PTI - Is Barry Bonds Getting a Statue in San Francisco a PROBLEM?

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss Masai Ujiri, Barry Bonds, and the Tampa Bay Rays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. Tony, scientists are studying fungus that's 99 million years old. And Tony Kornheiser, I know.

It came from my feet. I know. Yeah, one can hope not. One can hope that's not the case. Do you believe they can do that? Do you believe they can pinpoint that something is 99 million years old? Yeah. Like archaeological finds.

Archaeological finds. I'm much more interested in that than fungus. Yeah. Like you don't even believe the Florida man's stories. How could you believe this? Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, Barry Bonds gets a statue. Leonel Messi faces PSG and should the raids use their tiny ballpark in the playoffs? But we begin today with news that the Toronto Raptors and their longtime team president, Messiah Ujiri have parted ways. No reason was given. Jiri put together the Raptors team that won the NBA championship in 2019.

The other night Ujiri ran the draft that brought Toronto Colin Murray Boyles from South Carolina with the ninth pick. Wilbon, what is your reaction to this news? Well, Tony, at first, I was sad, and I guess I still am, because I'm not going to sit here and pretend. Over the years, I've become pretty good friends with Missy U.S. And I have come to admire him, not for what he did necessarily with the Toronto Raptors, which is give them a national championship.

I was there for a lot of what happened with Toronto in 2019 and Kauai Leonard. But what he has done internationally for basketball, what he has done very specifically on the continent of Africa, in terms of giving young men hope, and it's mostly young men, it'll become young women soon enough, but hope and some extra direction and infrastructure and things that were not in existence for basketball on the continent at all. And Maasai has been at the forefront of that with the cadre of lieutenants now and people with basketball in Africa. And the NBA is involved in other sorts of organizations.

And I have seen that. He's invited me to go and I haven't gone yet and I should have been. But I see what Maasai Ujiri does. When I look at a guy like Malawatch, who Maasai told me about years ago, when he's like 15. And I see the opportunity created. And that's a much bigger picture. I know that we're talking about the Raptors.

But there's a new owner in Toronto. I don't know how that would work. I don't know if he knows how that would work. But Maasai Ujiri, his phone ain't be, his phone's not silent. Somebody's going to find him. And if they want to get somebody to run a club and be great at it, he's your guy. So I don't know Ujiri at all. but I know that he made one of the greatest trades

in the history of the NBA. When he brought Kauai Leonard on a one-year deal, in essence, because Kauai Leonard was going to be a free agent at the end of the year, brought him to Toronto. At the end of that year, Kauai is the finals MVP, and Toronto has won the NBA championship. When he left for free agency, that began a slow decline. This year, Toronto was 30 and 52.

But Kauai Leonard, you know, played 60 regular season games, but all 24 playoff games. No load management during a playoffs for Kauai. Average 39 minutes a game. I don't even know who's on Toronto anymore. I know Kawhi is not. I know Siakum is not. You know, I haven't paid all that much attention. But in terms of Ujiri, if he wants another job, he'll get another job, obviously, because he made this, you know, he took a place that can't get free agents. He made them competitive and all of that. The only read with great interest, Mike, was he makes $15 million a year. That's a lot more money than I thought he was making. And maybe the new owners said, oh, that's a lot more money than we want to pay this

guy. Yeah, maybe. Tony, their jobs and their jobs and their club jobs and team jobs, and there ought to be league and industry interest in Missa, Yerri. Because he is, he's that kind of influencer. He's got that kind of sober judgment and intellect. Basketball needs him prominently out front. And so hopefully there are people smart enough in the industry to realize that. We'll move to baseball now. His team right now is irrelevant. I mean, they're like Charlotte.

Tony, they were 23 and 22 on the back end of that season, and they're coming with some young players. Everybody doesn't do it like the Knicks and the Lakers. Some people, it takes time. We'll move to baseball where the Giants announced they'll soon erect a statue to Barry Bonds. Bonds played for the Giants for 15 of his 22 seasons, hitting 586 of his 6,762 home runs with them in San Francisco. The Giants currently have five statues outside Oracle Park honoring Hall of Famers, Willie Mays, Willie McCovee, Juan Marischel, Gaylord Perry, and Orlando Sepeda, wow.

