The First and Last Homers of Barry Bonds’ Career Were Opposite Field Blasts

Barry Bonds had a long and decorated Major League career – on that is worthy of consideration for induction in baseball’s Hall of Fame – playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants

He won seven Most Valuable Player awards – including four straight from 2001 to 2004. He drove in 1,996 runs, scored 2,227 times, swiped 514 bases and socked a Major League record 762 home runs.

A brief breakdown of those 762 blasts reveals the following:

  • They came off 449 pitchers (Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, John Smoltz tied with three others giving up the most – 8)
  • These pitchers played on 28 different teams, but
  • No team was smashed by Bonds more than the Padres (87)
  • He did it in 36 parks (160 at AT&T Park, 140 at Candlestick)
  • 75 came from the lead-off spot (imagine a guy with 762 homers at the top of the order!)
  • 3 home runs didn’t even leave the park
  • [adinserter block=”1″]

    The journey began here in Atlanta’s Fulton-County Stadium against future trivia question answer Craig McMurtry:

    Now, let’s fast forward more than 20 years and 760 homers later where Ubaldo Jimenez allowed the last of Bonds’ 26 homers at Coors Field:

    There is a wonderful symmetry in Bonds’ first and last blasts in that both were mashed out to left field. Sometimes, baseball can be poetic.

    There is, of course, something to be said about the evolution from a skinny center fielder at age 21 into a hulking monster by age 42, but let’s skip that for today and just admire the fact that his beautiful left-handed power stroke didn’t change in the 7,763 days between his first and last home runs.

    BONUS: Let’s watch Bonds talk about the joy of hitting home runs while the eight-time Gold Glove winner robs them.

    written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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