He was a sign of hope.
He was a sign of
better days ahead. Of great things to come for the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates.
A shinning beacon of success. A bit of sunlight poking out of the gray pale of
clouds that had been cast over Three Rivers Stadium. The next star. The bold,
bright future. He was a light at the end of the tunnel. And us Pirates fans; we
needed light
The 1985 season
had been the worst in 30 years for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It doesn’t get much
worse than a 57-105 record. The team was losing money and hemorrhaging fans.
1985 saw attendance dip down all the way to 735, 900, continuing the freefall
that began in 1984. Pirates attendance was the worst in the National League. Not
only were things bleak on the field, the Pittsburgh (cocaine) Drug Trails were
taking place in 1985, with at least six current and former Pirates players
involved.
In ’85, management
brought in players like “jogging” George Hendrick and Steve Kemp. Sixto Lezcano
and Johnny LeMaster. Mediocre to average players past their prime, brought in
to try and steer the sinking ship. They brought back Tim Foli but the 1979
magic was gone. By June, Foli hitting .189 in 19 games, was released.
All those has-beens
did was get hurt, or in the case of Hendrick, sulk and bat .230. The only
bright spots in 1985 were second baseman Johnny Ray and catcher Tony Pena, an
all-star with a .249 batting average. The only young player worth watching was
twenty-one-year-old shortstop Sam Khalifa. We’d sunk so low as fans; Sammy’s
.231 average was considered a bright spot.
He was going to
become the second coming of Clemente…. we hoped.
The last vestiges
of the 1979 World Series team were being shipped off or on their last legs as
Pirates. A disgruntled John “Candy Man” Candeleria was traded to the California
Angels. Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock to the Dodgers. The once-hopeful but now tragic
figure of Rod Scurry was sent off to the Yankees to join noted coke sniffer and
ex-Pirate Dale Berra. Buccos fans had to suffer seeing Kent Tekulve leave, and
end up in a goddamned Phillies uniform. Only Rick Rhoden and Don Robinson
remained from the Fam-A-Lee. There was talk of ownership selling the Pirates to
a group in Denver. Denver of all places! What did Denver need with a baseball team…especially
ours?
He was going to be
one of the greatest to ever play in the Steel City.
By
1986 there were signs of light and progress over at Three Rivers Stadium. We
had a new General Manager in Syd Thrift. He’d hired the team a new manager in
Jim Leyland. So long Chuck Tanner. The Pirates had managed to turn some of
those late-season 1985 trades into getting exciting, young players like R.J.
Reynolds and Sid Bream. We still had Johnny Ray and Tony Pena to put our faith
in. But by May of 1986, it was obvious that the re-shaped Pirates were still on
pace for another 100-game losing season (They would lose 98). Baseball times
were dark in Pittsburgh. For goodness sake Willie Stargell, Pops, was down in
Atlanta, coaching for the Braves, and dressed like this.
WTF, right?
He
was hope and change before Obama ever coined the phrase.
And
on May 30, 1986, twenty-one-year-old, first round draft pick Barry Lamar Bonds
made his major league debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates, going 0-5 in a 6-4,
11-inning loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not an auspicious start for the
future home run champ. But over time Barry Bonds would prove to be a dynamic
player, a catalyst to help lead the Pirate to three consecutive NL East
championships. Along the way he’d prove to be a thorn in the side of coaches,
managers, teammates and the local media. A surely superstar in the making. Barry
Bonds might’ve been an asshole, but for seven seasons he was our asshole. And
he played great baseball.
In in his rookie
season, Barry Bonds showed all of the promise that us fans had placed on him.
He led NL rookies in HR, RBI, SB and walks. Yet he came in 6th in
Rookie of the Year voting. That honor went to St. Louis relief pitcher Todd
Worrell. Barry’s first taste of the ol’ Pittsburgh curse. But we knew who the
real Rookie of the Year was. Us fans knew. Us kids knew. Barry Bonds was going
to be something special. To baseball and to the Pirates. He was going to be a
star. And we wanted all of his cards.
The first Bonds cards we were able to get came in those year-end sets in 1986.
