Bonds’ Talk Is Deep

SAN DIEGO —  The baseball player in America’s spotlight was confused and frustrated Sunday morning. As he walked down the hallway toward his clubhouse, Barry Bonds stumbled into Tony Gwynn.

Two of the finest hitters of this or any generation talked hitting, friend to friend, for 15 minutes. With Bonds chasing baseball’s most cherished record and his San Francisco Giants chasing a playoff spot, Bonds was all but forcing himself to hit home runs, swinging poorly at poor pitches. Gwynn provided equal parts pep talk and hitting clinic, and Bonds went on his way-into his clubhouse and, hours later, two steps closer to history.

The count is 66 now, after Bonds hit two home runs in the Giants’ 11-2 rout of the San Diego Padres. Bonds needs four home runs to tie--and five to break--Mark McGwire’s record, with the Giants playing the first of their final 12 games tonight at Dodger Stadium.

“Slumps happen. I don’t want to feel overconfident,” Bonds said. “I just want to win the division.”

Bonds joined McGwire and Sammy Sosa as the only players in major league history to hit 66. Only one player, in one season, has hit more--McGwire, in 1998, the year he hit 70.

“If they give him pitches to hit, he’s going to do it,” Gwynn said.

McGwire needed 157 games that year to hit 65 and 161 games to hit 66; Bonds hit 66 in an unprecedented 150 games. The phrase “ahead of McGwire’s pace” is a little deceiving, because McGwire hit five homers in his final three games in 1998.

But Enron Field did not exist in 1998. Even if the Dodgers do not throw a single strike to Bonds in the next three days, he has a reasonable chance to catch McGwire simply because the Giants play three games next week at Houston’s new homer-happy ballpark. In 16 at-bats there, Bonds has hit four home runs.

The Giants also have three games left with the Padres, against whom Bonds has hit nine homers in 16 games this season.

After walking in the first inning Sunday, Bonds homered against rookie Jason Middlebrook in each of his next two at-bats, the first by slamming a changeup over the 405-foot sign in center field and the second by depositing a fastball just beyond the left-center field fence.

He then grounded out twice, then left for a pinch-hitter in the eighth, complaining of back stiffness and saying he did not need to risk injury or embarrassing the Padres with the Giants leading by nine. He expects to play tonight.

Gwynn, who struck out as a pinch-hitter, was astounded to discover a wave of reporters rushing his way after the game. Bonds had publicly thanked Gwynn for his help--an unanticipated tribute on the final day of “Thanks Tony” weekend, the Padres’ salute to their retiring superstar--and Gwynn couldn’t stop laughing.

It was Friday, after all, when Bonds told Gwynn, the next coach at San Diego State, to hire him as hitting coach because, well, what did a singles hitter like Gwynn know about coaching sluggers?

“Now he wants to give me some love,” Gwynn said. “He was on me like a dog Friday.”

Gwynn said he simply reminded Bonds not to yield to the pressure, to use what Gwynn called “the most efficient swing in the business” only on pitches worth hitting. In his first five games since baseball returned, Bonds had hit one home run.

“You could see the last couple days he was pressing, trying to lift [the ball],” Gwynn said. “It wasn’t like I was giving him any secrets.”

As Bonds chases the most glamorous record in baseball, he set two other records, pretty impressive in their own right. He has hit 34 home runs away from Pacific Bell Park, breaking the record for most road homers in a season, previously shared at 32 by McGwire (1998) and Babe Ruth (1927).

Bonds also set the standard for the most homers by a left-handed hitter in consecutive seasons, 115, one more than Ruth hit in 1927-28. McGwire, a right-handed hitter, set the major league record with 135 in 1998-99.

The chase resumes tonight at Dodger Stadium.

“L.A. is not going to pitch to him,” Gwynn said. “Any time there’s a situation he can do damage, they’re going to walk him.”

That could lead to the oddest of sounds, should Dodger fans decide to boo Dodger pitchers for not pitching to Bonds. “We’re not in this game to set records,” Bonds said. “We all have jobs. We all have families. If I were a pitcher facing McGwire or Sosa [in 1998], if it meant giving up a home run or walking him and taking a chance with the next guy, I’m going to walk him. I’m trying to win for my club. I couldn’t care less what he’s doing.”