Bonds has not made the hall due to steroid allegations. So, Tony, should anyone have a problem with this statue? Well, should is an interesting word because it creates a value judgment. I think there are a lot of baseball people who would say that Barry Bonds doesn't deserve something so prominent as a statue. I mean, it is likely. I won't go any further than that, that he used steroids. that he cheated the game.

So there's a large group of people who will have company if they say he shouldn't have a statue, just like they would say Mark McGuire shouldn't have a statue in St. Louis and Alex Rodriguez shouldn't have a statue anywhere he played. As far as I'm concerned,

if the San Francisco Giants want to give him a statue, that's fine. That's fine with me. This is not Cooperstown here. This is San Francisco where Barry Bonds is beloved, is and was beloved, okay? His total of home runs is higher than anybody on the Giants.

And as you mentioned, they had Mazen McCovey. And he hit his home runs in this park. All right, he splashed him in the water in this park. I have been told today that a lot of people are saying they should build the statue and put it in McCovey Cove. I would be for that. Yeah, Tony, I don't need or look for unanimity in anything. We live in a complex world.

People have different feelings. I know some of those older baseball players specifically, Hall of Famers, who have judged. vehemently to bonds and the others that you mentioned in steroid, used the perception of it, the reality of it, what it has done to the numbers in baseball, the numbers as you and I talk about all the time, are much more important to the fabric of the game than the other sports in North America that we pay attention to. That's right. But I've spent a lot of time in the Bay Area in the last 20 years a lot.

And a lot of it, most of it, has been dealing with the warriors. But you cannot be right there where those, that stadium and that ballpark nearly abut one another and not know how beloved Barry Bonds is widely, even with the exception of the people who say, hold on. So a statue there is fine. It's fine. Boy, I don't know. There's going to be a number of statues, staples and Oracle.

I don't know who's going to have the most statues. But it's fine, Tony. There's not going to be unanimity, and I'm not looking for it. I don't want to be a moralist about this. I believe that Barry Bond took steroids, and I believe that whatever baseball does to punish the people that they believe broke the rules,

Barry Bond should face that too. But the people, as you say, in San Francisco, they love him. And he's a baseball player. He's not a retired general. It's entertainment. Let's not go nuts here. Let's stay with baseball.

At the moment, the Tampa Bay Rays are the first wild card team in the American League. Ken Rosenthal, the athletic reports that Major League Baseball has held conversation. with the race about where the team could play home playoff games.

Their current temporary stadium is the 10,000-seat Yankee Spring Training Stadium, Steinbrenner Field. Baseball is concerned that stadium might not be able to handle all the tickets baseball itself gives away for playoff games, and they are concerned the broadcast facilities may not be up to playoff standards. Wilbon, if you were the raise, would you move your playoff games to a neutral field? If I ran a raise after I consulted with people in my building, including the players whose pockets are enhanced or hurt by the revenue produced by the gate in the postseason, after I had those conversations, depending on what I was told, I'd probably tell Major League Baseball to go to hell. And that's just me. So I've got this stadium there.

I'm building a place. I represent as a team. I get to the postseason pretty frequently, something like six times in the last eight years. I'm not doing this for Major League Baseball. Figure out how to fix some cameras somewhere else. Too bad. I remember when baseball wanted to big foot the Cubs and say, you don't have lights at Wrigley Field in the mid-80s, early 80s. You're going to have to put these games at Kamisky Park.

And believe me, I would have walked outside with a poster that said Major League Baseball, go to hell. instead of moving those games to the south side. I would have. So that's how I feel about that. Yeah, it's glad to see you're not angry today. My feeling is if I were the Tampa Bay race, I would want to play my playoff games in this field. I've just played 81 regular season games in this field.

I played them there because my stadium was torn apart by a hurricane and baseball put me in this particular field. If I'm good enough to make the playoffs, I want to play those games on that field. You know, I don't really want a neutral side. It's for two reasons. One, it's named Steinbrenner Field, and he won a bunch of World Series. And two, it's actually in Tampa.

And we live in Tampa. We are the Tampa Bay Ridge, right? So why do I want to go somewhere else? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I understand baseball's point. I understand that, you know, maybe the broadcast facilities aren't that great. I agree with you.

