, when he asked Bonds to autograph a couple of Giants road jerseys for Kittle's charity that benefits children with cancer.
"I paid about $110 of my own money for them, so they could be auctioned off at the golf outing." Kittle wrote. "I did that all the time for stars like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Derek Jeter and Roger Clemens. When I tell them how their autographs help the cause, every player gladly signs - with one exception.
"I walked up to Bonds at his locker in the Wrigley Field visitors' clubhouse, introduced myself and said, 'Barry, if you sign these, they'll bring in a lot of money for kids who need help.'
"Bonds stood up, looked me in the eye and said, 'I don't sign for white people.'"
Is there any reason to doubt the passage's veracity? It might have been just Barry being Barry, cantankerous and defiant to the end. "Why should I care what anyone thinks?" he said in the visitors' clubhouse at Shea last May. "My records ain't going nowhere."
We'll check back with him next year, assuming he can be found.