By Tim Benz
August 14, 2018
A lot of newspaper inches , TV and radio opinions and web space have been dedicated to a debate over whether the Pirates should retire Barry Bonds' No. 24.
This is occurring in the wake of the San Francisco Giants' retiring Barry Bonds' No. 25 last weekend while the Pirates were in San Francisco.
If there is so much debate, then it shouldn't happen.
Period.
After all, who would that jersey retirement be for? Bonds himself? Or the Pirate fans?
If it's for Bonds, do you think he'd really care? Bonds probably — probably — would show up for the ceremony. I wonder if he'd ever come back after it was over, though.
And if it's for the fans, if so many people are debating the merits of having the ceremony, what's the point? It's a self-defeating debate. If a large enough portion of the fan base is against it, don't bother.
It doesn't have to be a majority, mind you. But if one-third or 40 percent of the fan base — a group Bonds once accused of being racially biased — doesn't want a guy's number retired, maybe he shouldn't get the honor.
Wait for a while. Maybe old grudges still need to die. Maybe the Pirates need to get to a World Series first so people can forget the postseason failures of the early 1990s.
OK, that'll never happen. Or if it does, Bonds might be getting his number retired posthumously. And it may be at a renovated or replaced PNC Park by then. But you get the point.
To a large degree — in every sport — we've diluted our halls of fame to "Halls of Above Average." Maybe we are doing the same thing with the jersey retirement mentality.
Just because a player was great, that doesn't mean they get their jersey retired. If that was the case, Dave Parker would have his No. 39 up on the wall already.
He wasn't as good as Bonds, but by Pirates standards, he was good enough.
Parker falls into the same trap that Bonds did. Despite his greatness, a lot of the team's fan base disliked him on his way out the door and harbored ill will.
With an extra 10 years since he left, those wounds have healed. My guess is if Parker were to get his number retired tomorrow at PNC Park, you wouldn't hear any boos.
You certainly would if Bonds did. Not more than cheers. But you'd hear some.
That's the root of my point. A jersey retirement is the kind of event where everyone should be on the same page. It should be such an obvious call, the player being honored should be getting universal approval.
If there's a jersey retirement debate over a player as historically good as Bonds, then let's not have the debate. It simply shouldn't be done.
I've never heard anyone suggest that Bill Mazeroski was as good as Roberto Clemente, but the honor and applause when No. 9 got retired was unfettered because of what Mazeroski meant to the team's history.
I don't think Andrew McCutchen did enough to get his jersey retired here. He agrees. I'm sure some other Pirates fans do, too. But that doesn't mean that if the Pirates were to do it, people would be emotionally conflicted about McCutchen getting the honor.
They'd embrace the event, even if it was unnecessary.
Heck, I was emotionally conflicted every time Bonds came up to hit. I thought he was such an enormous jerk that I hated to see him succeed. But those Pirates teams he led would've been average, at best, without him.
This is not an argument about steroids. Bonds wasn't on steroids here. This isn't an argument about a lack of longevity as a Pirate or postseason failures. Ralph Kiner played roughly the same amount of years here and never got to the playoffs. His number is retired, and no one thinks twice about that.
This is an argument of practicality and tone. And if the tone from a significant portion of the fan base is to not retire the number, then it's impractical to even continue the argument.
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