Portal:San Francisco Bay Area/Selected biography/18

Barry Lamar Bonds (born July 24, 1964) is a former American baseball left fielder who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). In a career spanning 1986 to 2007, Bonds played his first seven seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates before spending 15 years with the San Francisco Giants. He is the son of former major league All-Star outfielder Bobby Bonds.

A 14-time All-Star and 8-time Gold Glove Award-winner, Bonds is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players of all-time. He won the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player Award seven times, including four consecutively, both of which are records. Bonds holds many other MLB records, including most career home runs (762), most home runs in a single season (73, set in 2001), most career walks (2,558), and most career intentional walks (688).

Bonds led a controversial career, notably as a central figure in baseball's steroids scandal. In 2007, he was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury during the government's investigation of BALCO, by testifying that he never knowingly took any illegal steroids. The trial began March 21, 2011; he was convicted on April 13, 2011 on the obstruction of justice charge. His conviction was upheld on September 13, 2013 on the grounds that a factually true statement can be obstructive if it is misleading or evasive. Despite his baseball accomplishments, Bonds was not elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first or second year of eligibility on the ballot. (more...)