Remembering Bobby Bonds, post-stardom

Unless you are a forty-something, need-a-life, baseball junkie, the death of Bobby Bonds this past week generated little more than a passing nod.

For me it was a little more personal, because it took me back to a time and an experience that I still hold close to me.

Bonds, the father of Giants megastar Barry Bonds, arrived with the Giants as the apparent heir to Willie Mays. But he wasn't Willie.

Yes, Bonds had that rare combination of blazing speed and power. He was the original 30-homer, 30-stolen-base man at a time when no one was doing it. But he was also strikeout prone. Still, he was the most dangerous leadoff man in the game, until Rickey Henderson came along.

Bonds was a three-time All Star in a career that, after seven seasons with the Giants, backslid with seven teams in seven years. It also included an inglorious return to the bushes. That's where he spent a forgettable summer in Wichita, Kan., in 1981, which turned out to be an unforgettable summer for the voice of the Aeros, who happened to be me.

Yes, just a year removed from doing play-by-play of slow pitch softball in Ithaca, N.Y., one of my first assignments as announcer-salesperson-public relations guy was to pick up our new acquisition, one Bobby Lee Bonds, at the airport.

For me, this was a genuine highlight, a brush with greatness. For Bonds, a little less so. He squeezed into my beat-up Honda Civic and, with his knees in his face and thoughts of his limo-riding days gone by, no doubt pondered exactly how far he had fallen.

Recently released in spring training by the Cardinals, Bonds had signed a minor league deal with the Texas Rangers and agreed to report to their Triple-A outlet for a few weeks to tune up before moving back up to the big club. But fate got in the way of his Rangers return.

First the major leaguers went on strike and shut down for more than two months, and at the same time it quickly became evident that Bonds, at age 35, was on his last legs as a player. The guy I remembered watching strike fear in the hearts of the best major league pitchers could not get around on a Triple-A fastball. And his legs were dead.

Since the strike didn't affect Triple-A, Bonds became a big story, and I served as his go-between as several big name journalists from Brent Musburger of CBS to Lesley Visser of the Boston Globe joined us on the road to chronicle this one-time major star now in the minors.

My bond with Bonds also grew because, for the first month of the season, he let me hang around with him while keeping his teammates at an arm's length. I guess he didn't want to admit he was a Triple-A player. He didn't like to talk much about himself but did brag about his teenage sons Bobby Jr. and Barry.

It was also here that I received one of those educations that you can't get at a university. Bonds was blessed with the chiseled physique of an NFL running back. But like so many athletes of his time, Bonds abused that body. He was a three-pack-a-day smoker and he did indulge in alcohol and not in a small way.

When you're out with Bobby, you learn that he always picks up the tab. But I paid in other ways. A year removed from four years of college party life, I thought I could hold my own. But let's just say that a few late nights that turned into early mornings with Bobby taught me that I was way out of my league. The main wing of the Country Music Hall of Fame couldn't have kept up with him.

It's not hard to imagine that all those years of nocturnal activity took a toll and cut his career short. Years of heavy smoking probably had a lot to do with the cancer ultimately lead to his untimely death.

I always found fascinating the stark contrasts between Bobby and Barry Bonds. Bobby never touched a dumbbell, while Barry became a workout warrior. Bobby rose to stardom early in his career but then leveled off, while Barry came in as a line-drive hitter but, at the age his father faded, grew into the most prolific slugger of his time and perhaps all time.

Most importantly, Bobby was a man who never could quite seem to overcome his vices, while Barry, who will never be mistaken for Mr. Congeniality, is squeaky clean in that area.

A beaming Bobby once said his proudest accomplishment was being known as the father of Barry Bonds. I always sensed that after dealing with a career of wasted talented and unrealized expectations, Bobby had exorcised his demons. The saddest thing in life is unfulfilled potential and at the end, Bobby Bonds figured he had balanced his books.