by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

SAN FRANCISCO–Barry Bonds, the ex Pirates and ex-Giants Major League Baseball home run leader (762)was all smiles during the Giants victory parade last week in the streets of San Francisco, invited by the Giants and in the parade on Market Street. Barry Lamar Bonds is a seven time Most Valuable Player of the National League, who won 8 Gold Gloves, selected to 14 All Star Games, and he doesn’t have a statue around AT&T Park? Ok, we all know he was the controversial central figure in the steroids scandal, BALCO Laboratories of Burlingame, and appeared in front of a Grand Jury. Mays, McCovey,Cepeda,Marichal, they all have statues around or in the area of AT&T Park.

People in today’s world tend to have short memories, especially in the baseball world, but this man should have a statue if we just go by his baseball accomplishments. Pete Rose who had more hits than anybody in history, but was never inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, because he gambled on baseball. But the Cincinnati Reds have a Rose Garden named after him at their ballpark today in Cincinnati. Adjacent to both the stadium and the Reds Hall of Fame is a rose garden that symbolizes Pete Rose’s record-breaking 4,192nd hit. It was strategically placed here because the ball landed around this area in Riverfront Stadium. The garden is visible from a stairwell in the hall of fame displaying the amount of balls that Rose hit.

Why not have a Barry Bonds statue around the right field area where he hit the ball into the water? As far as we know, Bonds didn’t gambled on baseball, but he might have lied under oath to a Grand Jury.Although today it looks like his conviction might be overturned soon. A decision won’t be issued for some time, one presumes, but from the sounds of it, Barry Bonds’ 2011 obstruction of justice conviction is going to be overturned.

A decision won’t be issued for some time, one presumes, but from the sounds of it, Barry Bonds’ 2011 obstruction of justice conviction is going to be overturned.A decision won’t be issued for some time, one presumes, but from the sounds of it, Barry Bonds’ 2011 obstruction of justice conviction is going to be overturned.

Then after he is “cleansed”of all negative stuff, I am sure the Giants will build him a very nice statue at AT&T Park, hopefully by that time it will still be named AT&T Park, since it had different telephone company names since it inauguration in 2000: SBC Park, and Pac Bell Park. I was part of the media group that was invited to visit AT&T Park while it was under construction and I remember Barry Bonds standing at what was going to be the plate at the park, with a bat and a ball in hand he then hit one over the right field fence. Basically, AT&T Park was buit for Barry Bonds, that is why if we are honest here, if anybody deserves a statue at AT&T Park its Mr. Barry Lamar Bonds.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the vice president of the Major League Baseball Hispanic Hertiage Museum and does News and Commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com