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« Too Buff for His Own Good | Main | Two-for-One Diagnostic Special! »

It's the Time of the Season ...

February 25, 2007

Spring training is the best time of year for most baseball fans. The rookie with the skillet for a glove is learning to catch fly balls. The manager and superstar have ended their spat. Injuries have healed. The former phenom, the brilliant lefty who crashed and burned, has matured. (Oh, and he's finally healthy, as well.)

Lifelong fans like me figured out a long time ago that you can't really believe much of what you read in spring training. The regular season -- April through September, and then into October if your team justifies the optimism of its spring-training headlines -- is the only barometer that matters. If the players are really healthy, mature, and improved, they'll prove it over six months and 162 games.

In other words, spring is for optimism, summer is for reality, and fall is for pessimism bordering on despair for most fans.

But this spring-training story, by Jeff Pearlman, is different from the rest of its genre. It covers the entire spectrum of a fan's emotion -- from sweetness and light to crushing cynicism:

Barry Bonds reports to Scottsdale with the Giants, throws darts at the media, treats the team's equipment managers and publicists like dirt -- then goes all cute and cuddly on us.

Remember last year, when Bonds dressed up as Paula Abdul (only with larger breasts -- which is alarming, considering that his are real)? Or how about a few years earlier, when he jumped through hoops to declare his love for Jeff Kent, aka The Man Bonds Wants To Swallow a Grenade.

This year, the scene involved new San Francisco ace Barry Zito, who on Wednesday posed for pictures alongside Bonds as both men laughed and smiled and wore T-shirts reading "DON'T ASK ME ... ASK BARRY!"

Oh, boy.

It is, of course, a ploy; an attempt by His Big Headedness to temporarily con us into thinking that, gosh darnit, Barry Bonds really is one heckuva guy.

We know what Bonds is, and it's not "one heckuva guy." But Pearlman says there was once another transcendant superstar who acted sweet for the cameras but treated everyone else like dirt:

Once, when Reds slugger Ken Griffey Jr. was a 20-something wunderkind patrolling center field for the Seattle Mariners, reporters and fans flocked from across the map to watch him in spring training. Griffey was "The Kid" -- a seemingly happy-go-lucky, backward-hat-wearing puppy dog who could hit, field and run with the gusto of a Willie Mays and the pop of a Mickey Mantle. He was the future of the game, and along with Bonds, one of its two best players.

He also happened to be a major pain in the ass.

Back then, Griffey had an attitude. He would offer snide answers to relatively intelligent questions. He would complain about a lack of respect, and -- if the mood struck -- insult anyone within striking distance. People would tiptoe past his locker, eager to avoid any sort of exchange. It was what one would expect from a pampered brat at the height of his profession, and it grated the masses.

In other words, he was Barry Bonds.

But then something happened. Read the whole thing to find out what it was.

(Thanks to Evan Pfannenstiel for the link.)

Posted by LouSchuler at February 25, 2007 06:40 AM

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Posted by: Redlefty at February 26, 2007 10:50 PM

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