Jan 31 2009
What if Bonds had been a Brave? Who’s to say?
By Bud L. Ellis
braves.today.com
ATLANTA — Fixing a sandwich and pouring a glass of sweet tea late last night, something on the MLB Network caught my ear.
During a segment reviewing the Detroit Tigers’ season, the commentator stated: “Magglio Ordonez led the American League with 37 home runs.”
(To go down a different path for a second, remember this time last year, when everybody – including yours truly – thought the Tigers would win 105 games, what with the acquisition of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, and that great young pitching, and that awesome lineup? Well, just goes to show expectations in January don’t necessarily translate into a golden ticket to October.)
Back to my point: Ordonez leading the Junior Circuit last season with 37 homers. On the National League side, Ryan Howard setting the pace, bashing 48 homers.
Forty-eight homers. Thirty-seven homers. Leading the league? When I was a kid, sure. But as we saw during the late 1990s and the early part of this decade, those numbers would barely make the leaderboard, let alone stand at the top.
Of course, any talk about the explosion of home runs starts with Barry Bonds, the same Bonds who on this day stands ready not to take his gear to spring training, but instead to take his rear to federal court, as allegations of steroid use swirl around the man who hit more home runs than any other in baseball history.
I can’t help but wonder how history would’ve been different if a certain general manager had gotten his way at a couple of junctures in 1992.
Bonds was the prime offensive player on the free-agent market following the 1992 season, a campaign during which he led the Pittsburgh Pirates to their third-consecutive NL East title. But following three losses in the NLCS, Bonds hit the open market ready to see what type of deal he could get from a contender.
The team that ended Bonds’ season in 1991 and 1992 certainly was interested. The Atlanta Braves lost the World Series in both of those years, and conventional wisdom and public opinion dictated the Braves needed one more impact player to make the push from contender to champion.
The Bonds’ rumors swirled through the Georgia air that winter, starting right after Bonds’ throw to the plate was just a second late in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the NLCS, slow-footed Sid Bream lunging feet-first into the dish to send the Braves to the Fall Classic and cap a three-run ninth-inning miracle that was the greatest game I ever saw in person (yes, I was there; the ticket stub is framed in the Sports Garage).
Now, whether you believe it to be fact or merely an urban legend that’s juicy in the details, there is a story that during the NLCS in 1992, Bonds was spotted driving around the northern suburbs of Atlanta, telling a couple of people that he was house-hunting.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it stems from the fact that during spring training in 1992, the Braves had a tentative agreement with Pittsburgh in which Bonds would have been traded to Atlanta for Alejandro Pena, Keith Mitchell and a player-to-be-named-later. But Pittsburgh manager Jim Leyland balked at the trade, and the Pirates pulled out at the very last minute, right as the Braves were planning the press conference to announce the deal.
What if Leyland had merely fired up another cigarette and said, “OK, deal him to Atlanta,” or what if Bonds indeed had signed with the Braves after the ’92 season? How different would history be now, a history that contains Bonds’ remarkable 762 career home runs, a history that contains the stain of allegations of performance-enhancing drugs that has Bonds in trouble with the feds and pronounced “guilty” by a large percentage of the public?
Who’s to say? I’m willing to bet under Bobby Cox and John Schuerholz, things would’ve been different. Maybe Bonds wouldn’t have 762 career homers. Maybe Bonds wouldn’t be slated to appear in federal court in March. Maybe the Braves would’ve won more than one World Series.
Who’s to say? In the end, it turned out well for the Braves, even without Bonds. Had Atlanta traded for Bonds in the spring of 1992, it’s doubtful they would’ve felt the need one summer later to land a big bat, hence Fred McGriff wouldn’t have been stolen from San Diego, he wouldn’t have hit a homer in his first game as a Brave – on the night one of the private boxes in the club level of old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium caught on fire.
And if Bonds had been signed as a free agent after the ’92 season? Well, suffice to say that would’ve been the big signing by the Braves that offseason. Instead of Bonds, who ended up signing with San Francisco, Atlanta turned its attention to a right-handed pitcher from Chicago.
Some guy named Maddux. Maybe you’ve heard of him.
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