Topps Traded. Fleer Update. Even Donruss felt compelled to put out a “Rookies”
set in 1986. And what a class that was. Aside from Barry Bonds, you had players
like Jose Canseco and Wally Joyner having their first cards in base and update
sets. Will “the thrill” Clark. Future two-sport legend, Bo Jackson. My favorite
Pirates player, Bobby Bonilla, showed up in those sets too. Albeit still in a
White Sox uniform.
1986 was the first
time in my life that I ever collected every update issue. Same went for my
friends. Phineas had them all. Miller had them too. My brother and I had to
have separate sets lest there be bloodshed on Penn Oak Manor Drive. Kids at
school had them. The rich ones bought two or three of the sets to break up. At
card shows we tried to buy singles of some of those rookie cards, but they were
too expensive back then. And when I got back into collecting in 2019, I had to
at least have the 1986 Topps Traded set in my collection.
For
me the real rookie cards of Barry Bonds and those other stars came in the 1987 issued
sets. 1987 was by far my favorite year for card collecting. In my humble
opinion, all of the sets looked fantastic and really stood out from other
years. You had Topps with their classic wooden borders harkening back to 1962.
Yet it was a legendary set in its own right.
1987 Topps was the
first wax box of cards that I ever opened with my own money. Getting up at 5
A.M. to sling newspapers and get chased by dogs had finally given me something.
That’s not to say that Fleer and Donruss were any slouch. Fleer with those
bright blue borders that faded into white, and had just a touch of 3-D imagery.
Donruss going the black route with those gold bands of baseballs on the side.
I could never
remember a year when all of the sets were at the top of their game. And maybe
because I was the ripe old age of thirteen in 1987, and had a farther reach
beyond just my neighborhood (on bike, on foot) all of the baseball card sets felt
available to me in ways that they weren’t before. Collecting wasn’t just a
passing fancy by 1987. I was deep in the trenches and so seemed to be everyone
else around me.
My old man took my
brother and I (with Phineas and Miller tagging along as well) to more card
shows. The old man most likely acquiescing because baseball card shows in the
mid to late 1980s, brought out all of the old timers to make money signing
cards and other memorabilia. It was hard not to feel like a kid again standing
in front of Brooks Robinson or Willie Mays. And going to more shows meant more
access to cards from the different companies. I had more 1987 Topps, Fleer and
Donruss than I’d ever had of any year before.
It
was not just the cards in 1987. The Pirates got better that year. It was the
turn of the century, 100 years of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball, and the young
talent was showing up. Sure, we lost Tony Pena, and eventually Johnny Ray, to
trades. But we gained Andy Van Slyke and Mike LaValliere. Some guy named Doug
Drabek, who only went on to win the 1990 Cy Young Award, came to Pittsburgh via
a trade with the Yankees. Bobby Bonilla was just beginning to stretch his
All-Star legs in right field and at third base.
The 1987
Pittsburgh Pirates were forming the nucleus of a team that would capture the NL
championship for 3 consecutive years. In the mix of it all was Barry Bonds. In
his first full season, at the tender age of 22 years old, Barry hit 25 home
runs and batted .261. The beginning of a tainted but still hall of fame worthy
career.
If
we were enthralled by 1987, the 1988 season at Three Rivers Stadium was even
better. The Pirates went 85-75. The team was over .500 for the first time in 4
seasons of previously miserable baseball. Barry Bonds upped his home run total
to 24, and upped his average to .283. The only step back that I saw that year
was in the baseball cards. After the exuberant designs of 1987, the 1988 sets
felt dull and bland to me. Devoid of any real creativity. And the cards were
everywhere. I could find baseball card at the drug store, at the grocery store,
in chain department stores long before Target and Wal-Mart sold them. The Junk
Wax era had fully arrived.
Only
the debut of Score in 1988 brought any juice to the hobby for me.
The Pirates stepped back in1989. It seemed everyone got hurt. We lost first baseman Sid Bream for almost the whole season. Andy Van Slyke and his fantastic glove missed some time in the outfield and at the plate. Barry Bonds took a step back as well. He slumped to19 home runs, and a .244 average. Only my guy, Bobby Bonilla was a bright spot that season. Bobby Bo had 24 home runs and batted .281. He even managed to play in 163 games in a 162-game season. Bobby was an all-star that year. And the cards? Not 1987, though I still love the Topps and Donruss sets to this day.
