Bonds’ Final Act Looms

Barry Bonds has made a career out of shredding other people’s expectations.

Say what you want about how he’s done it, but the numbers are all stacked on his side of the debate. Bonds has torn up our assumptions about how athletes age, stood up to the most withering kind of pressure, outsmarted pitchers under orders to stay away from his strike zone -- and that only covers the last few tumultuous seasons.

But that’s always been his M.O.

A skinny Bonds broke into the majors as a line-drive hitter whose bad attitude and lack of power were predicted to render him irrelevant soon enough. Nearly 20 years later, he is a bulked-up, home-run-hitting machine who still commands the game’s stage and whose critics -- after years of bad reviews -- are still scrambling for fresh material.

But this latest setback changes everything. Now, with the final act of his career looming, the only expectations that matter may be Bonds’ own.

A troublesome right knee has required three separate operations since the end of January and kept Bonds out of the Giants’ lineup for seven weeks already. A return by the All-Star break, once a possibility, appears out of the question -- and any date is uncertain -- because of the lingering infection that required Bonds to stay off his feet and hooked up to an IV for the last two weeks.

When the year began, motivation seemed like the least of his worries. San Francisco’s prospects of winning a World Series, and providing Bonds with the ring that would make all those MVP awards shine that much brighter, were daunting. But he’d beaten longer odds before.

For the near term, there was Babe Ruth’s career mark of 714 homers, second-best on the all-time list, an achievement that could well have been in Bonds’ rearview mirror by now. And beyond that loomed Hank Aaron’s 755.

Bonds turns 41 in late July and the questions surrounding a comeback no longer focus on when, but whether. Even if he does return, the question remains whether he’ll have enough skills intact to make it worth his while -- and Bonds’ fierce pride won’t allow him to come back just to cash a paycheck.

“It’s a real challenge to come back from, there’s no doubt about that,� former Braves’ slugger Dale Murphy told ESPN, and he should know. Murphy’s career was sabotaged by a bad knee, the worst of it coming at the tail end of his playing days, after an infection ravaged the soft tissue in the joint.

“You can get rid of the infection, but it does its damage while it’s in there. Once the cartilage leaves, you can’t replace it. And once that goes, the knee is compromised. I did make it back,� Murphy added, “but it’s a challenge to make it back to 100 percent.�

And Bonds’ rehab, at least from the outside looking in, has been a disaster so far.

While few details have been made public, Bonds acknowledged working again with his longtime pal and trainer Greg Anderson, identified by federal authorities as a bagman in the BALCO scandal. His choice of doctors has raised eyebrows as well, and his first attempt at returning too quickly apparently forced the decision on a second knee operation.

And even if his lengthening stay on the disabled list had been less eventful, there were few guarantees. The elements that made Bonds the best ballplayer of his era depended on a stable base. Now it all hinges on what sounds like a gimpy knee.

He may no longer be able to roam the outfield fast and often enough to keep his regular place. That means fewer at-bats. The ballclub he was supposed to carry is sinking fast in the National League, missing not just Bonds, but starter Jason Schmidt, a Cy Young contender last season, and Armando Benitez, who was as tough in the late innings as any other closer in the game.

Schmidt is due back soon enough, but Benitez would be lucky to put on a uniform before September, by which time the Giants could very well be out of contention. If Bonds somehow made his way back by then, team goals would seem like an afterthought and chasing Ruth criticized as a petty individual pursuit.

None of this has made him a sympathetic figure, something almost every other ballplayer in his situation would be accorded. The guess here is that won’t bother Bonds. He’s always set his own agenda and accomplished those goals using scorn as his fuel, and he isn’t about to change at this late date.