Rays deny interest in Bonds, report says
Home run king and suspected steroid user still looking for new team
 Tannen Maury / EPA | Barry Bonds has 762 career home runs. |
 | Slideshow |
 | Week in Sports Pictures The Saints triumph in the Super Bowl, Olympians work on final preparations for Vancouver, and more. more photos |
 |
Latest tweets from the HBT guys
|
For more MLB musings, check out Hardball Talk. |
 | Video: Baseball from NBC Sports |
 Manuel praises Halladay Jan. 27: Phillies manager Charlie Manuel thinks Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the league and says it would have been nice to have him in his pitching rotation this upcoming year. |
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Tampa Bay Rays have no interest about the prospect of pursuing Barry Bonds, the Tampa Bay Tribune reported Monday.
Manager Joe Maddon said earlier Monday he knew “little” about what was going on, but acknowledged some thought has been given to the career home-run leader.
“A minor discussion was thrown out there a little bit, and it’s really not gone any further than that,” Maddon said after Monday’s workout at the team’s spring training facility. “That’s all it is right now.”
The St. Petersburg Times reported in Monday’s editions that team officials have conferred among themselves about Bonds and other veteran unsigned free agents, such as Kenny Lofton and Mike Piazza. Andrew Friedman, Rays vice president of baseball operations, called the report a “non-story.”
Bonds, who broke Henry Aaron’s career home run record last summer, has pleaded not guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from testimony to a federal grand jury in 2003 in which he said he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.
Maddon shrugged off a question about how Bonds might fit in with the Rays if the team decided to pursue him and ultimately added him to the roster.
“It’s hard to conjecture. ... I don’t know this man. I only know what I read, and I’m very much open to meeting people and drawing my own conclusions about people. I don’t necessarily believe everything that I read,” Maddon said.
“For me to create conjecture of what it’s going to be like, I really don’t want to go there right now. ... So many things are going good right now. If I have to face those moments, I’ll do it at the appropriate time. But for right now, it’s really about nothing.”
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
LowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM BASEBALL |
 Baseball Section Front |
| Add Baseball headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links