Temporarily fix them. They're broadcasting games every single night there, temporarily make them better. I understand all of the things that there's only 10,000 people and they give away a lot of tickets. Give away fewer tickets. You're talking about giving away tickets. You and I are on the same page on this that it may hurt the gate because it's only 10,000 seats and that may hurt the players. My solution. Baseball should underwrite that.

I don't think you move this team. And by the way, let's be fair about this. They don't draw squat. They haven't even sold out all their home games at a 10,000 seats savings. Stop it. Let's take a break. Coming up, two-time defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz, is not the number one seat in the men's draw at Wimbledon.

What is the word for that? And how big would it be if Leonel Messi in inner Miami were to beat PSG on Sunday? Pretty huge. I don't understand this. Tampa Bay is a really huge. good team year in, year out, and they don't draw them all. I mean, I don't get that.

Pardon the Interruption is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Drink responsibly. Time to hit you with some very merry vocabulary, even though, as you can see, I am not wearing my doctor's jacket. You, where's your jacket? I left at home. Where is it? Left at home.

I'm an idiot. What's first? I left at home. It's blank that Carlos Alcaras is not the number one seed in the men's draw at Wimbledon. My word or words are head in the sand. Yannick Sinner is the number one seed there, even though Al-Qaraz just beat him in the French Open final,

and even though Al-Qaraz has beaten him, like, the last five times that they've played, because these seedings are produced by, I don't know, some algorithm somewhere that has no relationship to reality. Al-Carras has won the last two Wimbledons. If he goes for a three-peat, you know who he joins? joins Borg and Sampras and Federer and Jokovic. That's it. That's the list. Only the greatest players at Wimbledon of all time. Sinner's not one at Wimbledon. Sinner hasn't been to the finals at

Wimble. This is a bad seating. It's wrong. You know what, Tony, I don't disagree with your reasoning, but my word is, or words, are just fine. It doesn't matter. Tony, if they play according to form, they're going to meet each other in another final, just like they met at Roland Garos. They're going to meet at Wimbledon. They're going to meet one versus two. And for all the nerds out there

who want to point out, well, his draw is more difficult. You don't know who's going to be playing that well on either side of the draw. You don't know where the upsets are going to occur and change who you project one or the other to play. It's just fine. As long as he's,

one or two. No, I don't want to see them seven or even three where you have a much tougher draw in a round of 16 or the quarter finals. I don't want to see that. But if these two get to meet, you know that's what we're all wanting,

right? Don't you want to see them again playing the final? Okay, it's seated for that. Just fine. What's next? What's next? If Leonel Messi and Inter-Miamy beat PSG on Sunday, it would be blank. It would be seismic.

I'm not the world's greatest soccer person, but I'm up to speed on this. PSG just won the Champions League. That's an All-Star League. That makes PSG the best club team in Europe. Europe is where everybody in America says the next great American player has to go to get better. You have to go to Europe.

Into Miami, not in Europe. Into Miami is here, and it's in the MLS. And if my statistics are correct, Mike, at the moment, into Miami is in sixth place, sixth place in the Eastern Conference of the MLS. So you wouldn't figure they can play with PSG. Now, they got some great old players, and I emphasize, old, chief among them is messy. He used to play at PSG. And they look good in pink.

They're really good. But it's hard for me to believe that they can win this game. Well, Tony, they can win the game because we don't even know how seriously PSG has taken this. This ain't Champions League. This is, you know, not the league in France. It's not any of that. It's not World Cup, even though it is this sort of new cup that's out there that it really is important kind of for the first time. But my word, even if Miami's to beat a PSG team that's not really fully engaged, it is going to be newsworthy in America. That's what it would be. and people in the United States

will probably overreact and say, aha, we beat PSG, which is just coming off for winnings Champions League. Okay, we can overreact like that. That's fair, by the way, and it's okay to give it a certain amount of hype. I don't know how seriously, though,

PSG is going to be taking this team in pink, except maybe they look and see messy and go, oh, it's the old man. Maybe we'll pay attention for 90 minutes. Who do you think is going to win? Who is going to win? I think PSG is going to win. Me too.

