Saturday, July 03, 2004

My Barry Bonds story:

Like everyone else, besides Giants fans, I love ripping Barry Bonds. During a game in Chicago, we had great seats right near home plate at Wrigley Field. Barry Bonds is kneeling in the on-deck circle right in front of me and my immediate reaction at seeing him was, wow, that guy wears a lot of jewelry: two huge diamond earrings - one is a cross - a bunch of gold chains. So, bolstered by many Old Style beers, during a deathly quiet lull, I yell out:

“Hey Barry, your wife called, she wants you to stop wearing all her damn jewelry.”

Not Algonquin Roundtable material, but this was Wrigley field; the line was, in all modesty, greeted with much cracking up and high fives from the surrounding patrons.

Bonds, looks down, then he starts chuckling. Then Bonds looks up right at me and nods his approval with a non-verbal "Not bad, Pal" look.

Dammit, one of the things I loved in baseball was ripping Bonds, and now he has taken that away from me forever. I can’t rip a guy who laughed at my joke. I'll never forgive him.