Posted on 10/02/2005 8:15:17 PM PDT by weef
SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants general manager Brian Sabean thinks Barry Bonds could be physically ready to play around 120 games for San Francisco next season.
Barry Bonds hopes to kiss about 40 pounds goodbye this winter.
Sabean and Bonds both have acknowledged the slugger needs an intense conditioning program over the winter to shed some weight Bonds put on while recovering from three operations this year on his right knee.
Sabean hinted that Bonds might continue to work with physical therapist Clive Brewster in Los Angeles this offseason under the direction of Angels' team orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum, the pair who oversaw Bonds' rehabilitation for two months this summer in Southern California.
"It's reasonable to think he can play 120 games," Sabean said Sunday before the Giants' final game of the year against Arizona. "Now, will we be in a position to have to rest him and be conscious that he's going to come in some days cranky and not be able to go? The next step is to get him in spring training and get him in a position to be able to do that. I think he wants that."
Bonds, who turned 41 in July, shut it down for the final four games of the season including a three-game weekend series against the Arizona Diamondbacks after playing in 14 games this season with 13 starts in left field -- all last month. The seven-time NL MVP batted .286 (12-for-42) with five home runs and 10 RBIs, drawing nine walks and striking out six times.
He has 708 career homers, third on the all-time list behind Babe Ruth (714) and Hank Aaron (755), Bonds' baseball hero. Bonds homered in four straight games Sept. 16-21.
Bonds said in a recent interview he would like to get his playing weight down to around 200, which would mean losing approximately 40 pounds this winter. He was at 185 as a rookie in 1986, but hasn't been close to that in years.
"I think we all know he can still hit," Sabean said. "Again, he never had a spring training and he had no rehab assignment. So, it's pretty impressive not so much that the skills are still there, but for him to get back on the field to whatever degree, it spurs him to next year and more so how it translated to help the ballclub, I think is good for everybody. I really believe especially a position player no matter how great you are, it's very difficult to take a whole year off.
"He now knows, not that he wouldn't have if he had played, he knows firsthand that he's still the force he was before he missed all this time."
As far as Bonds potentially making a switch to the American League to become a designated hitter, Sabean doesn't expect it to happen.
"He has never made an overture he wants to be anywhere but here," Sabean said. "He's told everybody in the past he wants to retire as a Giant."
Manager Felipe Alou is already envisioning his every day lineup for next season with Bonds in the cleanup spot followed by the skipper's son, Moises.
"We believe Barry is going to come back healthy and better than this year," Alou said.
Under intense scutiny, Bonds will not be juicing, therefore he will be losing muscle mass. Muscle weighing more than fat, Bonds will lose weight.
He's probably off his feed...
LOL...the jokes just write themselves
yep. maybe he'll start to talk with a man's voice, too. nahhhhh...
And his testicles will remain shrunken. Although, I in no way claim to know what they look like.
He can start by cutting off his head. It's filled with adipose.
I wonder If he'll misteriously go into a slump next year, then he'll somehow suddenly come out of it, like Jason Giambi has.
He doesn't need to be in the Hall of Fame for four reasons:
1. He was abysmal in the post season in Pittsburgh. Chico Lind had as many homeruns as he did and if he hit his post roid rage weight the Pirates would have gone to at least one maybe two or three World Series.
2. He juiced. If people can say Palmier doesn't belong in the Hall neither does Bonds, or Maguire or Sosa.
3. Anybody who cannot throw Sid Bream out at home on a single to left when Bream started on second has no business staking any claim to the Hall of Fame.
4. Barry told the media after he won the Home Run Derby at the All Star Game that they could no longer claim he'd never won anything. Anybody who confuses winning batting practice with a real baseball championship is too stupid to be in the Hall of Fame.
lol.
Ahh..perhaps my favorite call:
Skip Carey: "Swung -line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream!! Here's the throw to the plate! He issss.....SAFE!! Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win! Braves Win!!!!" (Still gives me chillbumps....)
Bonds might continue to work...under the direction of Angels' team orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum.
They say the sure fire test for steroids is measuring the head. Working out doesn't make the head get bigger but using 'roids does.
Didn't JFK have to use steroids for his 'Graves Disease' condition? Prior to using the roids, he had a much thinner melon, more like Bobby Kennedy. But you see the pictures of him during his Presidency, and pictures of him and Bobby together, and JFK's head got much bigger.
Bonds is a joke, as are most of these juiceheads in baseball. And don't forget football, the whole league is on the stuff.
Yeah, you may get chillbumps but that call makes me want to raise a few bumps on the top of Barry's humongous roid enlarged noggin.
Oh absolutely. That's a fact.
My comment about adipose was directed more figuratively. ;)
LOL
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