Barry Bonds in Toronto?

Keep in mind that the Jays have had such controversial guys as Roger Clemens, Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco and Roberto Alomar Jr. on the roster in the past. Matt Soteroff at Jays Nest makes a strong case for Toronto signing Barry in the wake of ditching Frank Thomas. Here are some of his best points --

-- Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas are both overpaid sluggers, except Barry would bring attendance that the post-strike Jays can only dream of. If you think he would be too expensive or an irresponsible purchase, what would you call AJ Burnett? The Jays have been an extremely free spending team ever since they got more attendance revenue and no one would bump that revenue way up more than #25.

-- The move would be almost as beneficial for Barry as it would for the Jays. He could come up North and live in relative obscurity. These days the home run champ can’t walk down the street in a US city without getting hollered at for disgracing the national past time. Our national past time is hockey, we don’t care if he’s done anything to baseball. Toronto is one of the few cities that would tend to be more forgiving towards Barry as soon as he puts on the uniform.

-- Barry Bonds also faces far too much scrutiny for his attitude. He gets called a cancer in the locker room, and has a reputation as being an all around miserable human being. But he did take a team to the World Series, and was arguably the best player in that series. Is wasn’t until he was saddled with a terrible lineup and his team started to lose that Barry’s arrogance and bad attitude became a flaw.