Take Barry Bonds with you, Frank.
As the game approaches its annual October celebration of greatness, baseball's most depressing lab experiment in artificial greatness refuses to follow Robinson's example. Bonds made it clear last week that he intends to subject the sport to his milk-curdling presence again next year. (Oh, excuse me, that's assuming his family agrees, Bonds said. We all know what a paragon of family values the serial adulterer is.)
Fabulous. Another year of nonstop coverage of the least popular figure in sports (sorry, T.O.), another round of checking for federal indictments along with the standings, another season of insulting banners and boos with every at-bat.
Oh, and for you Giants fans, an armful of additional (non-)parting gifts: A payroll largely consumed by a left fielder who plays only when he feels like it - no deep discounts, insists a man who "earned" $18 million this season - and covers the same amount of ground either way. The necessary rebuilding of the game's most decrepit team delayed yet another 12 months. TV analysis by lawyers as frequent as by baseball experts. And virtually no chance of ending a four-year playoff drought, even in baseball's weakest division.
All this negativity, and for what? For the night, probably sometime next August, when Bonds extends the ultimate middle finger to baseball and his critics and finally takes his 756th home-run limp around the bases. By now, virtually nobody outside the San Francisco peninsula wants Bonds to collect the 22 homers necessary to surpass Hank Aaron, an insult to the integrity of the sport. Wonder if ESPN's blanket coverage will include reaction from Bonds' trainer, still jailed for his association with the home-run king, or the reporters who face time behind bars for revealing grand-jury testimony that incriminated Bonds as the game's No. 1 cheater?
But Giants owner Peter Magowan apparently covets the ticket revenues that ugly exercise would inevitably trigger more than the health, mental and physical, of the rest of his franchise. Why else would he consider allowing Bonds to inhabit his own personal fortress in the San Francisco locker room, and force his team to endure such a poisonous atmosphere?
That seems to be Magowan's plan, however. Reports in the Bay Area this week indicate that the Giants' owner fears a sharp decline in attendance next season, despite the fact the All-Star Game will be held in AT&T Park, allowing them to promote season-ticket sales with All-Star tickets.
Sammy Sosa slinked away when his reputation, not to mention his batting skills, deteriorated beyond repair. Rafael Palmeiro wisely took the hint when his phone didn't ring last spring.
Defiance has always defined Bonds almost as much as his quick bat, however, and he obviously intends to extend this deplorable carnival and leave the game on his own terms. It would be interesting to see if any other team would swallow all that baggage and risk alienating their fans to sign Bonds if he left the Giants - sadly, I fear someone would crave the publicity too much to resist - but it appears Magowan won't give his fellow owners a chance.
So as we wait to see how our preseason hunches play out this fall - how does my Red Sox-Braves forecast look now? - allow me to make my first prediction for 2007: Nothing but gloom amid the San Francisco fog.
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* PHIL
MILLER can be reached at pmiller
@sltrib.com .
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