Friday October 5, 2001

Chris Martin

It was painful to watch the Giants and Astros game Wednesday night. Barry Bonds, by my count, saw a grand total of two hitable pitches in five plate appearances against the gutless Houston staff.

Bonds walked three times, ripped a single in his final at-bat and was obviously antsy in his first at-bat when he kept swinging at pitches outside the strike zone and ultimately struck out.

The Astros' pitchers were - and are - despicable. The greatest player since Mickey Mantle is one home run away from tying the most coveted baseball record, and Houston pitchers act like Bond's bat has the plague.

I have a message to any pitcher who will face Bonds before the end of the season - sack up and pitch him the damn ball!

It makes me angry as a baseball fan to watch this man get pitched around because managers think it makes more sense to walk Bonds than to give up a home run.

Sorry boys, but the strategy just isn't valid. How much sense does it make to walk Bonds when you have the reigning league MVP Jeff Kent batting behind him?

Bonds is having the greatest season since, oh, 1941, when Ted Williams batted .406 with a .551 on base percentage and hit 37 homers and drove in 120 runs. But people still pitched to Williams, and they need to pitch to Bonds as well.

As Bonds tries to slug his way into the history books, the players, managers and media continually try to blackball him because they say he's a jerk.

Who cares if the man is a jerk? Mark McGwire was a colossal jerk in the beginning of his home run chase. Luckily for Big Mac, Sammy Sosa caught fire, made a race of it and in the process got the Big Red Head to chill out.

Bonds has said all along that he just wants to win and that the record isn't that important to him.

I don't totally buy that because the record holds plenty of importance to him, or his wife and kids wouldn't have accompanied him to Enron Field for the Giants series with the Astros. I do believe Barry would rather be in the playoffs than hit 71 homers, however.

So give the man a chance. He deserves the record more than a one-dimensional player like McGwire.

This is one member of the media who is rooting for Bonds.

ooo

Since I can never be in staff picks, I thought I would offer up my predictions for tomorrow's UA game against Oregon.

There are a lot of optimists in Tucson this week who keep predicting the Wildcats will upset the Quackers.

Are you kidding me? Was I the only one who watched that embarrassment of a football game last week?

The Cats got whooped on by an unranked Washington State team, and don't give me this crap that Wazzu should be ranked. They're not the darkhorse of the Pac-10, either. WSU is a middle-of-the-road Pac-10 team that beat a bad UA team.

It won't get any better tomorrow, and the best quarterback in the country won't need to orchestrate any last-minute drives to beat these Cats.

SHAZZAM! Harrington is going to throw for four touchdowns, and Oregon will leave the Old Pueblo a happy team.

Oregon 38, Arizona 17

ooo

I promise that last week is the last time I will ever make my column into a midterm on sports, especially since I received a whopping four responses back on the questions. What, no one wants free Sausage Deli?

At least I now know that my column was read by six people - the four who responded to my questions, and my parents who read it online.

Talk about an ego boost.

For the other people who did read my column last week, and failed to respond, here are the correct answers to the five questions:

1) Where in God's green earth is O.J.? Answer: We don't know anymore since he was cut two weeks ago by the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League.

2) Who was the first opponent the UA women's soccer team ever defeated? Answer: It was Montana in 1994, by a score of 2-0

3) Who are the only brothers to win individual NCAA championships in the same event for the UA swim team? Answer: Seth and Martin Pepper both won the 100 m butterfly for Arizona.

4) Who are the four former Cats to have their numbers retired by the UA baseball team? Answer: Jim Wing (9), Terry Francona (32), Jerry Kindall (8) and Kelsey Osborne (41)

5) What is the first name of the editor in chief of the Wildcat? Answer: Robert, but in public and in this paper he goes by Ryan. That was a tough one, but you could have answered it if you called the Wildcat or looked it up in the student directory.

More sandwiches for me.