Orestes Destrade Describes Barry Bonds as a Teammate at the Tampa Baseball Museum Al Lopez House!!!

So yeah, Alan, you got a question? >> Yes. Questions the mic here? >> Yes. Uh, this question is for Rusty's. None of us have had the at least that I know of have had the honor of having Barry Bonds as a teammate. Can you talk about having him as a teammate and what you've learned through that experience? >> That was uh pretty special. So, I got traded to Pittsburgh and um and I get to the locker room and I realize that I'm going to I'm going to lock her not only next to Bobby Bonia but Barry Bond. So, I had the two BB's in between me and I had known Bar BB as I call him uh Barry Bonia Barry Bo from that era that I told you about of of the extended spring. He was one of the up, you know, upand cominging guys in the early 80s with the Pirates, big switch hitting first baseman like I was. And uh so we make made friends. So that was kind of comforting when I came over there to skip Leland's team. But Barry Bonds and I was fortunate enough that I got called up to the Yankees, Ricky Henderson, the great Dave Winfield, incredible mentor for me. Um, you know, she uh so many stars on that team. Don Mattingley, of course, you know, kept me down in TripleA for a few years. Um, then I finally got traded and I got to see play against some other incredible players. Cal Ripken Jr., George Brett, you name it. When I saw this 22 year old kid uh play as a Pittsburgh Pirate, I had never seen a better player in my life. I really hadn't. I mean all the Balco and all the steroids you know accusations which you know let's be honest you know allegedly but whatever he was just a head and shoulders above everybody else and he's a true we joke about five tool players not joke but we use it loosely but he truly was a five tool player he was a guy that get that had incredible speed uh incredible eye at the plate power arm defense the game just came so naturally to him obviously Obviously, his father was pretty damn darn good player, too. He probably, you know, ran across by, you know, Bobby Bonds. But I was just impressed with him. Now, he could be, he probably still is a tad bipolar just a little bit because he would have days where he would come in, he goes, "What's up, Big O? How you doing today, man?" I go, "Be what's going on." And then the next day he'd be like, "Be how you doing? Get the [ __ ] out of my Get out of my face." main guy. Same guy. Is it the same guy? I go to meet I I talk to Bobby the Puerto Rican in Spanish. Okay, this in Spanish, is this the same guy that we're talking like? Yeah, the same guy. It's a Tuesday. It's not a good day for him. And uh but we still stayed friends and and tie in a story of Japan. So, we stayed friends after my career, you know, uh ended. And he knew that I had had a very storied career in Japan. And when he hit his 73rd home run, I'll never forget. I'm in Nashville, so I I would go back and forth between Nashville and Tampa. Uh because my my I was divorced and my older my older kids were were in Nashville. So I had a house over there and I would go back and forth. I'm in my house in Nashville, watched him hit his 73rd home run in San Francisco. At around 2:30 in the morning, I get a call from Barry Bonds, horse from all the interviews of having hit 30 73rd home run. And I go, "Be man, congratulations." He goes, "We're going to Japan. Make sure you set it up with the high pitch voice. We're going to Japan. Let's go to Japan." All he was thinking about was cha-ching that I know you know the people of Japan. You're going to take him to Japan. So that winter, I took him to Japan and he made a quart million dollars in a week of uh cuz they were so excited to to just him sign everything. Trust me, I could I got a good 10% off of that. But anyway, you know, this Cuba was born in Lana last night. Okay.