Bobby Bonds Has Lung Cancer

Bobby Bonds has lung cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy, seven months after an operation to remove a cancerous tumor from his kidney.

“My dad does have lung cancer,” Barry Bonds said Friday before the San Francisco Giants played the Chicago Cubs in an exhibition game in Mesa, Ariz. “It’s not easy to deal with.”

Bobby Bonds was recovering well from his kidney procedure, but was diagnosed with lung cancer during the winter and must undergo six months of chemotherapy, the Contra Costa Times reported Friday.

A former Giant coach, he now is a special assistant for the team. Barry Bonds told the newspaper Thursday that his father’s weight is down to 180 pounds.

Bobby Bonds, 56, played for the San Francisco Giants in 1968 to 1974 and for seven other teams during a 14-season major league career, hitting 332 homers and stealing 461 bases. He had 30 homers and 30 steals in a season five times.

“He can’t come to the ballpark. He’s too weak,” Barry Bonds said.

Barry Bonds, who homered on the first pitch he saw in the game -- a shot over the center-field fence off Mark Prior in the first inning -- said he will leave spring training in mid-March to return to San Francisco to be with his father when he has another round of chemotherapy.

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Right-hander Scott Erickson of the Baltimore Orioles will undergo shoulder surgery and probably will be sidelined for the 2003 season.

Erickson, 35, hopes to return by September in what will be the final season of a five-year contract. The 12-year veteran plans to have Dr. Lewis Yocum perform the operation to repair a torn labrum late next week.

Although the Orioles put out a press release saying Erickson “will be sidelined for the 2003 season,” he said he intends to pitch again this season.

Erickson didn’t pitch in the 2001 season after elbow ligament surgery in 2000. He returned last season as the Orioles’ opening day starter, but went 5-12 with a 5.55 earned-run average and did not pitch after Aug. 31.

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New York Yankee management isn’t exactly thrilled about the new book by David Wells that criticizes Yankee teammates, makes claims of rampant drug use in baseball and contends he pitched a perfect game “half drunk.”

“Perfect I’m Not! Boomer on Beer, Brawls, Backaches and Baseball,” an autobiography scheduled for release March 14, was the talk of the Yankees’ spring training clubhouse.

Manager Joe Torre and General Manager Brian Cashman met with Wells for about 15 minutes.

“We basically talked to him about a lot of things,” Torre said. “I sensed that he was bothered about it. Not by what we said but by what came out. It has his name on it so he has to be accountable.”

Torre and Cashman haven’t read the book yet and didn’t want to comment on specifics. But both felt it was important to address it immediately.

“I had a concern about some of the things I read in the paper, which led me to have the conversation,” Cashman said.

Wells let his book do the talking, refusing to comment on it after giving up two runs in two innings of a rain-shortened game against Philadelphia.