Wells blasts Bonds as he passes Ruth


By: RANDY MILLER (Sun, May/21/2006)

PHILADELPHIA — Boston Red Sox pitcher David Wells admires Babe Ruth so much that he once bought a game-used Ruth hat and wore it while pitching a game for the New York Yankees.

And on the day Bar-ry Bonds finally caught Ruth for second place on the all-time home run list, the outspoken Wells stuck up for his hero by trashing Bonds for being a suspected steroids user.

“He's hit a few home runs off of me while he was juiced,” Wells said of Bonds before the Red Sox-Phillies interleague game at Citizens Bank Park. “He hit a lot of them when he was juiced. He's a hell of a ballplayer. A lot of players hit home runs when they were juiced.”

When word broke that Bonds hit his 714th homer during a San Francisco-Oakland interleague game, Wells went into a 15-minute rant about Bonds and steroids.

“They'll all say Babe's number is legit and Barry's is not,” Wells said. “He's admitted he said he took it but unknowingly. I think that's a crock.”

Wells began naming names of suspected users — Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire — then out of nowhere brought up Astros second baseman Craig Biggio and Phillies spare outfielder David Dellucci.

Asked if everybody under suspicion now, Wells said:

“Now, everybody is, I would think. Did you see that little bitty guy, Dellucci, hit 29 last year? How many this year? One? I know Dave. I've never suspected him of doing them. Who else? Biggio. ... To me, the suspicion is on everybody.”

A 5-foot-11, 195-pounder, Dellucci hit just 27 homers in 541 career games from 1997-2003, then 46 over 235 games the last two seasons, including 29 in 2005 for the Texas Ran-gers.

As for Bonds, Phillies pitcher Cory Lidle is on record saying his career home run total should have an asterisk.

Wells disagrees ... for now.

“Not until proven guilty,” Wells said.

“If he cheated as a player, that's just as bad as being a scab.”