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Bobby Bonds

American baseball player and coach (1946–2003)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ127566
Source-derived summary

Bobby Lee Bonds (March 15, 1946 – August 23, 2003) was an American right fielder in Major League Baseball from 1968 to 1981. He played for the San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, California Angels, Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals, and Chicago Cubs.

Noted for his combination of power hitting and speed, he was the first player to have more than two seasons of 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases, doing so a record five times (the record was matched only by his son Barry) and was the first to accomplish the feat in both major leagues. He became the second player to hit 300 career home runs and steal 300 bases, joining Willie Mays. Together with Barry, he is part of baseball's most renowned father-son combination, holding the record for combined home runs, RBIs and stolen bases. A prolific leadoff hitter, he also set major league records for most times leading off a game with a home run in a career (35) and a season (11, in 1973), both records that have since been broken.

Early life

Bobby Lee Bonds was born on March 15, 1946, in Riverside, California. Bonds played varsity high school baseball at Riverside Polytechnic High School.

Professional career

Minor leagues

Bonds signed with the Giants in 1964.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bobby Bonds” is american baseball player and coach (1946–2003). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bobby, Bonds and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1946, 2003, 1968, 1981—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1946-03-15. For this dossier, Bobby, Bonds and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american baseball player and coach (1946–2003)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q127566. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 2003, 1968 and 1981.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bobby Bonds”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bobby Bonds primary sources, Bobby Bonds archive and Bobby research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bobby Bonds”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Bobby Bonds” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.