Scott Olster wrote an article in the S.F. Chronicle today about the lengths the Giants have gone to distance themselves from Barry Bonds. The Giants used Bonds to sell tickets during his record breaking home run season while fielding an inferior team. Once Bonds broke the record in front of his only supporters in the country, the Giants dropped him like a $5 chip in Vegas. The Giants are now going all out to remove any memory of Bonds from their ballpark. You now have a better chance of seeing a W-’04 bumper sticker in San Francisco than you do of seeing any signs of Barry at AT&T Park.
From the Chronicle: “The ballpark itself has been de-Bondsed. Gone are the huge cloth murals of Bonds and “756” that hung from the lighting towers flanking the centerfield scoreboard. Gone is the Bonds career-home-run “scoreboard.”
The leftfield fence now features a long green blank between the ads for Chevron and Bud Lite. Last season, that space was devoted to Bonds – first a mural of Bonds and three other Giants’ legends, and then a “Road to History” mural featuring a photo of Bonds and a highway sign with his name and team logo.
It makes sense that those temporary tributes would be removed. But for the last few years the Giants milked Bonds’ home-run-record chase for all it was worth, and now not even a simple “756” sign or some other visible nod to the man and the record?
There is a small sign urging fans to “Remember ’51,” the year of Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard Round the World.” But nothing to help them remember 756.
Bonds has been erased. Even the grass he killed in left field has grown back.
I asked team president Peter Magowan if management considered some kind of visible tribute to Bonds and his record.
“No,” Magowan said, eloquently.”
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