Baseball should shun Bonds

This is about Barry Bonds. Let me rephrase that. This is about the lack of Bonds, the absence of Bonds, the rumor that he exists in a parallel universe as a former ballplayer, as an almost ballplayer, as a player in waiting.

But first I want to talk about Tony La Russa. I swear a connection exists, but I want to make it in a roundabout way. Years ago, the Cardinals came to San Francisco for a series against the Giants. This was when Mark McGwire played for St. Louis and was a big deal and hadn't yet been disgraced. I said hello to McGwire -- remember, he's a nice guy. Afterward, I walked into La Russa's office to say hi -- I've known him a long time.

"Do you think Mark will make it to the Hall of Fame?" I asked.

I thought it was a legitimate question. La Russa looked at me with his lawyer face, showed no emotion.

"You know what we call that in our clubhouse?" he asked in an even voice. I said I didn't know. "We call that a dumb (expletive deleted) question."

Well, gee, I never like asking a dumb (expletive deleted) question, although it turns out, if I do say so myself, the question wasn't so (expletive deleted) dumb. It was ahead of its time. That's not my point -- the timeliness of the question. My point is how La Russa thinks, how a manager thinks.

La Russa wants to win. It's his job to win and you figure he'd play Dracula and the Frankenstein monster and other assorted anti-social types if they'd take him to the World Series -- not to say McGwire equates with Dracula.

La Russa does not think about a player's morals. La Russa thinks about him as a baseball producer. Period.

Which brings us to Barry Bonds. La Russa admitted last weekend he tried to score Bonds for the Cardinals. Call that "manager-think."

La Russa has Albert Pujols, a marvelous player, and he wants to protect Pujols in the batting order. He wants Bonds, still a power hitter, still a threat as he approaches his 44th birthday, to bat behind Pujols.

From a baseball perspective, from a win-now perspective, from a manager-think perspective, La Russa makes perfect sense. It is the point of view he's supposed to have.

Thank goodness other points of view overrule the manager's.

The Cardinals' executives, the people who run the show, the people who see the big picture, said ix-nay to Bonds. They also said you've got to be kidding, not in our part of Missouri, not in our lifetimes, please take a deep breath, Tony, and if you still feel dizzy, inhale and exhale into a paper bag. Or something like that.

In other words, the Cardinals wouldn't go anywhere near the former San Francisco hero, the home-run king, the guy with the big fat head.

Look, Bonds may eventually land a baseball job -- the Tampa Bay Rays have toyed with the idea of signing him. Bonds could DH for them. I hope he doesn't. I hope he's history.

I think the Cardinals execs were right. There are other kinds of sense besides baseball sense. There's common sense. There's good sense.

No team should want Bonds -- even though he can hit -- because he's a load.

Forget his pending court case for a moment. I'll get back to that. His mere presence is a downer. It's like a meteor crashed into a clubhouse the way he sits in his corner not talking, scowling, acting as if his teammates and the very game of baseball are beneath him.

It's how he never connects with the team.

It's how he's a mercenary out for himself and his numbers -- and he does nothing to hide that.

Notice how the Giants players kissed up to him last season -- Barry Zito being the biggest kiss-up -- and now that the Bonds' spell has been lifted, the players are telling what they really think. Barry inhibited them. They didn't feel like themselves in his overwhelming presence. That sort of thing.

Other teams should pay attention to that. Other teams should beware the Barry Curse.

And there is the pending court case -- some small matter about perjury and obstruction of justice.

You can just hear a manager giving the lineup before a game some Tuesday in July. "Oh, Barry won't be here the entire next month. He's on trial and may go to the slammer and, oh yes, he has a pulled hamstring."

What major-league team needs that? No team needs this public-relations killer lurking in the clubhouse. No team needs his bad vibes and his crummy personality and his legal troubles. Baseball has to move on -- without Bonds.

There is an irony in Bonds' position. For decades, he turned his back on everyone else. Now, when he desperately wants to play baseball, his sport may turn its back on him. I call that justice.

You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@ pressdemocrat.com.