Barry Bonds: Giants Are Right to Part with All-Time Great

The San Francisco Giants theme song goes, "When the Giants come to town, it's bye, bye, baby!" Now, it's also bye, bye, Barry - as in Barry Bonds.

The Giants have elected to part ways with Bonds after the 2007 season, the announced before their home game against the Cincinnati Reds, Friday, Sept. 21. The move is the first of what needs to be a rebuilding effort with youth as the team remains cemented in the cellar of the National League West in the final week of the regular season.

Bonds still might go to the American League and play as a designated hitter but who knows the likelihood of that scenario.

Earlier this season, Bonds surpassed Hank Aaron for the all-time lead in career home runs much to the chagrin of many fans. Bonds has 762 career home runs, passing Aaron's 755. After which time, Bonds' playing time decreased to a certain extent. More so than any modern day slugger, Bonds' name has been liked to using performance enhancing drugs. Bonds' prickly attitude hasn't endeared him to many folks either but that's another story.

Of course, many people thought Bonds would be wearing a different uniform in 2007 before the Giants signed him to a one-year $16-million dollar deal largely because he had been with the team since 1993 and wanted to see him breaking the record wearing orange and black, not as an American League designated hitter.

While it's fair to say that the 43-year old Bonds played better than expected in '07, in hitting 28 home runs and driving in 66. Despite those numbers, keeping him beyond this season simply did not make sense.

Yes, Bonds has been the face of the Giants franchise since signing as a free agent from the Pittsburgh Pirates before the 1993 season and is undoubtedly one of the best players ever to play the game. Sorry Bonds haters, he was a Hall-of-Famer long before his name was linked to steroids.

From 1993-2004, Bonds was the best player in baseball. Or if he wasn't the best, he was in a very select group of four or five players. Bonds' enormous talent often masked the deficiencies the Giants had. San Francisco made it to the postseason four times in the Bonds era and the Giants were a choke job away from winning the World Series in 2002.

Bonds impact, however, went beyond his enormous stats. Those hitting in front of or behind him, often saw better pitches to hit because opposing managers feared Bonds. Since 2005, however, Bonds has been just a shadow of his former self. Bonds missed most of the 2005 season because of a knee injury. It's no accident that the Giants have been a sub.500 team since that time.

One argument some fans make for the Giants keeping Bonds is because he "sells tickets." Honestly, there couldn't be a worse reason. For one thing, not many fans come to the ballpark specifically for him now like they did a few years ago. OK, granted they perhaps did it a few weeks before the record because he was so close but how much of a draw can he possibly be when he hits a home run maybe every 7-10 days?

Since opening their picturesque downtown ballpark (AT&T Park) in 2000, the Giants have set not only franchise attendance records but Bay Area attendance marks. It also stands to reason that the franchise is fearful of rebuilding the team with youth as several fans suggest because ownership has believed attendance would fall greatly.

That logic has some merit because California sports fans are a fickle, if not elitist bunch, because their argument is that they have so many other things to do unlike other areas of the country. Well, certainly the ocean, the Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe to name a few are attractive areas but people in the Midwest, Southeast or East Coast are hardly deprived of things to do.

If the Giants were playing at their former home (Candlestick Park), then yes, posing fans would be an enormous probability. The weather conditions there are horrible - cold and windy for openers. So unless the Giants were good, going to a game at Candlestick was a hard sell for fans. Well, casual fans anyhow.

AT&T Park, however, is a totally different scenario. For starters, there's the view of San Francisco Bay, children's playgrounds and a great variety of food. Granted, it has created a fan base that is willing to pay for an $8 souvenir Budweiser but that's all the more reason why attendance would not drop enormously if the Giants parted ways with Bonds.

Plus, since there are so many tourists and people coming from out of town to do business in the area, they'll always attract those who want to see a game at the ballpark while they are in town. After all, kit's in close proximity to numerous restaurants.

If the Giants parted ways with Bonds, attendance would drop to some degree. They might not draw 42,000 but I'd say 25,000 in a worst case scenario. Season-ticket holders would still come to the games because they'd want to be there when the team is a good one down the road.