And good old Upper Deck had thrown it’s hat into the ring with
it’s classic debut set.
But
1990 was coming. And with it winning came back to Pittsburgh for the first time
since 1979. But things got off to a shaky start. It was Barry Bonds vs. the
local press in Pittsburgh. The press liked their sports stars affable and
quotable, always smiling, and maybe a few skin shades lighter than Barry Bonds.
It was Bonds vs. Jim Leyland in Spring Training with an argument whose video
made national news. But it all settled down by the time the season started. We
were in for a ride.
That record!
95-67! Twenty-five-year-old Barry Bonds
would hit 33 home runs and bat .301. 1990 would be the first all-star
appearance of fourteen for Barry Bonds. His first MVP of seven. Barry won a
gold glove in 1990. The first of eight gold gloves. He stole fifty-two bases in
1990, the first player to become a member of the 30-30 club. The legend and the
future had finally arrived. And it wasn’t juiced back then.
Barry Bonds was a myth to us kids. We emulated him when we played wiffle ball. He was my brother and Miller’s favorite player. Miller had Bonds’ stiff-armed batting stance down pat. He could shake his bat like Barry. He even tried to run like him. Posters hung in our bedrooms with reverence. If there was a God, he was playing left field for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Barry Bonds felt
tangible to us too. All players did back then. Miller swore up and down that he
saw Barry in a Penn Hills McDonald’s, just sitting there over a coffee and an
Egg McMuffin. Miller said Bonds smiled and nodded at him. Barry Bonds in our
suburb? It was unbelievable but we wanted to believe it. Barry Bonds smiling
and nodding? That wasn’t the Bonds we knew at games. The player whose star
shone so bright he wouldn’t come near us ball waving kids to sign a single
autograph, before or after a game. But if Miller had seen him. It had to be
true.
I
had my own run in with Barry Bonds in either 1990 or 1991, the year slips my
memory. Ever the small market team, the Pirates were about promotion, reaching
out to the fans. There was an autograph show at Three Rivers Stadium. No
tickets, etc. You just showed up and got into lines. Yours truly initially
waited for Bobby Bonilla (a story for another time), while Phineas went off to
wait forever in his blessed Andy Van Slyke line.
I still had time
after getting Bonilla’s autograph to get into another line. Though it was
ominously long, I got into the line for Barry Bonds. I waited a good hour and
half, as we inched our way toward our cardboard hero. When I reached Barry, he
said nothing to me. No McDonald’s smile or nod like he’d supposedly given
Miller. I handed Barry a clean, National League issued baseball. He hid the
ball underneath the table, and then handed it back to me without a word. The
ball wasn’t even signed on the sweet spot. I was disappointed but couldn’t
complain. Barry Bonds knew his value as well us collectors did. The ball went
into a cube on my dresser. Sadly, I no longer have it. Lost to the years of
countless moves to several cities.
The 1992 season
was Barry Bonds last in Pittsburgh. Having lost Bobby Bonilla to free agency
and the dreaded New York Mets, I took bittersweet joy in casting my lot with Bonds
during his Pittsburgh swan song. Barry became my main Pirate to collect.
Some double-vision on that Topps and Fleer, huh?
And Barry didn’t
disappoint. 1992 would see Barry Bonds hit 34 home runs while batting. 311. He’d
make the all-star team, and win his second MVP award. The Pirates would go
96-66 for their third NL championship, only to lose their third NLCS in the
bottom of the ninth inning on a play at the plate involving former Pirate, Sid
Bream, on an ill-timed and mis-played ball by none other than Gold Glove
winner, Barry Bonds. I’d never cried over a baseball game in my life…until that
moment.
It still hurts to this day.
I cried because I
knew. The end was coming. It was the end of an era for the Pirates, and one for
baseball cards. 1992 was the first year my Topps cards didn’t come with a stick
of gum. The first year in a long time that the cards were printed on a
different card stock. 1992 was the first time I didn’t feel excited about a
release, despite all of the innovations or improvements that the various brands
were making. I didn’t even bother buying any of the other brands but Topps. The
end was nigh for both Barry Bonds in Pittsburgh, and me in card collecting.
