As Bonds Nears Baseball's Apex, a Sinking Feeling

SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 -- Superimposed over the left field fence at AT&T Park are images of Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron and the words, "A Giant Among Legends."

Bonds's career home run total, 708, is displayed prominently in right-center, just above those of Aaron (755), Ruth (714) and a legend he has already passed, Willie Mays (660), who happens to be Bonds's godfather.

For more than a decade, the Giants have been financially and emotionally dependent on their mercurial slugger. Now, with Bonds the focus of a Major League Baseball investigation into steroid use, the dysfunctional relationship has come to epitomize an entire era in baseball, one that brought the sport unprecedented riches but ultimately embarrassment and unease.

"This is not a good situation," said Chicago Cubs Manager Dusty Baker, who managed the Giants from 1993 to 2002. "It's not a good situation for anybody, you know? I feel bad for everybody."

For those still in Bonds's orbit -- team officials, players, sponsors and his coterie of assistants -- dealing with Bonds has become a series of uncomfortable trade-offs. The lucrative benefits are offset by the player's demanding personality and mounting evidence that his greatest achievements were tainted by performance-enhancing drugs.

Giants owner Peter A. Magowan said his club intends to cooperate "to the fullest extent that we can" with baseball's investigation. Magowan said he and other club employees would provide information to investigators if asked. At the same time, Magowan said, the Giants, who will play their home opener against the Atlanta Braves on Thursday afternoon, are preparing to celebrate Bonds's 715th home run, which would move him past Ruth into second place on the all-time list.

"We think and our fans think it's quite an achievement and should be recognized as such," Magowan said in an interview this week. "We will recognize it."

Bonds has earned it, Magowan said. Since the Giants signed Bonds as a free agent left fielder in 1992, the franchise value has increased from $100 million to an estimated $381 million. Attendance, which averaged 19,272 in 1992, averaged 40,000 in the first five seasons at AT&T Park until dipping slightly last season, when Bonds was hurt for most of the year. The stadium is essentially sustained by Bonds's popularity. Built with private funds, the ballpark requires annual mortgage payments in excess of $20 million, putting intense pressure on the Giants to keep it filled.

"Signing Barry Bonds helped turn San Francisco into a baseball town," Magowan said. "This is a city where the 49ers won five Super Bowls. And now this city has drawn 19.5 million people" to see the Giants "over the past six years."

Asked if that record would be tainted if Bonds is found to have used steroids, Magowan said: "I'm not gonna talk about steroids. There will be a time when I hope I can talk about them, but that time has not come yet."

Fears of a Faustian Bargain

The Giants are not the only ones grappling with their relationship with the left fielder. The slugger is 47 homers shy of Aaron's record, perhaps the most hallowed in American sport. But Bank of America, which has sponsored the team for 30 years and has nine ATM machines inside AT&T Park, has announced it will not sponsor a home run chase because of "questions about the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in the game," said Joe Goode, a bank spokesman, not specifically mentioning Bonds.

Meantime, ESPN, which last year paid approximately $2.4 billion for the rights to broadcast baseball over eight years, has struggled internally with its decision to purchase "Bonds on Bonds," a reality series. In an emotional March 27 meeting, ESPN reporters questioned whether the network had sacrificed its integrity to air a series in which Bonds preapproves the content.