Will Bonds ever be able to erase his postseason failures?
JUNE 9, 2001

Fans' View

AP Photo
San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds is well ahead of Mark McGwire's record-setting home run pace.

Today, MLB fan Steven Schindler wonders whether a run at homer history will make fans forget Barry Bonds' postseason failures.

San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds is on an unprecedented tear of late. With his sixth homer of this season Bonds became the eighth quickest to reach the 500-homer mark and only the 17th player to get that far period. Bashin' Barry reached the 30-homer mark this month faster than any big leaguer ever. At the age of 36, Barry Bonds has gone insane.

Bonds is currently on pace to bang out more than 80 homers this season, and one has to wonder if all of these early season pyrotechnics can possibly bring his ardent fans to forget his career of futile Septembers. Can Bonds smack the memory of failures past out of the park by going long where no man has gone long before?

Apparently, Barry is determined to find out. It's just too bad that the Giants aren't prepared to take advantage of his blinding power show. Enjoying a highly mediocre season thus far, Barry's team has failed to take full advantage of where he is trying to lead them.

Barry began the season collecting 13 hits in his first 56 at-bats, eight of which were homers. If the Giants weren't winning early, it wasn't for lack of effort on his part. Barry swatted three game-winning dingers in four games early on to announce his best start at the plate ever as a Giant.

At one point, Bonds exploded for nine homers in just six games. The Giants went 1-5 in those six games, and their only win coming in a game in which Barry jacked three out of the park. It was becoming very clear, very quickly that Bonds was hot and the Giants were not. What's a future Hall of Famer to do?

Keep on hitting, we must assume, because hit is what Barry has done. Bonds went on a tear in which he slammed a homer in six consecutive games for the second longest such streak in NL history. He reached his 30th slam six games faster than Babe Ruth did back in '28 to set his latest record. Barry now resides at No. 11 on the all-time homer list with 526 and needs only nine more to pass Jimmie Fox for 10th place.

While the career NL lefty home run king keeps hitting homers, his Giant mates appear to have no clue. They have lost nine of their last 11 on the road (through Thursday).

While the Giants appear allergic to the idea of breaking .500 this season, Bonds shoulders a lumberjack's load thus far as many of his starting mates languor at the plate sporting batting averages of .270 or less. This currently puts them a half dozen games behind Arizona in their division.

Hopefully, a few more Giants will follow the lead of the likes of Rich Aurilia, Shawon Dunston and Benito Santiago and help Bonds mix in a few more wins here and there. Barry does not want this to be a one-man show, and he sure doesn't want there to be another infamous Bonds' September flameout.

Dating back to 1990, when he began racking up MVP Awards, Bonds sports an unenviable record of futility in big-money NL playoff series. In three consecutive years, Bonds led the Pirates to NL East crowns only to fade from sight when it counted. He went 3-for-18 against the Reds in '90, 4-for-27 in '91 and 6-for-23 in '92 against the Braves. In the '97 NLDS against the Marlins, Barry went 3-for-12 as a Giant to raise his career postseason batting average to a sparkling .200.

Then came last year's playoff series against the Mets. After a season in which the Giants opened Pac Bell Park posting a whopping 55-26 home field advantage, nobody wanted to bring up the past September folds of Barry Bonds. Forget about it, they said.

Well, easier said than done. In the four-game series with the Mets, Bonds batted .176 with one RBI. Barry personally ended 10 innings with futile at-bats leaving Jeff Kent, a 125-RBI hitter during the season, watching in dismay from the on-deck circle. Those 10 at-bats included game-ending plate appearances in Games 2 and 4 as well. Ouch!

A younger, less mature Bonds would not have fared so well in the media spotlight of these last few years. But with age comes wisdom, and Bonds now does not fear what the press and the questions bring to his plate.

San Francisco fans should take heart that Barry Bonds has found the fountain of youth late in his 36th year. He astounds his teammates with his ability to play at peak performance levels at his advanced age. He courts his fans and the press with confidence and composure under the media frenzy of the current campaign. And there are no cries from community leaders for Barry to end his love affair with the diminutive 307-foot right-field porch at Pac Bell Park.

Yet the dark memories remain. Nightmares of an ancient Sid Bream scoring from second, beating out an off-line, Wiffle Ball throw in a thrilling Game 7 still wakes them screaming in the night. It remains to be seen if even 85 record-setting home runs this season can make Bonds' long suffering fans forget.

Copyright © 2001 All rights reserved.