Barry Bonds Shares How Close He Was To Signing With Yankees And How George Steinbrenner Screwed It Up

Barry Bonds joined the Netflix broadcast during the New York Yankees’ 7-0 win over the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday night and shared a story that would have completely shifted the landscape of not only his career, but Major League Baseball as a whole.After spending the first seven seasons of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bonds became a free agent in 1992. Fresh off a career season at the plate, hitting 34 home runs and posting a batting average of .311, teams around the league battled for his signature. Bonds ultimately signed a six-year deal worth just under $44 million to join the Giants and stayed in San Francisco for the remainder of his career, but as he explained it, that almost wasn’t the case, he was extremely close to becoming a Bronx Bomber.George isn’t here anymore, so I can tell the truth, right?” Bonds began. “I would’ve been with the Yankees, but Steinbrenner got on the phone and called us and told me, ‘Barry, we’re going to give you the money — the highest-paid player at that time — but you got to sign the contract by 2 o’clock this afternoon. And I said, ‘Excuse me?!’ And I just hung the phone up.””And I went to go get lunch, and Dennis Gilbert, my agent, they were like, ‘Do you know what you just did?!’ I’m like, ‘Did you know what he just said?!'” Bonds continued. “I just said, ‘Forget it.’ By the time I walked down the street to go get lunch, I said, ‘Let me just think about this.’ The Giants called me, and I said, ‘I’m going home.'”Bonds’ mention of the 2 o’clock deadline is new information. The Times reported in ‘92 that the Yankees had given Bonds two days to accept the offer, which still could have been the case and Steinbrenner wanted an answer by 2 o’clock on that second day, but the report also suggested the sixth year on the contract was a major sticking point as well.New York went on to win the World Series in 1996 and then went on a three-year run from 1998 to 2000 after missing out on Bonds, who was a 12-time All-Star with the Giants, a two-time National League batting champion, and hit 586 of his 762 career home runs, the most ever, while in San Francisco.Bonds, who retired in 2007, never won a World Series.