That's the final word. Let's take one last break. Still to come. Could we see Cooper Flagg play point guard for the Mavericks? And baseball is about to shine a spotlight on Cal Raleigh. Who's getting a lot of slurpage lately. A lot of slurpage. Yeah, big dumper.

You didn't tell anybody to go to hell in this segment. I'm proud of you. No, I let you do it because you were angry in the first part of it. this segment. You were the angry old man. So we split it up. Pardon the interruption is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Drink responsibly.

Happy time, people. Happy 35th birthday, Bobby Wagner. The longtime Seattle Seahawks, Legion of Boom linebacker, came over to the Washington football team last season as a free agent. His influence on that defense might not be as impactful as Jaden Daniels was to that offense, but the Washington defense was miles better. They allowed 127 fewer points this past season than the previous season. They were 32nd and last in points allowed and yards allowed in

2023. This past season under Dan Quinn, they were 18th in points allowed, 13th and yards allowed. Wagner is back on a one-year deal. He made second-team all-pro in Washington. Six different times he has been first-team all-pro, and 10 times he's been to the Pro Bowl. Wagner is headed for Canton. He is, Tony. I don't want to make this Reggie White going from Philadelphia to Green Bay, but he's having an impact in a second place. And if that defense gets better and leads that team to where a lot of people think they can go, Wagner's going to be a big part of that. Happy anniversary, Tony Parker on this day 24 years ago, the French point guard was selected by San Antonio with a 28th pick in the NBA draft. Parker,

played on four NBA title teams and was once finals MVP. Parker is the most successful French basketball player in NBA history. Of course, Victor Wembeñama could change that. This past season, there were 14 French players on NBA rosters, including Rudy Gobert, Bilal, Kula Bali, and the number one and number two picks in the 2024 drafts Zachary Riesachet of Atlanta and Alex Saar of Washington. This year, three more Frenchmen were chosen in the draft's first round,

and three in the second round. Only the United States and Canada have more NBA players than France. Ah, Tony, he may be very French and he is, but his daddy grew up on the south side of Chicago hooping in the playgrounds there. I wanted to be like his dad, like Tony Parker's dad. I told Tony Parker that some years ago.

He's like, are you serious? Like, yes. And Tony Parker's brother was the point guard in Northwestern, and he sounds like a guy from the south side. Where's Tony? Tony sounds like he's from Paris and his brother and father don't. What's up with that?

Having trails Griffin Canning. The Mets starter appeared to suffer an Achilles injury while on the mound against the Braves last night. Canning is 7 and 3 with a 377 ERA this season and now seem sure to join fellow starters. Kota Senga, Tyler McGill, and Sean Manea on the injured list. On the upside for the Mets, they beat the Braves for the second straight day.

splitting the four-game series and returning to first place in the NL East, a half a game ahead of the Phillies. Yeah, you don't want to see this whole Achilles thing spread from the NBA to other sports. Just hate seeing that. All right, let's go to the big finish, if we could. Let's do it. Let's hear the music and go. Jason Kidd wants to see Cooper Flagg play some point guard early on. Do you?

No, but I hadn't thought of it, but that's what Jason Kidd does. He sees things. So, okay, Cal Raleigh accepted a spot in the home run derby. Does that make sense to you? It's great. He's leading the majors in it, and apparently his dad is going to throw to him, and that's going to be fun to watch. Arena Savalenko, who you've been critical of and Cocoa Gop,

posted videos of them doing TikTok dances together from Wimbledon. Are you surprised at that? Not really because Savalinkas' bad behavior or seems confined to the court, and she seems completely engaging the other times. Not really. Caitlin Clark is out again tonight. You're concerned? Yeah, of course I'm concerned.

The second time she's been out for one reason or another this year. It's the most important player in the WNBA. Last one, NHL draft is tonight. What are you most excited to see? Well, I mean, Matthew Schaefer is reported likely to go number one of the Islanders. I want to see who the Black Hawk's take with the third pick unless they deal it. That's just me. I really wish that Tony Parker had said to you,

You cannot be serious. That would be funny. We're out of time. We'll try to do better the next time. And I'm Tony Cornhush. I'm Mike Wilbon. Have a great weekend, knuckleheads.