Steve Yurchick

Harold Reynolds says Barry Bonds could read a pitcher’s grip before the ball was thrown and tell what pitch was coming from the on-deck circle “He was in a class with guys like Roberto Alomar and Rod Carew, guys I had heard about and been around, who could read pitch grips better than anybody. Barry was on that level.” “Rod Carew was my hitting coach in Anaheim when I played for the Angels. He’d walk up and down the dugout and say, ‘You guys don’t see it. I see what y’all don’t see.’ The pitcher would be sitting there, and Rod would say, ‘Changeup.’ Next thing you know, the guy throws a changeup. I’m like, ‘He hasn’t even moved yet, Rod.’ And he’d say, ‘You guys don’t see it.’” “Barry was on that level. So as a pitcher, you’re facing a guy who is probably picking up every pitch you’re throwing.” Jake Peavy: “Barry Bonds would be in the on-deck circle against me, and he’d just be leaning there. No swing, no nothing. Just watching. Sitting there, waiting. I’m thinking, ‘Let me show him something different.’ I’m telling you, he would get off that ledge, and if you threw him a strike, it was going deep.”