BARRY BONDS
Tampa Fan Invested In Bonds
Published: Jun 24, 2007
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TAMPA - There's not much to distinguish Kevin Fern's house from those of his neighbors, until you spot the vanity license plate on the car in his driveway: BONDS 25.
So, he's a stockbroker?
Close, but no. He's a vice president at M.E. Wilson Co., a venerable corporate insurance firm with headquarters up the street from the University of Tampa.
His business is risk management. Not the kind of profession you'd expect to produce one of the great contrarians of the age.
Fern, you see, is a Barry Bonds fan. The biggest Barry Bonds fan, perhaps, east of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
"I would go to card shows and I was the 'Bonds Guy' 15 years ago," Fern said. "People would save stuff to the side for me. It's because nobody else collected him like I did."
The depths of Fern's devotion to the Great American Antihero are worth exploring, if only as a study in fanaticism.
But first, a question. The question, actually.
Why?
Of all the athletes in all the world, why would a Chicago-born, Florida State-educated, bicycle-riding insurance executive in his mid-30s choose to lionize the man whose ongoing pursuit of Hank Aaron's all-time home run record has been overshadowed by years of steroid-fueled scandal?
"I like him," Fern said, "because of what he does on the field."
It really is that simple for Fern, whose fascination with all things Bonds began around 1993, just as Bonds made the jump in free agency from slender, athletic, perennial MVP candidate with the Pirates to soon-to-be muscle-bound slugger with the Giants.
As an undergraduate at FSU, Fern worked at a sports memorabilia kiosk in a Tallahassee mall. While Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas merchandise flew off the shelves, Bonds stuff collected dust.
Thus was born an obsession. It started with a few autographed cards, which turned out to be gateway memorabilia for a truly hardcore collection.
He estimates he has spent nearly $20,000 during the past decade-and-a-half on Bonds baseballs, Bonds cards, Bonds jerseys, Bonds bats, Bonds lithographs, Bonds cleats, Bonds figurines, Bonds banners and all manner of Bonds bric-a-brac.
That doesn't include the cost of the vanity license tags, his own BONDS 25 (the slugger's jersey number) and the BONDS 73 (the number represents Bonds' single-season home run record) for the back of the car driven by his (extraordinarily patient) wife of nearly six years, Francine.
"Did he tell you what we did for our first anniversary?" Francine said. "We went to [South Florida to] watch the Marlins play the Giants."
Most of the collection Fern lovingly displays at home in an upstairs office, with walls painted a bright shade of Giants orange.
A Fan Of Bonds And The Rays
Fern's allegiance to Bonds is all the more interesting in that he considers himself not a fan of the Giants, per se, but a fan of the local Devil Rays.
But you'll never catch him bidding on eBay for a chance to chat on the phone with, say, Ty Wigginton. A 15-minute conversation with Bonds, on the other hand, cost him almost $500 in an online auction in 2000 - and it was worth every penny, said Fern, who added that Bonds was gregarious and even funny, at times, as the conversation stretched an extra five minutes.
"I guess that means the next guy's only getting 10 minutes," Fern recalled Bonds saying at the end of the call.
Another fascinating facet to Fern's fanaticism: He's not blind to Bonds' foibles.
"Certainly, the steroid thing, I don't totally discount that," Fern said. "I certainly wish that never happened."
It's odd enough that a fan like Fern can be found 3,000 miles away from the San Francisco epicenter of Bonds Mania. It's downright ironic that Fern shares his adopted hometown with a fan whose bitterness toward Bonds is so entrenched, he started a Web site to encourage fellow fans to wear black clothing to Bonds' games in order to protest what he believes is a tainted run at Aaron's record of 755 home runs.
"It's just an idea that came to me for baseball fans to be able to speak their minds," said Tampa's Fred Marks, who grew up a Bonds fan but became so disillusioned that he founded the Web site, blackoutbonds.com. "I'm certainly not the only baseball fan in America who was hurt by Barry Bonds. I can't be the only kid who grew up having Barry Bonds as his idol, only to learn that this was not right, it was dishonest."
Public's Antipathy For The Chase
The strong emotional contrast represented by Fern and Marks doesn't necessarily reflect the national feeling as Bonds closes in on Aaron's record. Orin Starni, a Duke University professor who teaches a class on sports anthropology, has been struck by the general antipathy Bonds' historic chase has elicited compared to the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run duel of 1998.
Starni theorizes that Bonds' surly public image and his status as the "poster child for the steroid issue" have contributed to a dearth of enthusiasm.
"Americans love a fallen hero who goes through hard times and then asks for the public's forgiveness," Starni said. "Bonds has never done that. He's been the opposite. He's stonewalled investigations, he's engaged in this absolute denial. Americans love to forgive their celebrities. With Bonds, we've never gone through that process … and I think that's part of what makes him a hard figure to sympathize with."
Not for Fern, who refuses to allow his opinion to be swayed by what he considers superficial public presentations of his favorite player's personality. And it goes without saying that he'll relish every moment of Bonds' pursuit of the game's greatest record.
