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Friday, May 24, 2002

Like bridge painting and dieting, the process of criticizing Barry Bonds is something that is never, ever quite complete.

The fact your Pittsburgh Pirates have not had a winning season since Barry found his heart in San Francisco suggests an inherent bitterness to the previous statement, but my attitude toward the great slugger predates his departure and has always pretty much mirrored the shallow peevishness of the national media.

No need to thank me.

I've always been willing to give Barry the benefit of the doubt, all right, sometimes been willing, all right, now and again. I'll grant him that he's definitely the less annoying actor in those KFC commercials with Jason Alexander, who definitely needs to be smacked.

But when he says things like "the media have the freedom to say what they want, write what they want; it's really not fair," I am reminded that Barry's credentials as a First Amendment scholar aren't quite so stunning as his homers-per-100-at-bats stat: 7.15. Only Babe Ruth's (8.5) and Mark McGwire's (9.42) are better.

But today's gripe has more to do with Barry's relentless rise into the all-time homer ranks and imminent eclipse of Frank Robinson's career home run total, which is 586. Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, in his column this week on ESPN.com, makes the case that Robinson's career is somehow obstructed in the pantheon of baseball icons and supports it by pointing that Robinson was snubbed by the sculptors of baseball's All-Century team.

Be that as it may, no one who ever saw Robinson play could regard him as anything but the ultimate opposition monster, a player so complete and accomplished and competitive that he was universally feared and admired. He is still the only man to be the Most Valuable Player in each league.

There is perhaps one still relevant comparison of Bonds and Robinson, and it is so arcane that it requires a bit of storytelling from 39 years ago. God, I'm old.

In the first inning of the first game of the 1963 season, Robinson was hitting for the Cincinnati Reds in Philadelphia when Phillies Manager Gene Mauch shot out of the dugout to make perhaps an unprecedented argument. Mauch didn't like what Robinson was wearing and told the umpiring crew chief that unless Robinson changed his clothes, the Phillies were playing the game under protest.

The offending garment was a type of vinyl windbreaker that Robinson wore under his gray, sleeveless Reds blouse. Though it was a chilly night in Philly, Mauch argued that the windbreaker gave Robinson an extra advantage against his pitcher, Art Mahaffey. And though Robinson crowded the plate with impunity anyway, Mauch's contention was essentially that the windbreaker gave the hitter too much protection in the delicate psycho-phobic equation between hitter and pitcher.

Fast forward now merely to the next century and look at the protection Bonds wears on his right arm when he bats, the hard plastic shield that upsets that same equation. Barry was practically fearless as a young hitter with no such armor, but he is nothing less than menacing since putting on that black brace after an elbow injury.

Your baseball people with broader perspectives are none too comfortable with it, especially since Bonds has been emulated in this regard, most conspicuously by Houston's Craig Biggio and the Mets' Mo Vaughn, who've decided to give themselves the same edge.

"They shouldn't have any; it's ridiculous," current Phillies Manager Larry Bowa told the Philadelphia Daily News. "There were stars 20 years ago [with no armor]." Bowa said hitters feel emboldened by it, and that tweak of the psyche limits the effectiveness of pitchers. And he's right.

Two weeks before this season began, Bob Watson, baseball's director of field operations, issued a memo on the Bonds' armor.

"It's in compliance," Watson said. "He's got a medical exemption."

Funny, half the pitchers in the league have had arm trouble, but they don't get to pitch off a higher mound.

"It's the same rule as last year," Watson said, referring to a 2001 edict that elbow pads can't be more than 10 inches in length and must be covered in nylon. "We will make sure that the rules are complied with."

Well, there's a bold initiative. There are 10 violations of the old pine tar rule every game and as many violations of the back line of the batter's box. Umpires enforce what they want to enforce.

Barry should have to remove that elbow pad. He should have to risk taking a Randy Johnson fastball off the skeleton just like everybody else. It's part of the game's essential dynamic.

Or something.