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Unsigned Bonds Awaits Further Review
Six weeks after they agreed to terms on new contracts, Barry Bonds and J. D. Drew remain unsigned. Bonds hasn’t signed with the Giants; Drew hasn’t signed with the Red Sox. That prompts a thought. If both contracts were to fall through, the Red Sox could sign Bonds to play left field and move Manny Ramírez back to his original position in right.
The absence of a contract for the two is highly unusual. Free agents and clubs rarely take this long to complete contracts.
Theo Epstein, the Boston general manager, and Scott Boras, Drew’s agent, have made light of the time it has taken them to complete the five-year, $70 million contract. Epstein was on vacation; Boras was attending to other free-agent clients, they said. Except general managers are known to negotiate contracts and trades by telephone while on vacation, and Boras is capable of completing one deal with his left ear while he negotiates another with his right.
Drew’s questionable right shoulder has obviously created a problem for the Red Sox, and they are seeking ways to reduce their risk.
Bonds’s $16 million contract created more issues for the Giants, but by the end of last week Bonds had backed off many of his stands and was prepared to accept the Giants’ positions. The Giants, however, suddenly slowed the talks, and a resolution has not been reached.
A lawyer on the Bonds side said yesterday that they suspect the Giants, reacting to negative news media views in the Bay Area, are exploring ways of getting out of the contract. When an official on the management side with knowledge of the talks was asked yesterday if the deal could blow up, he said, “It’s possible.”
Brian Sabean, the Giants’ general manager, did not return a telephone call yesterday seeking comment on the contract circumstances. His secretary, told what the call was about, said she did not think Sabean would comment.
Given the chance to comment, Jeff Borris, Bonds’s agent, didn’t. “I can’t really comment on that situation right now,” he said when asked about the contract talks. Could the deal blow up? “I can’t comment on that,” he said.
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The Giants did not offer Bonds a contract lightly. They agonized over their decision and even looked for alternatives before making the offer to Bonds, their left fielder for 14 years. He was not necessarily their first choice.
They sought a free agent, Alfonso Soriano or Carlos Lee, and they pursued trades for Ramírez and Adam Dunn. Failing at each turn, they went back to Bonds.
But before offering him a contract, they asked their baseball people for an evaluation of the 42-year-old Bonds as a hitter and a left fielder, and they spoke with some of the team’s veteran players to find out if having Bonds on the team would be a distraction, or be destructive in any way. The response they got was if they would be a better team with him than without him, they should sign him.
Those conversations occurred before news emerged last week that Bonds had tested positive for amphetamines and that Bonds said the reason was a substance he took from the locker of a teammate, Mark Sweeney.
The Giants haven’t reacted publicly to that incident, and it’s not known if they will use it in an attempt to get out of the contract. If they do, the players union would certainly challenge their action in a grievance. According to the lawyer on Bonds’s side and the official on the management side, the Giants had not raised the incident as an issue.
The two sides had plenty of other issues to resolve, but contrary to published reports, the lawyer said, they did not include anything about the Giants’ desire to alter the guarantee language in the contract based on any legal problems that may envelop Bonds from the Balco investigation.
One of the thorniest issues was Bonds’s entourage. The Giants erred five years ago by including a provision in Bonds’s five-year, $90 million contract that allowed his personal trainer and assorted other associates access to the Giants’ clubhouse. Bonds wanted to continue that arrangement, but the Giants adamantly opposed it.
To get around Commissioner Bud Selig’s rule banning such people from the clubhouse, Bonds proposed that the Giants hire the members of his entourage so they would be club employees and legally allowed in the clubhouse. The Giants had no intention of agreeing to that idea, and even if they had, Selig would have seen through the subterfuge and voided the contracts.
Bonds, however, gave up his effort to retain his entourage rights and will be naked in the clubhouse this year, if the contract is completed. Bonds made or was prepared to make other concessions as well. The two sides seemed to be a document away from completing their agreement, but they remain in disagreement.
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The remaining issue could be who needs whom more. At this juncture, the Giants would not have a replacement for Bonds as their cleanup hitter and left fielder, but they could still seek one in a trade.
Without the Giants, would Bonds have any way of hitting the 22 home runs he needs to break Hank Aaron’s career record? Would another team offer him a contract? If any other teams had been interested in Bonds, they have probably moved past that point.
Selig and other baseball officials might welcome a breakdown in the talks between the Giants and Borris, but they can do nothing to facilitate it. Selig cannot call Peter Magowan, the Giants’ managing partner, and urge him not to complete the contract. That call would violate the labor agreement’s rules against collusion.
Another collusion case would be far worse than a Bonds home run record.
Source: nytimes.com