Bonds Gets His Chance after 17 Years

He has won the MVP title four times and hit a major-league record 73 homeruns.

Barry Bonds is the San Francisco Giants’ great ballplayer who seems to have it all – money and fame – after his 17 years in the major league. Yet, there is one big thing missing, the World Series trophy.

Bonds has never played on the baseball’s biggest stage. So advancing to the World Series has been his dream and now the dream has come true for the 38-year-old veteran slugger.

It happened in Pacific Bellpark in San Francisco on Oct. 15. Bonds hit a tying sacrifice fly in the eighth, and his teammate Kenny Lofton hit an RBI single with two outs in the ninth inning, sending the San Francisco Giants over the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 to win the National League championship series. The Giants sealed the series 4-1 in the game five.

Bonds, who hit only 0.196 during his five-time postseason appearances, hit 0.286 with four homeruns and 10 RBIs this time, putting his postseason failures in the past. As his teammates sprayed champagne after the game, Bonds said, "For me, it`s a long time coming. It`s a feeling I can`t explain.”

The last time that the Giants advanced to the World Series was in 1989 when the team beat out Oakland Athletics 4-0. This year will mark the first all wild-card World Series. The Giants will take on the Anaheim Angels what they call “Californian Series.”

There were three “Californian Series” in the history of the major league – LA Dodgers vs. Oakland Athletics in 1974 and 1988 and Giants vs. Athletics in 1989.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com