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A bittersweet end Bonds gets HR record, Giants lose out on postseason
Updated: Sunday October 07, 2001 11:09 AM
SAN FRANCISCO -- The home runs were something, all right. After all, that was history flying out of a nippy Pac Bell Park on Friday, knocked into the San Francisco night by a couple of swings of Barry Bonds' bat. Those homers were long, too. Boy, they were long. And dramatic. Flashbulbs popping, the crowd on its feet. Banners raised, fireworks over McCovey Cove. Curtain calls. The whole home run spiel. By midnight Pacific Time, the TV folks had replayed No. 71, the first dinger, some 612 times. From 32 different angles. You can't get too much of a good home run, you know. When you get right down to it, though, when everything is added up and the standings stare out at you, all cold and unforgiving, Bonds' two home runs Friday mean little more than history. No more than history, really. Barry Bonds is the new home run king. There's no denying that. But his San Francisco Giants won't play in baseball's postseason, not after Friday's 11-10 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. There's no denying that, either. Bonds makes history. The Giants are history. "To my teammates: We worked real hard," Bonds said at a teary postgame ceremony. "And we're going to work real hard again." Bonds, a free agent after the season ends, has done all he could, and he didn't stop Friday. He added to what already is one of the most remarkable offensive seasons in history -- his .860 slugging percentage is the highest ever -- by blasting both of his homers off hapless Dodgers starter Chan Ho Park. In the first inning, he punched a Park fastball 442 feet to right-center field for the home run that broke Mark McGwire's 3-year-old record. The crowd roared, the fireworks went off, Bonds took time to talk on a cell phone with his dad, former major leaguer Bobby Bonds (who was in Connecticut at a charity golf event). The younger Bonds went out for his curtain call. Two innings later, another Park fastball landed in the seats in center, then bounced out, a 407-footer for No. 72. The Giants scrapped back -- they were down 5-0 after the first half-inning -- to tie the score at 10-10 in the sixth inning. But the Dodgers pushed across a run in the seventh and it held up. Bonds leaned on the dugout railing, his head in his hand as the last out was made, a bitter end to a beautiful season. Later, as a few thousand bundled-up die-hards stayed behind for the ceremony -- the game ended past midnight and took 4 hours, 27 minutes to play, the longest nine-inning game in history -- Bonds even made up with the fans. "We've come a long way, we've had our ups and downs," he said as his eyes welled up. "Thank you." All season long, Bonds has talked of the home run record as secondary. Winning, and getting into the playoffs, was what he preached. Bonds, probably the best pure player in baseball for at least the past decade, has hit only .196, with one homer and six RBIs, in his five trips to the postseason. That made Friday's loss even harder to take. "When you've had everything in your career but winning it all ... you've had the MVPs, you've got a home run title ...," San Francisco manager Dusty Baker was saying before the game, "after a while, it's like a very rich man: What does he want for a present?" All he has left, for this season at least, is the record. And, to many, even 72 homers aren't enough. "I want him to get it [the record] where nobody can get to it," Giants great Willie Mays said. That will have to do. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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