TEMPE, Ariz.ûFormer Giants slugger Barry Bonds said on that he has no intention of retiring from baseball and he won’t reject signing a contract sometime during the season if the right job presents itself. “I’m not going to retire. I don’t think that’s go
If my phone rings, it rings, if it don’t, it don’t. I have a cell phone. I have a Blackberry. They work. If something comes up, I’m sure they’ll let me know. I’ll come back in July if I have to. It depends on the circumstances."
As the regular season beins, Bonds is still unsigned, but he and his agent, Jeff Borris, believe that there should be a job for him somewhere. Bonds, Major League Baseball’s alltime leader with 762 homers, hit 28 of them last season when he also walked 132 times and amassed a .480 on-base percentage in 126 games.
Bonds said he has one good reason to come back for a 23rd season. "I want to win a championship or else I want to keep trying to win a championship until there’s nothing left inside me," said Bonds, who came closest with a 2002 Giants club that dropped a seven-game World Series to the Angels. "I deserve that. "I can still play. If couldn’t play I’d say, ‘Hey, I can’t play.’ I’m not going to sit around and do something I can’t do.
I’ve always, said, ‘There’s some things I can do, there’s some things I can’t do, and there’s some things I just ain’t going to deal with.’ But baseball I still can do." The question is whether there will be a job for him. Bonds was told by the Giants this past September that his 15-year reign with the team was over and he would not be asked back.
After the World Series, he filed for free agency and was hoping to play again this season. Bonds hit his 756th home run to pass Hank Aaron into first place on the alltime list this past Aug. 7. He played his final game for the Giants on Sept. 26 at AT&T Park.
A host of other big-name free agents, including Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Roger Clemens, David Wells and Jeff Weaver, are also still on the market. The Red sox and A’s opened the regular season Tuesday in Japan. Five days later, the Braves and Nationals will stage the U.S. opener in Washington, D.C. , Don Fehr, the executive director of the Players Association, said that the union may investigate whether there are any underlying reasons why Bonds hasn’t been able to sign a Major League contract for the coming season.
"We always look at the free-agent markets every year and make judgments about them, and if we come to the conclusion with respect to any player that there’s a matter worth pursuing, we’ll pursue it," Fehr told reporters after meeting with the Angels during his annual tour of spring camps. "But I’m not going to make any suggestions or accusations unless and until we come to that conclusion."
Bonds said he had no clue what was transpiring in the market place. "That’s why I have an agent, it’s his job," Bonds said. "I know he’s upset and so are a lot of other people." Reached by telephone, Borris, of the Beverley Hills Sports Council, was asked if there had been any contact between his office and the union. "Yes," Borris said.
Asked to give further details, Borris added: "I’ve been keeping the union up to date on Barry’s situation as it develops." Fehr, though, said he hadn’t spoken directly with Bonds or his representatives, which doesn’t preclude the fact that other attorneys in the union’s office have talked with one of them.
"I haven’t talked to him about it or his agents and I don’t want to comment personally about it since I haven’t had the opportunity to do that," Fehr said. Files that have been kept for the last two years regarding the difficulty of Bonds trying to sign contracts will eventually be forwarded to the union.
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