New Marlins Hitting Coach Barry Bonds: "God Knows I'm A Hall Of Famer"
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Former San Francisco Giants outfielder and new Miami Marlins hitting coach spoke to reporters at an introductory news conference at Marlins Park on Saturday.
Bonds turned some heads when he told reporters on Saturday that, "God knows I'm a Hall of Famer."
"In my fraternity, in Major League Baseball, there's not one player that ever could sit there and say that I'm not [a Hall of Famer]. There's not a coach who ever coached me that says I'm not one," Bonds added.
He fell well short of being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016, receiving just 44.3% of the votes, about 30% shy of the required 75% for an induction.
Bonds finished as the MLB's all-time leader in home runs (762) and walks (2,558).
"For better or worse, and you can ask our PR staff, we don't think about publicity when we do anything," Marlins Team President David Samson said.
"We do what we think is right, so we did not give that a thought. We think Barry can help our hitters get better and help us win games," Samson added.
Bonds has been surrounded by peformance enhancing drug rumors ever since he was convicted for obstruction of justice from the BALCO trial in 2011.
His conviction ended up being overturned via appeal by a Circuit court last spring.
