Using Bonds to Scare Owners Laughable

It's been almost 18 months since Barry Bonds appeared in a baseball uniform.

Don't you miss him?

I didn't think so, but the players union thinks you should. It believes Bonds is one of the players baseball has conspired against, so it is threatening to break out the old C-word.
Collusion.

"There's a level of suspicion in the air," agent Jeff Borris said.

Borris smells a rat. He should certainly recognize the scent considering he represents Bonds.

The C-word was in the air at the All-Star Game, prompting Bud Selig to sniff that the recession was to blame for the lack of free-agent activity last winter.

Never mind that almost every other business in America has frozen, furloughed, laid off or fired its work force. The union thinks any time baseball doesn't reward players like Congress rewards AIG, owners must have secretly gotten together and decided to turn off the money spigot.

Rattling the collusion saber is also a way for incoming union boss Michael Weiner to get some street cred with the members. He and Don Fehr will decide by the end of the month whether to file collusion charges. The union has already made a preliminary finding on one player.

You know him, you love him, the federal grand jury can't live without him.

Barry!

The union decided last October that baseball had ganged up on Bonds. Surprisingly, it didn't file a grievance, saying it preferred to resolve this one through negotiation.

Not-so-surprisingly, that has gone nowhere. It's as if baseball is daring the union to make Bonds Exhibit A in its grievance.

To be fair, it's not as if the plaintiff wouldn't have some points in his favor. The first being that if prior crimes were admissible evidence, baseball would be Bernie Madoff.

It was found guilty of collusion three times in the 1980s and ended up paying $280 million. A 1990 agreement tripled potential damages.

Bonds made $19.3 million in his final year with the Giants. If an arbitrator used that as a baseline, Barry could make enough to buy his own prison.

The union could also point out that Bonds hit 28 home runs and batted .276 and had a league-leading 132 walks in his final season. Sure, he had the mobility of a cement truck in left field, but couldn't some American League team have used him as a designated hitter?

Apparently not.

Bonds carried his "Will Slug for Food" throughout the winters of 2007 and 2008. He got zero offers from AL teams, NL teams and Japanese teams. Vince McMahon didn't even offer him a bout against Tonya Harding in Wrestlemania XXIV.

All this after Bonds said he would play for the major league minimum of $410,000. That's roughly what Mark Teixeira makes every three games.

The union could point out how Bonds would sell tickets. At least, he would once fans rationalized their team signed Attila the Home Run Hitter. San Franciscans did that quite nicely.

The rest of America did a Selig impersonation whenever Bonds appeared. Who could forget the commissioner's reaction when Bonds broke Hank Aaron's home run mark? Selig looked as if he'd just swallowed a roach, which collusionists say is evidence he reviled Bonds.

Sure he did. Approximately 98.8 percent of America can't stand Barry, but that doesn't mean 290 million people secretly agreed he was a jerk. It doesn't take a series of covert meeting to conclude he's not worth the trouble, even if played for $410 a year.


Forget the disruption factor and how he'd need extra clubhouse space for his lounge chair and wide-screen TV. Forget that he'll be 45 next Friday.

Forget the fact that, even in San Francisco, they want to pretend Bonds never existed. It took about 49 seconds for the Giants to remove the "756" sign and painting of Bonds on the outfield wall.

What we can't forget is Bonds' perjury trial, currently delayed as the feds appeal a judge's ruling. We all know he is innocent until proven guilty, but baseball isn't bound by such legal doctrine.

Would you sign a guy who still has 15 criminal counts hanging over his potato head?

Of course you would, at least according to the players union. Just as you should go on a free-agent spending spree during an economic meltdown.

If you don't, it must be collusion.

Sounds to me like another C word.

Common sense.