Barry Bonds had every reason to drop off this year.
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The steroid scandal hounded him. His father was gone. He got little help from batters behind him and saw too few pitches over the plate.
Then there was that little matter of his age, 40 years old, a milestone that often takes a toll on a hitter’s reflexes, his legs and sometimes on the eyes.
Yet here he is again winning the NL MVP in a walk — his fourth in a row and No. 7 overall, both records — with two years left on his contract with the San Francisco Giants. And here he is still yearning to win a World Series ring, even as he closes in on the career home run marks of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.
Bonds says he can’t figure out why he seems to be getting better with age. He’d like a little credit for that, rather than questions about chemical enhancements.
In truth, he’s been blessed with talent, taken care of his body in a way that he says his late alcoholic father, Bobby, and other great players did not, and he’s pushed himself to work harder every season in pursuit of that elusive ring. More than that, he was born into baseball and still loves the game.
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“There’s a light switch that turns on on me as soon as that season starts,” he said Monday from his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I could go through spring training in halfway-mode. But as soon as they say baseball starts, I change. Everything inside of me. I don’t know what it is.”
What keeps him going through the grind of the season, he says, is the chase for a championship.
“That one thing not being in my life is something that drives me more than anything else does,” he said. “To watch other people win drives me to want to be in that circle. Every year I try to get better.”
Bonds’ monster season was astonishing for what he did as much as for what he might have done if he hadn’t been walked so ridiculously often.
Consider a season like this: 62 home runs, 141 runs batted in, 180 runs, 188 hits, .362 batting average.
Those are the gaudy numbers Bonds would have been projected to produce, according to the statistics whizzes at the Elias Sports Bureau, if he had walked the same number of times St. Louis’ Albert Pujols did (84), instead of a record 232 times.
The hard part about all those walks — whether intentional or on pitches just outside the strike zone — is how much they wear on his concentration and his legs.
“I’ve tried to explain to players that it’s a lot harder to walk than it is to jog back to the dugout and take a rest,” he said. “I’m on my feet all day. A lot of teams wear me down. I know they do it intentionally. Sometimes I come through.
“I’m not able to do it as often as I used to. But that has to do with age, too. I’m getting older. My attention span probably isn’t going to be the same.”
As it was, Bonds hit 45 homers to push his career total to 703 (11 shy of Ruth, 52 behind Aaron), 101 RBIs, 129 runs and 135 hits, along with that .362 average. Throw in a slugging percentage of .812 and an on-base percentage of .609 (topping the .582 mark he set two years ago) and he made the issue of age almost as irrelevant as the suspicions about steroids.
Anyone can speculate on how much help Bonds has gotten in recent years if he used the steroids that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, is charged with distributing from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative to top athletes.
Yet in the absence of positive tests on Bonds and the lack of convictions in the ongoing investigation, the only conclusive evidence is the fact that Bonds is doing things at bat that simply can’t be attributed to any known drug.
There isn’t a steroid in the world that can account for his patience at the plate as he waits for hittable pitches, or his uncanny solid contact with the ball when he does swing. His body armor lets him hug the plate, and his short, compact swing is the deadliest in the game.
Collectively, according to Elias, players batting behind him this season produced a .264 batting average, 19 homers, 103 RBIs — not bad, but hardly the support that Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds gave each other in the St. Louis lineup.
Those three Cardinals finished third, fourth and fifth in the NL MVP voting behind No. 2 Adrian Beltre of Los Angeles.
Bonds says he wants a big hitter or two behind him for protection, especially young players he can teach. But he’s not pushing the Giants, who may not be able to afford the free agents out there.
“We’d all love to click our heels and get whoever we need,” Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. “Barry knows that we’re running a business and it’s not that easy. You’re also kind of married to what you do, including the size of his contract on the roster.”
San Francisco’s top priority this offseason, Sabean said, is boosting the bullpen with a closer. That means Bonds probably won’t be seeing Beltre or Carlos Beltran batting behind him next season.
Bonds might not like it but that won’t stop the light switch from going on when he hears, “Play baseball.”
Steve Wilstein is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at swilstein(at)ap.org
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