How Giants Legend Barry Bonds Expertly Preserved “Historic Moments” Years Before “MLB Authentication” Came to Be

Other than Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds is the cornerstone of baseball that non-sports enthusiasts refer to. A true lover of the game, the former San Francisco Giants player dominated the league in his active years. Controversies aside, Bonds proved time and again that whenever he was at the plate, he was home. Throughout his 22 seasons in MLB, there was no shortage of historic moments. And he knew how to preserve them.

Today, the era of the internet has made it easier to revisit old moments in time from iconic games. But when Bonds was a youngster, the magic of YouTube was still some years away. So to carefully maintain the memorabilia from games he never wanted to forget, the retired slugger came up with a system.

Barry Bonds Was the Curator of His Own Museum

Today, MLB carefully preserves items from games that a player might be unable to do on his own. The Pete Alonso incident is all too fresh in everyone’s minds but when given a chance, most players like to keep mementos from their career. Bonds, who certainly had no shortage of legendary moments in the game, also preserved items from them. But he had his way of doing it. Although the ex-slugger hung up his cleats quite some time ago, his interviews continue.

In an appearance on Goldin with his longtime friend, TV personality Ken Goldin, Bonds dived into his baseball past. With Goldin, he sat down to discuss his career in October 2021, where the host brought up a unique Bonds habit. “So basically, Barry took out a bat, the bat he used to hit his 70th home run in Houston, which I guess was 2 days before,” he says.

“It was tagged, he wrote something on it, ziplocked it, and put it away. So, what Barry did with his historic moments is he, before MLB authentication for any of the stuff, he would legitimately tag it, take it out of play, write on it so he knew exactly what it was, and seal it up. So there was none of this stuff, oh this could have been this could have been that.” But the player actually credits someone else for this habit.

Bobby Bonds Wanted His Son to Have Something to Look Back On

Bobby and Barry Bonds didn’t always have the best relationship. But the father coached his son through baseball and gave him a valuable piece of advice for the future. “You know my dad was the one who told me to do it. I was going toward my 500th home run…my father sat there and said, ‘You know before the world grabs it all you wanna keep it for yourself’…It had something to look back on,'” Barry tells Goldin.

READ MORE – Giants Legend Barry Bonds’ Father Once Disapproved of Legendary Feature That Changed Baseball History

And indeed, for the Bonds family, those moments hold immense importance even today. They’re more than just beautiful memories to look back on. They’re part of a legacy.

WATCH THIS STORY – Barry Bonds at #8! Top 10 MLB players of all time, ranked by ESPN