San Francisco Has Barry Bonds Guilt

Today, Ray Ratto acknowledges, "I wish I knew how to quit Bonds stories." Regardless of where Bonds plays or doesn't play for the rest of his career, it's safe to say the city of San Francisco will be keeping an eye on him. After more than a decade of Bonds-worthy headlines, going cold turkey is proving rather difficult. Ratto writes:

Because playing or no, visible or not, in uniform or in a suit, Barry Bonds remains the gift that keeps on giving. Whatever moral issues you might or might not have with Bonds pursuing his career while he waits for a trial date, rest easy knowing that we have no issue with pursuing Bonds stories, even if all they are is someone saying his name in a meeting as part of some Bizarro World Jeopardy category - "I'll take Baseball Players in Their Mid-40s Who Need a Gig for $1,600, Alex."

We are quite hung up on where Bonds may end up - Tampa Bay? Japan? And the funny thing is, we're rooting for him to find a home.

Why is this? Because San Francisco has what I would call "Barry Bonds Guilt" - a syndrome quite unique to our city. It is all a part of the contradiction that is our relationship with Barry Bonds - we never liked his arrogance, but never wanted him to go. We didn't like his "me, me" attitude, but would defend him to anyone. We wanted the Giants to rebuild and we didn't want the team to sign him for 2007. That being said, we also wanted him to be able to break the home run record. We were happy when the Giants chose not to bring him back, yet we will be sad if he has no where to play. I know there is a part of every Giants fan that wants to bring Bonds back not because we actually want him on the team, but because we do not want to hurt his feelings. It is a strange situation indeed.