Barry Bonds helps transport people to safety during California wildfires
How’s this for October heroics? Baseball legend Barry Bonds was one of the famous athletes helping hotel guests flee a golf club that was in the path of the massive wildfires in Northern California’s wine country on Sunday night.
Thousands of people have been evacuated after dangerous fires took over more than 100,000 acres near the Napa area. Among them were a group of famous athletes who were at Santa Rosa’s Mayacama Golf Club for a charity fundraiser organized by NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott.
Bonds was among the guests, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, whose story details how Bonds and other athletes helped get others to safety. Bret Saberhagen, the former Kansas City Royals pitching great, also helped transport guests and Eric Gagne, the ex-Dodgers closer, went door-to-door alerting guests at a second hotel that they needed to evacuate.
As for Bonds, the Chronicle reports that since he was one of the few people with a car (he lives about 70 miles away), he was able to make multiple trips to get hotel guests to safety. Eric Brynes, an ex-MLB player, current MLB Network personality and friend of Bonds, relayed what Bonds told him to The Chronicle:
“Barry said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. It was crazy,’” Byrnes said. “When he walked out of his bungalow, the flames were right there, so he bounced out of there, and because so many people didn’t have cars, he was taking them all to the next hotel. He made multiple trips. He got evacuated again from that next hotel, but Barry was anticipating it, he said, ‘I know the fire is coming down here.’ It sounded really chaotic.”
ABC News reported that by late Monday night, the fires had killed at least 13 people, displaced more than 20,000 and destroyed more than 1,500 houses and buildings.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