"I know he's not the most friendly to the media," Fern said. "And I hear people say, 'Bonds is a jerk.' Well, why? Why do you say that? They say it, but they don't have any real examples, specifically, as to why they say that. … Maybe he took the performance-enhancing drugs and most likely did - I'm not in denial that he did.
"But name something specifically why people don't like him, other than the media and the way he's presented. You really can't."
Putting It In Perspective
The Potential Hall Of FamerFred McGriff leaned back in his chair in the Tropicana Field media dining room and considered the question.
As a former player whose career numbers almost assuredly would have warranted first-ballot Hall of Fame status 20 years ago, did McGriff feel cheated watching those numbers diminish in historical significance as home runs became as cheap as a used syringe during baseball's Steroid Era?
After a moment, he shook his head no. As far as he's concerned, his five All-Star appearances, 493 home runs (tied for 22nd all-time), 1,550 RBIs (37th all-time), 10 30-home run seasons and eight 100-RBI seasons still stand on their own merits.
"I had success and was blessed and made a great living," McGriff said. "For me, I lived the dream. So, that stuff didn't affect me. But that's me, as a person. Other people, they want to be the highest-paid ever. That's not what drove me."
He does theorize that it might have driven other players to use performance-enhancing drugs. And while he stops short of accusing Barry Bonds directly, McGriff's ambivalence regarding Bonds' chase of Hank Aaron's all-time home run record is obvious.
"I've given it some thought, but at the end of the day, it doesn't concern you," he said. "It's not going to make life any different for me. I think, as players, yeah, if he does it, great; if he doesn't, great. The game of baseball is going to keep going on, regardless of if Barry's playing or Barry's not playing. The game is going to keep going on. It's a great record, but I think most players [think], 'I'm trying to make a living, I'm trying to take care of my family.'"
The Teammate
Randy Winn knows what's happening around him. How could he not?
Having spent most of the past two years in a Giants uniform, sharing an outfield, a clubhouse and a batting practice group with Barry Bonds, it would be just about impossible for the 2002 Devil Rays team MVP not to realize that history is being made right before his eyes.
Yet, even as Bonds closes in on Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, Winn says he manages to stay focused on the issue at hand each day.
"Honestly, I don't think I can really put it into perspective right now," Winn said. "One day I may be able to step back and realize what it meant to watch it happen, but right now I'm just not caught up in the day-to-day of, 'Is Barry going to hit a home run?' I hope Barry hits a home run today to help us win, that's how I'm thinking about it."
Winn won't allow himself to get caught up in speculation about Bonds' alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs. He merely acknowledges the significance of the feat ("I don't think I've hit that many homers in BP," he said) and an appreciation for Bonds' mental approach.
"Now, when he's approaching such a hallowed record, all the eyes, all the scrutiny, people are expecting him to hit a home run every time he's at the plate," Winn said. "You have to be extremely focused and mentally strong to be able to do what he has done."
And it's more for Winn than merely admiration for a peer, despite Bonds' reputation for aloofness.
"When you play with a guy, you develop a relationship," Winn said. "I'm not saying we go out to dinner every night, but we're in a BP group together and I do consider him a friend."
The Broadcaster
To many fans, broadcaster Jon Miller has become the voice of baseball as Joe Morgan's play-by-play partner on ESPN's Sunday night telecasts. But that's just Miller's weekend gig.
His primary job is calling Giants games. Which means it's entirely possible he'll find himself behind the microphone when Barry Bonds hits home runs No. 755 and 756 to tie and surpass Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. It's not a call Miller plans to script ahead of time.
"The way I'm looking at it at this point, it's difficult to project because I don't know what the moment will be," Miller said. "If he hits the home run in San Francisco, then there's almost certainly going to be huge excitement and celebration. If he hits it in some other city - Chicago, say, or Los Angeles or someplace where people are not his fans - what will the reaction be there? I don't know. But whatever the reaction is, I think that will be part of the capturing of the moment, which is our job."
That's not to say Miller hasn't given thought to the historical implications of the call. It will, after all, be as much a part of the moment as the home run itself - much as Milo Hamilton's famous call of Aaron's 715th in 1974 ("There's a new home run champion of all time, and it's Henry Aaron!").
"What will history say about Barry Bonds? We don't know," Miller said. "We don't know if there will be actual proof somewhere down the road that will, without question, tie him to steroids and all the other performance-enhancing substances he was alleged to have used. And yet, I think for some, it's, 'Well, did he really? What do we really know?'
"But what if we find out evidence, one way other the other, 10 years from now that is just incontrovertible? How do you make a call today that stands the test of time if new evidence comes out 10 years from now that could make that call sound silly? What if the call reflects the preponderance of thinking that the moment was tainted? And vice versa, if [the call] reflects only joy? And then we find hard, blatant evidence that he cheated? Then that call's going to sound silly. That's the worry with this moment."
Reporter Carter Gaddis can be reached at (813) 259-8291 or
