Whether people want to admit it or not, Barry Bonds has been an integral part of San Francisco Giants' history. In a Giants uniform he set the single-season home run record, passed Willie Mays, and he became the all-time home run king.

He also, for the most part, never habitually fought with the front office. Only once in Bonds' term here do I remember him threatening to leave because of contract issues. The simple fact is that while Bonds was paid a handsome wage here in SF, he never bitched and moaned about the team that they surrounded him with. And there were some pretty atrocious teams they assembled around him.

My point is that as bad a guy as Bonds is/was, he still was loyal to the Giants above everything else. And the team used him to consistently sell out the stadium.

But that's all changed now. Giants president Peter Magowan said yesterday the team will not reconsider a decision to part ways with Bonds. There's nothing surprising about this. Bonds can barely move in the outfield anymore. But what is somewhat surprising is that the left field wall no longer bears an image of Bonds chasing Aaron for the home run crown, nor elsewhere is the number of Bonds' home runs in relation to Aaron posted. A team spokeswoman said the Giants would put up a plaque to note where he had hit his last homer, but that's it.

Basically, the Giants are doing everything they can to forget about Bonds.

My problem with this is that it's blatantly hypocritical. The Giants rode Bonds' coattails to division titles and a national league pennant they never would have won without him. They looked the other way as he took steroids, and they profited immensely from the resulting power boost Bonds got out of it. Don't think that Bonds was the sole culprit in the steroid scandal, the Giants were equally as bad as Bonds, and in some ways, were even more responsible for letting the steroid era flourish than Bonds was.

Don't let anyone fool you, the only reason the Giants let Bonds hang around last year was to make money off of his chase of the home run record. The team sucked, but asses were still in the seats to see Bonds pass Aaron - which is what the Giants wanted.

I'm not saying they need to build a monument to Bonds, like they have for Mays, but the complete disassociation from Bonds I actually think gives this organization more of a black eye. How can you ignore a monster you helped create?

Hilariously, the Giants seem to think they're going to draw as many people now without Bonds. Magowan said the team still expects to sell three million tickets in 2008.

 

Yeah Peter, I can't wait to go out and watch a major league team that can't even beat its Triple-A squad.

Even though I'm a Giants fan, this team deserves whatever it gets this year. And don't worry, it's going to be one horrible year.