SAN FRANCISCO — It's been almost 18 months since Barry Bonds showed up at an Arizona State baseball practice, spent a couple hours working with kids in the batting cage and a couple more laughing and talking about hitting.
ASU coach Pat Murphy noted a huge and immediate change in several players on a team that went on to a third-place finish in the College World Series.
And Bonds might have emerged a changed person, too.
The 42-year-old slugger is unsigned after this season, he is coming to the end of his career and he is thinking about the next one. It could be in college baseball.
"When I went to ASU and I worked with those kids and I saw the results, I knew that I could teach," Bonds said in a recent interview. "You have it in your head, but you don't know if you could give it to another person so they could apply it. When I went to ASU and gave them a little bit of what I knew and it made a world of difference, I realized there's something I can offer to a young person.
"It took that to realize it's something I'd like to do."
Murphy thinks it's a great idea.
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