Bonds at peace with his legacy

Slugger says he’s given up on Cooperstown as he’s honoured by Pirates

- WILL GRAVES

PITTSBURGH Barry Bonds was touched in a way he didn’t expect when the Pittsburgh Pirates called to let him know he was being inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame. So when the moment arrived on Saturday, Bonds leaned into it.

He donned a gold jacket alongside fellow inductees Jim Leyland and Manny Sanguillen. He posed for pictures in front of the plaque that bears his name in a plaza just inside the gates behind left-centre field at PNC Park. And Major League Baseball’s home run king insisted he didn’t think about that other Hall of Fame, the one that has proved elusive nearly two decades after Bonds hit the last of his record 762 homers.

“I don’t have to worry about those things no more in my life,” Bonds said. “(I want to) hang around my grandchildren and my children. Those hopes (of making the Hall of Fame), I don’t have them anymore. I hope to breathe tomorrow (and see) if I can make it to 61.”