This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 12/10/2004.
Barry Bonds was born with baseball in his blood. He is the son of three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds, and the Godson of HOFer Willie Mays. Bonds was originally drafted by the San Francisco Giants out of high school in 1982 but decided to go to college. He played his college ball for Arizona State University, where he was a slender and speedy outfielder with an unbelievably quick bat. Today at age 40, Barry's bat speed is as quick as ever. After he finished school, Barry was the Pirates' first round pick in the 1986 draft. Just to list some of his unfathomable statistics, Bonds is third on the all-time home run list as his homerun count continues to grow. At the time of this writing Bonds was just shy of 700, with 693 long balls. He's an eight-time gold glover, twelve-time All-Star, and a six-time NL MVP. This man is the best baseball player of his generation, and arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game. When Bonds came up in 86, one of the Pirate coaches was Bob Patterson. Patterson wore the number "24," but in honor of Barry's Godfather Willie Mays, Bonds requested to have that number. Bonds was granted his request, and the Pirates gave Bonds Patterson's jersey. In order to do this they had to change the nameplate from "PATTERSON" to "BONDS." You can see where "PATTERSON" was removed because his nameplate was noticeably larger than that of "BONDS." This very jersey is probably one of Bonds' first ever road Pirates jersey. On the front left tail of the jersey is the "Wilson" manufacturer's tag with wash instructions. Attached is a size tag reading "42." Adjacent to the "Wilson" tag is a code tag reading "21 86 2" indicating player number, year, and set, respectively. Across the front of the jersey is "PIRATES." Below that and on the back is the player number "24." Across the back of the jersey is "BONDS" done on a grey nameplate. All lettering and numbering is done in black on yellow tackle twill. The jersey shows game-use, and except for the team nameplate replacement it appears to have no alterations of any kind.