A WEALTHY banker has infuriated American baseball fans by buying every single seat on the right section of the Los Angeles Dodgers stadium — for two consecutive games — in an effort to “catch” the ball hit by the legendary slugger Barry Bonds on his historic 700th home run.
Mr Bonds, 40, who plays for the San Francisco Giants, has so far amassed 699 “homers” over his two-decade career, and is widely expected to become the biggest hitter of all time, beating the current record of 755 set by Henry “Hank” Aaron, of the Milwaukee Brewers, in 1976.
Typically, Bonds, a left-hander, uses his maple wood bat to thwack a ball with ferocious force into the right side of the stadium every eight times he is “at bat”. At present, there are only two players in the so-called 700 Club: Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth, who totaled 714 home runs during his brilliant career.
The banker, Michael Mahan, paid $25,000 (£14,000) for 6,458 tickets to the right-field pavilion of the stadium, for two of the last games of the season against the Giants, to be played on October 1 and October 3. Mr Mahan, 28, then resold the tickets for nearly triple the price, requiring every buyer to sign a contract forcing them to hand over any home-run balls hit by Mr Bonds they may catch.
Mr Mahan would then sell the ball and split the proceeds, likely to run into millions, with the fan who caught it. The only people not required to sign the contract are Mr Mahan’s parents, two sisters and his brother, aged 8.
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“They didn’t ask questions,” Mr Mahan said of the Dodgers. “They seemed very happy that someone wanted to buy out the pavilion.” Since then, however, Dodgers officials have changed their minds, accusing the entrepreneurial banker of using a loophole to “manipulate the system”. They have also threatened to let fans into the right-field pavilion for free if more than 20 per cent of his seats are unfilled during the games.
Bonds’s tendency to hit balls to the right has resulted in the development of a unique defensive team manoeuvre called the “Bonds shift”. This is where the opposing team moves its entire infield to the right side.
The last time Bonds smacked an historic home-run ball into a stadium — to achieve the record for most home runs in a single season — it provoked an undignified 14-month legal battle between two fans who both claimed they had caught it. In fact, the ball was initially caught by a restaurant owner who then fumbled it — resulting in a scrum, from which a Silicon Valley engineer emerged triumphant. The ball, with a face value of $14.99, was later valued at $1 million (£557,446) as a piece of sporting memorabilia. In a ruling worthy of Solomon, the judge in the case ordered the two parties to sell the ball and split the proceeds. After their legal costs, however, it is thought that both fans ultimately incurred a loss.
Surly, tactless and often arrogant, Bonds is the regular butt of jokes in the American sporting press. His own teammates allegedly call him “The Emperor” and fans often mock the large, protective shield he wears on his right elbow. In 2002, when there was talk of another baseball strike, Bonds irritated fans by saying the sport would survive regardless. “A lot of companies go on strike,” he said. “And people still ride the bus.”
His five-year contract with the Giants is worth $90 million, but he earns much more. On his website he sells baseballs autographed by himself and his famous godfather Willie Mays, the former New York Giants icon, for $1,295.95 apiece. Mr Mays was one of the first black American baseball players to become a national star: he was famous in the 1950s for getting up early to play stickball with local children in the street outside his Harlem boarding house.
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Some fans suspect Bonds, who is 6ft 2in and 228lb, of taking steroids, largely because of his links with Balco, a firm that allegedly produced the “designer” steroid THG. “Am I the only one who can see that his head is the size of a watermelon?”
Brian White, a sports columnist for GlossyNews.com, wrote. “Has no one else noticed that he keeps getting bigger and stronger every year? Maybe he’s found the fountain of youth, and I really hope he has, because that’s the only way I can imagine a player having career-best seasons at an age when all but the most remarkable players have been turned into base coaches.”
Bonds has always denied using drugs.
Although the Giants have 14 games to play before they reach Dodgers stadium Mr Bonds may not hit his landmark 700th home run before then, because opposing teams often throw him four bad balls in order to force him, under the rules, to walk to first base.
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