Marlins excited to have Barry Bonds as hitting coach

Barry Bonds is back in a major league uniform.

I can’t say I’m confident Bonds will one day make it into Cooperstown, but the purging of legacy Hall of Fame voters figures to help his case.

In this year’s Hall of Fame voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America, Bonds got 44.3 percent of the votes cast, leaving him almost 31 percent short for admission but his highest vote total in his fourth year on the ballot. Nonetheless, he said he considers himself a Hall of Famer.

Bonds will likely hear some jeers this season.

As spring training kicked off this week, Barry Bonds began his first big league job since retiring from the game as the Miami Marlins hitting coach.

One adjustment players throughout the major leagues will have to make this season will be to the new law passed in California that bans smokeless tobacco from the five MLB parks in that state.

“God knows I’m a Hall of Famer”, the 51-year- old said.

“I kind of looked online and saw a lineup of the guys we had”, he said.

Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who said he still has Bonds’ rookie card, said of his new hitting coach, “it will definitely be great for me and the whole team to pick his brain”.

“My experiences have definitely helped me be ready for a moment like this and I’m ready to go and play some ball”, he said. “I may have got a little bit heavy there, especially being injured and not doing the pitching”.

In recent years Bonds worked as a guest instructor for the Giants in spring training and privately tutored several players, including Alex Rodriguez. As a manager, Mattingly has been clean-shaven and the new Marlins manager won’t allow any facial hair for his players.

Bonds added that he has missed the competition and being around big-league clubhouses, and he views coaching as a way to honor his late father, ex-big leaguer Bobby Bonds, as well as godfather Willie Mays.

“I’m going to look eight, so good luck to me”, Gordon said, but he conceded, “It’s good for the team to have some structure”.

“Guys will whine”, Mattingly said Sunday (via ESPN).

“Between me and Barry”, Mattingly said with a smile, “we hit over a thousand homers”.