By Lee Jenkins
The New York Times
December 8, 2004
Baseball has dropped its plan to promote Barry Bond's home run pursuit.
Major League Baseball halted plans yesterday to promote Barry Bonds's pursuit of the home run record, one day after Topps signed him to an endorsement deal.
Major League Baseball had been negotiating corporate sponsorship of
Bonds's pursuit of Hank Aaron's career home run record, but a meeting on
the subject was canceled after reports last week that Bonds told a grand
jury that he might have unknowingly used substances believed to be
steroids.
Scott Kurstin, Bonds's account manager, said none of Bonds's existing
individual sponsors had wavered. Kurstin revealed that Topps signed an
agreement with Bonds on Monday, joining sponsors like Wilson, Fila and
Majestic. "Everybody has backed us and backed Barry," Kurstin said.
Bonds usually responds to most of his problems with the crack of his
bat. He generally answers questions about his controversial behavior with
the same statement, repeated 703 times: home run after home run after home
run.
Now that he is a centerpiece of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative
steroids case, his predicament is different because he can no longer
simply swing his way out of it. In a sense, the better Bonds plays, the
stronger the case against him becomes.
After Bonds was quoted in The San Francisco Chronicle on Friday as
telling a federal grand jury last year that he had been given steroids
without knowing it, many marketing and public relations experts said that
he needed to issue an apology, seek the forgiveness of fans and help rid
the game of steroids to make over his polarizing image. But those closest
to Bonds, who have been in regular contact with him over the past few
days, give every indication that he will remain the same strong and stoic
superstar.
"Barry will be Barry," said Rachel Vizcarra, Bonds's publicist for the
past 15 years, who has worked extensively in entertainment public
relations. "There is no reason for him to change, and he won't change. Not
everyone is going to be a golden retriever puppy - and even though I see
that golden retriever puppy in him - it's very rare that he lets people
see that side. Either you can handle the personality or you can't. Take it
or leave it."
If Major League Baseball cannot promote Bonds's home run chase, it is
clear that steroids will be part of the cause. Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief
operating officer, told The Associated Press yesterday: "We continue to
assess the ramifications that these issues will have on our business. It's
another reason why we need to restore the confidence of not only our fans,
but of our partners."
On Friday in Manhattan, Bonds will make his first appearance since the
grand jury testimony was leaked, at the Ultimate Experience. Fans will pay
$7,500 for memorabilia and five minutes with Bonds and the Yankees' Alex
Rodriguez. Vizcarra and Bonds are still evaluating when and where he will
make his first public statements, but they are not retaining a reputation
manager or a crisis public relations expert.
Mike Paul, an expert in reputation management who
works with MGP & Associates Public Relations in New York, said he
had spoken with several players involved in the Balco case. Paul said that
he had not been contacted by Bonds, but that he would offer him the same
advice he gives others.
"The solution I would give Barry Bonds that cuts
through all of the noise is truth," Paul said. "I'm not talking about
spin, I'm talking about a statement like this: 'I've made big mistakes,
especially mistakes with steroids, and I feel horrible. Sadly, this is
part of our sport, and I hope it's part of our sport that can be cleaned
up. I want to be part of a committee of leaders and be part of the
solution.' This is not legal work or mind work, this is heart work. For
Barry Bonds to change his heart, he has to think of something bigger than
himself to get there."
The notion that Bonds would consider altering the approach he has used
for much of his life, and his entire 19-year major league career, is
mind-boggling to those who know him. They say he will report to spring
training silent and stone-faced, focused only on the home run records in
front of him.
"Maybe he will view this as an opportunity to present himself in a
better light," said Russ Bertetta, who taught and coached Bonds at
Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif. "But I think he'll
probably just retreat into his little cocoon and be even less accessible
than he is right now."
Bonds has his own wing in the Giants' home clubhouse, has withdrawn
from the Major League Baseball Players Association licensing program and
is among the least accessible athletes in all of sports. He has not issued
a public comment since receiving his fourth consecutive Most Valuable
Player award last month, when he responded angrily to questions about
steroids, and said, "Can't I just be good?"
Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at
Northeastern University, said: "I don't think in his mind he's missing an
opportunity here because I don't think he cares. He was more interested in
putting up numbers and letting them speak for themselves. If he were more
concerned about how he was perceived, maybe he'd have thought twice about
risking everything. Only if he's found to have done more than he's
suggesting could I imagine him coming completely clean and apologizing and
going on a campaign to recapture fans' emotions."
Those familiar with Bonds say he is actually highly sensitive to public
perception. He places a high priority on his place in history and wants
desperately to be accepted by fans. But he has come to fashion himself as
a victim among superstars, an attitude many believe started to develop
when he was a boy and the San Francisco news media reported that his father, Bobby
Bonds, was an alcoholic.
Now, Bonds is being compared to Pete Rose, the career hits leader, who
was banned from baseball for betting on games. By the time Rose admitted
what he had done, more than 15 years after the fact, he did not receive
the forgiveness afforded most athletes. There are, however, several
differences between the circumstances surrounding Rose and Bonds. Rose was
managing the Cincinnati Reds at the time of his indiscretions; Bonds is
still a superstar player. Rose was immensely popular; Bonds has never been
universally embraced. And Rose was barred because of baseball's strict
stance on gambling; Bonds seems immune from punishment because the sport
had no drug-testing policy before 2003.
"Regardless of what you think about performance-enhancing drugs,
baseball had no specific rules against them," the broadcaster Bob Costas
said. "Prohibition against gambling was prominently displayed from 1919
forward. But nothing Pete Rose is accused of doing is thought to have
compromised his performance as a player or the integrity of that
performance. With Bonds, it's the opposite. He'll hear a lot more boos
now, a lot more catcalls. Of course, he was already hearing a fair amount.
But even those inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt will now be
more reluctant because they'll find that there's no more doubt to give him
the benefit of."
In the Bay Area, where Bonds grew up and returned as a free agent in
1992, he is still receiving shows of support from a citizenry that prides
itself on open-mindedness and tolerance. Brian Murphy, the morning
talk-show host on KNBR-AM 680, an all-sports radio station, estimated that
80 percent of callers are defending Bonds and only 20 percent are blaming
him.
"It's unbelievably anti-Bonds everywhere else, and unbelievably
pro-Bonds here," Murphy said. "They have three arguments: The testimony
shouldn't have gotten out; his talents are too magnificent for steroids to
make much of a difference; and 'He's our Barry, back off.' I know most
people don't like Barry Bonds, but he has a fierce protective bubble
around him here. On this issue, we are a small blue dot on a giant red
map."
Lawyers seem more amused by Bonds's reported testimony than intrigued
by his case. In front of the grand jury, The Chronicle reported, Bonds
accused federal prosecutors of asking him confusing questions, gave an
extemporaneous speech praising the character of his trainer and boyhood
friend, Greg Anderson, and even used this memorable line: "Dude,
whatever."
It was vintage Bonds, a demonstration that he probably has no intention
of changing, no matter the circumstances and no matter the audience.
