“Tim Redding is one of the worst teammates I’ve ever had,” fumed former Met Mike Bacsik on a Friday afternoon edition of ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight”, denying charges from former Nationals teammate Tim Redding the former had intentionally delivered a big fat meatball to Barry Bonds for the Sultan Of Surly’s 756th career home run. “I was fighting for my baseball life everytime I took the mound,” Bascik insisted to Karl Ravech. “I’d be costing myself a big league job if I was trying to give up runs.” Observing this bizarre pissing match, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ray Ratto muses, “It is nice to know, though, that the record still matters enough to remain a point of ugly speculation and innuendo well into its third year of existence. In that way, it remains the gift that keeps on giving.”
This extends the number of people taking credit or receiving blame for Bonds 756th home run by one, to Bonds, the Giants’ organization, the sellout crowd at the game, the poeople who built the ballpark, the bat manufacturer, all the employees at BALCO, two pitchers and the Nationals’ organization.
And Bonds, to his great credit, has remained silent on the entire issue because, actually having hit the home run, doesn’t need to say he hit it.