February 20, 2008
Freedom of Speech
Players get to talk in the Giants clubhouse now:
Just before Tuesday's first full-squad workout of 2008, the Giants held what longtime observers described as one of the most unusual welcome-to-camp meetings in years.
Customarily, the manager shares a few thoughts on the first morning the entire team is together, and Bruce Bochy offered what one player called a rousing speech. Then, several players, including new center fielder Aaron Rowand, stood and spoke.
That might not be unusual elsewhere, but according to insiders, that rarely happened when Barry Bonds was here because people were reluctant to step on his toes. (Bonds was known sometimes to pooh-pooh teammates' comments during the meetings.)
This is the second Barry was a jerk story I've seen this spring. I suspect it won't be the last.
Rah rah rah, off to 70 wins! But...morale's good.
Sounds like the air in that clubhouse will be much lighter this season...gotta be good for a few more wins. If the lineup wasn't so bad, I'd say they could content in the West...but I wouldn't count out Brian Sabian too quick..I be he has this team in the thick of it again in 2 years.
no wonder the Giants lost - they were afraid to take on Bonds...in the front office, as an owner and as players...
if enough people had said anything to Bonds' face, perhaps all of this could have been avoided.
Dead on, RMT. There's a time and place for everything, even pushing back against a aged superstar.
Well, we don't know what exactly the comments were that Bond's "pooh-poohed" (is that a word?) I mean, if they had a meeting and someone from the offense said "We are going to be more then a one man team on offense," I think Bonds would be well within his rights to laugh at that. Or maybe they were talking about how they were going to make teams pay for intentionally walking Bonds all the time.
Yeah, or maybe they wanted to discuss PED use in baseball, or Balco, or adultery, or baseball show tax cheats.
Or watching balls drop in LF and then walking after them while the runners circled the bases.
