The San Francisco Giants aren’t talking about what happened, but a marker commemorating Barry Bonds’ 756th career home run has been quietly removed from AT&T Park.
The AT&T Park marker, shown above in a 2009 photo, has been removed, with some evidence (like adhesive marks) of the marker still remaining. It’s a little odd for a marker or plaque of this size to be removed without a new one installed: it’s just easier and cheaper to put up a new marker while taking down the old one. And we’re talking about a pretty prominent spot in the right-field wall, not a spot where the disappearance would be ignored.
But the Giants did indeed take down the old marker, leading many to question whether the memory of Bonds is being removed from the ballpark. Despite many opportunities, as Scott Ostler points out, the team has not exactly embraced the Bonds legacy:
The Giants have not added Barry Bonds to their growing statue garden of former greats–Mays, Marichal, McCovey, etc.
The Giants have not retired Barry Bonds’ number 25. They have not added Bonds to their Wall of Fame, even though Marvin Benard and 47 other former SF Giants are enshrined there.
So the sudden disappearance of a large shield honoring Bonds’ home-run record raised the suspicions of the already-suspicious.
A response by the team didn’t exactly clear up the situation: a Giants rep said the team was preparing a replacement for the spot, but declined to comment further.
Image by Wally Gobertz, taken in 2009, via flickr.com.
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