SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Barry Bonds will be getting a statue outside the San Francisco Giants’ home stadium where he set baseball’s career home run record, the team’s CEO said Thursday.
Giants President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Baer was asked during a radio interview about a statue for Bonds, and he responded that it was “on the radar.” But Baer didn’t have any details of when that would happen.
“Barry is certainly deserving of a statue, and I would say should be next up,” Baer said during an appearance on San Francisco’s 95.7 The Game. “We don’t have the exact location and the exact date and the exact timing. … It’s coming. All I can say is it’s coming.”
Bonds played for San Francisco the last 15 of his 22 big league seasons, hitting 586 of his 762 homers while with the Giants from 1993-2007. He set the single-season MLB record with 73 homers in 2001, and hit his record-breaking 756th homer to pass Hank Aaron in a home game off Washington’s Mike Bacsik on Aug. 7, 2007.
There are currently five statues outside Oracle Park, those of Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry and Orlando Cepeda. The Giants retired Bonds’ No. 25 jersey in 2018.
Bonds, a seven-time MVP and 14-time All-Star, is not in the Hall of Fame. He failed to reach the 75% threshold required during his 10 years on the Baseball Writers Association of America’s Hall of Fame ballot, mostly because of steroids allegations that dogged him during his final years with the Giants. The Contemporary Player Committee also passed on electing Bonds in 2022, though the committee could reconsider Bonds’ status.
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