Health key to Bonds deal
Barry Bonds will earn the full value of his 2007 contract – $20 million, a slight raise over last year – with his 525th plate appearance for the San Francisco Giants.
Beyond his base salary of $15.8 million, Bonds will receive $500,000 at 250 plate appearances, $1 million each at 300, 375 and 450 plate appearances, and $700,000 at 525 plate appearances. When healthy, Bonds routinely had well more than 600 plate appearances.
Despite offseason elbow surgery and chronically troublesome knees, Bonds, 42, was able to maintain his daily workout regimen at UCLA with personal trainers Harvey Shields and Greg Oliver. The Giants believe he is his fittest since a series of three knee surgeries two years ago.
Though Shields and Oliver worked exclusively with Bonds, both were on the Giants' payroll from 2004-06, an arrangement that ended with this contract. According to Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, Bonds will continue that relationship, though the trainers will not be allowed in the Giants' clubhouse, training room or on the field.
"It'd be easier if they were at the ballpark," Borris said, "but that's not a necessity."
Borris declined to reveal the circumstances that delayed the signing. The sides agreed to the parameters of the one-year contract in early December. A month later, the New York Daily News reported Bonds tested positive for amphetamines during the 2006 season, which Bonds refused to address in a Monday conference call but has not denied.
It was speculated that the Giants sought broader financial protection against an ongoing federal investigation into Bonds' testimony before a grand jury in the BALCO case, but Borris said the contract contained only typical language.
"Every player's contract in every major professional sport has clauses that indicate if a player is arrested and convicted and then incarcerated the contract goes from being guaranteed to non-guaranteed and the player will not be paid," Borris said. "That goes for any player in any professional sport. That was never a sticking point in these negotiations, contrary to many reports."
