You want to know the saddest part of all of this for me?
As a kid I loved the Say Hey Kid, Willy Mays. Mays is Barry's godfather and his late father's best friend. I also liked his father Bobby. Hard not to like a guy who plays tough hard nosed baseball like Bobby. The first 30-30 guy if I am not mistaken. (Could be, not a baseball trivia expert by any wild stretch.)
If ever there was a player I wanted to root for it was Barry Bonds. There is no denying his talent. One of the best pure Left Fielders I've ever seen if not the purest.
I met him at Spring Training here several years ago (when he first joined the Giants) and he is just an absolute boor. He's rude, arrogant, and moody. It isn't just a persona on ESPN. It's real. I have a friend who is a valet parking attendant at a local club where all the ball players go. He says Barry regularly stiffs them for tips. FYI, he says the best tipper is Frank Thomas.
I have a friend who is a DJ and he asked Barry to sign a baseball the year he hit 73 to give away for a promotion. You'd have thought he asked for the world. Joe still has that ball but he's keeping it in case it has any monetary value. It holds no sentimental value to him at all.
Sad that someone that blessed with a gift could be so myopic to how much good he could do in a world that would like to love him.
I don't think I've ever seen a Hall of Famer more unpopular than Bonds. What a joke baseball has become.
