PITTSBURGH - Major League Baseball’s all-time home run king Barry Bonds returned to the city where he began his career last night and, in a surprise move, paid a visit to the cancer ward of Children’s Hospital. Prior to the start of a twi-night doubleheader against his former team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the San Francisco Giants left-fielder walked through a crowd of boys and girls awaiting chemotherapy treatment, taking care to ignore them all. Through a Giants spokesman, Bonds released a statement saying that “the remarkable power of concentration he brings to the ballpark does not allow him the opportunity to relax his mental focus on the game of baseball at any time during the season, even in the presence of the terminally ill.” Nevertheless, Bonds felt it was important for him, “in the role of the new all-time Home Run King,” to “allow those less fortunate than he the opportunity to bask in his regal glow.”
According to family members of the stricken children, Bonds moved slowly down the corridor, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. He did pause briefly at one bedside, where eight-year-old Moe Kaminski, wearing a Giants cap and a Giants uniform with Bonds number 25 across the chest, waved a Giants pennant. “Dude,” said Bonds, “that’s pathetic.” The future first ballot member of the baseball Hall of Fame then left the ward without additional comment. “The kids were so excited to see him, yelling his name, begging for an autograph, but he wouldn’t stop,” said Mark Owen Henderson, of Dayton. “I guess that’s just Barry being Barry.”
