ShareThisBarry Bonds is surely bemused by the outrage expressed over the Atlanta Braves' treatment of Tom Glavine. Bemused, that is, in that "What, you were surprised that's how this works?" kind of way.
Glavine was released by the Braves on Wednesday, after one successful rehab start in the minor leagues, and on the same day they apparently hornswoggled the Pittsburgh Pirates out of outfielder Nate McLouth, the cries of foul over Glavine dominate the air.
Glavine was sent down in spring training to rehab his left arm, and by all accounts his one start in Rome, Ga., looked a lot like most of his starts the past few years -- fastball in the low to mid-80s, thrown routinely for strikes. But after the start, he was given the choice by general manager Frank Wren -- retire or be released. The Braves didn't need him anymore because they either needed the $1 million bonus they would have to pay Glavine for being recalled or because they didn't think they needed to wait any longer for prospect Tommy Hanson.
That's how it happened with Bonds as well, more or less. He was a highly valued (and highly compensated) member of the Giants until the day he hit his 762nd home run; at that point, he could no longer fill the ballpark for them on a daily basis, and they gave him a slightly milder version of the bum's rush shortly thereafter.
It is also the way it will probably end for Randy Johnson, although this is hardly the day to be raining on his parade. He knows as well as anyone that this is the business he and his friends have chosen, to quote the famous baseball fan Hyman Roth, a business that cuts its heroes loose without much hesitation. Someone who could conceivably be better and is definitely cheaper is almost always the ticket out for all players great and small.
Bonds, of course, had a number of ancillary issues that helped hasten his end in San Francisco, but it isn't the end that was surprising. He would stay until the organization could squeeze no more revenue from him, pure and simple. Nothing more complicated than that -- they have your back until they want to have someone else's, and the tiebreaker is almost always, "What's it gonna run us?"
Should there have been more outrage for Bonds in 2007? Maybe, in a different world. Or maybe there should have been none at all. That's all parallel universe stuff; we only know for sure what actually did happen.
But the Glavine story is one more reminder that almost nobody goes out the way they want. The Braves used one of their favorite sons as insurance for a prospect, and the Giants used Bonds to maximize his earning power for them. Unsentimental decisions made by unsentimental men in a game that likes to clothe itself in sentiment, some of it based on the weight of a raw number.
Johnson has a number now, one he's earned and can be proud to claim. He handled his business Thursday with the professionalism he typically displays, and though he hit his number by smothering the worst team in baseball in a stadium that looked nine-tenths empty, it was a memory he can cling to with considerable pride.
But the laws of baseball physics are what they are, and the law won with Glavine. The law won with Bonds. The law wins with everyone except the tiny few. In baseball, you don't always get what you want, and you don't always get what you need, but you always get what you get.
And most of the time, it comes face first.
(E-mail Ray Ratto at rratto(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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