On December 8th, 1992, Barry Bonds left the Pirates to sign with his hometown San Francisco Giants. Barry had a Pirates card in 1993, but it felt like a slap in the face.
His departure from Pittsburgh coincided with my departure from collecting. I was nineteen and ending my freshman year of college. Buying CDs, Jack Kerouac novels, skipping classes to bum around coffee shops in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh while playing poet, meant more to me than shelling out money to buy packs of cards, or singles at card shows. I wanted the women in college to take me seriously.
In 1993 I only bought the Topps Pittsburgh Pirates team set.
It was a hollow purchase full of
ghosts. The Pirates teams that I’d loved from 1987-1992 were officially
breaking up. Bonilla was gone in 1992. Bonds and Doug Drabek were off to the
West Coast and Huston. Andy Van Slyke was thirty-two and his outfield heroics
were catching up with him. He only played in 83 games that year, and would
never be the same player. The Pirates record dipped to 75-87 in 1993; the beginning
of twenty losing seasons from 1993-2012. Tough times had come back to
Pittsburgh baseball.
When I got back into collecting in 2019, it
was always with an eye on both building sets from my era and building a PC of
players I enjoyed. One of the first on that list was Barry Bonds.
Post-Pittsburgh I’d had a tenuous relationship with the career of Barry Bonds.
On the surface level I was mad at him for leaving. I shouldn’t have been.
Watching players
leave was old hat in Pittsburgh. The last legacy star we had was Willie
Stargell. And he’ll probably remain as such. Since then, I’ve watched players from
Bonilla, Bonds and Doug Drabek up to Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole leave via
trade. And it’s only a matter of time before young stars like Josh Bell are
gone in the same manner. The Pirates don’t even wait until a player is a free
agent anymore for them to leave Pittsburgh.
But back in 1993,
since Barry Bonds wasn’t playing for the Pirates anymore, he went from being
our asshole…to just an asshole. I didn’t pay much attention to him other than
his stats in the box scores, or to boo him when the Giants came to Pittsburgh.
Like everyone else I had my suspicions when Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. How
could you not? The steroid innuendo was overwhelming by then. And by the time
he was poised to break Hank Aaron’s home run record, I downright hated Barry
Bonds and actively rooted against him.
Why PC the guy?
Time heals all wounds? Or a firm belief that, even if some of those records are
tainted with performance enhancing drugs (not illegal at the time by the way),
Barry Bonds was one of the best baseball players that I’d even seen play the
game. Though we only had him in Pittsburgh for seven seasons, they were seven
amazing seasons. Seasons I’ll remember forever as a fan. Plus, as a collector,
I wanted those Barry Bonds cards again. And, for me, I couldn’t have that
feeling that I wanted getting back into collecting, that twelve-year-old
feeling as I call it, without making room for Barry Bonds in my PC and actively
collecting his cards.
I even have some
of his Giants cards.
You know, I used
to believe that the only way Bonds should get into to the Baseball Hall of Fame
was if he bought a ticket. Now I feel that the Hall of Fame is lacking without
Barry Bonds in it. My feelings are mutual in regards to Roger Clemens, Mark
McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Manny Ramirez. Don’t even get me
started on Pete Rose. You can’t call yourself a Hall of Fame if you don’t have
the best of the best residing in it. For those of you who say, but steroids, I
say “greenies” and I say “cocaine.” Players have been trying to get an edge for
years. And if you look at Robinson Cano…they still are.
Count me as one
guy who’s rooting for Barry Bonds to finally get the nod in 2021.
Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.
If you're a Pirates fan and want to torture yourself, YouTube has the entire bottom of the 9th Inning of the 1992 NLCS available right HERE
Next Friday: Me and Miller dig up all of our change to go and buy some Rod Carew cards at a local "card shop" and boy are my parents angry.
He might have avoided the sweet spot, but you sure didn't: "Barry Bonds might’ve been an asshole, but for seven seasons he was our asshole." Another great piece, Jay.
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