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SAN FRANCISCO -- Peter Magowan defended the Giants' decision
to give up the right to void the final year of Barry Bonds'
contract, though the San Francisco owner has mixed feelings about
the move now. Bonds hasn't played following three operations on his right knee
since Jan. 31, and it's unclear whether he will be able to return
at all this year. "If we'd known he wasn't going to play a game this year, would
we have done it? Obviously not," Magowan said Tuesday, speaking in
the dugout before the Giants hosted the Philadelphia Phillies. "These things are always easier to say in retrospect that you
shouldn't have done it. We did it because I think he deserved it.
He asked for it. Based on what he had done for the Giants, I think
he deserved it at the time. He played more games than anyone else
on the team -- 152 games -- he was the MVP again. Possibly by showing
that respect for him and what he had done for the Giants, it might
have been another motivation and inspiration for him to give the
best he possibly could for the Giants." Had the Giants not guaranteed the fifth year of Bonds' $90
million contract last September, they could have voided the 2006
season if he didn't reach 400 plate appearances this year. But Bonds was dominant as ever, and the team guaranteed the
All-Star left fielder $18 million for 2006. The 41-year-old Bonds has been sprinting and cutting since last
Wednesday, working out at the UCLA track under the direction of
renowned Angels orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum and physical therapist
Clive Brewster. Yet the seven-time NL MVP still hasn't resumed
baseball activities. Magowan said if he were a superstar athlete and the team didn't
consider his contract request, he might have felt "pretty let down
if not insulted." "If not a reasonable thing to do, at least it was an
understandable thing to do," Magowan said. "It's so easy to write
we should have seen it coming, but you could have written that in
2004, 2003 or 2002 or 2001. He's an old player by baseball
standards, and yet he was better than anyone else all of those
years." Bonds has 703 home runs, third on the career list behind Babe
Ruth (714) and Hank Aaron (755). Carlton Fisk's 53 homers are the
most any player has hit after turning 41, and that is exactly the
number Bonds needs to break Aaron's record. Bonds batted .362 last season with 45 homers and 101 RBIs and
walked a major league-record 232 times on the way to his record
seventh MVP award. His most recent operation was May 2 to drain fluid and examine
an infection. If Bonds isn't able to play every day in 2006, Magowan said he
would consider increasing payroll from the team's $85 million this
year. "We want to compete and get to the World Series again," he
said. "We'll do what we have to do to give ourselves the best
chance to do that."
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