Barry has three kids of his own -- Aisha Lynn, and two children from his previous marriage, 10-year-old Nikolai and 9-year-old Shikari. He married Liz Watson in 1998, and the family lives in Barry's new 12,500-square-foot house in the Los Altos hills. This house is not so much a house as it is an experiment in wired living: It features 19 television sets that double as computers, eight computers that double as televisions, and the capability to control virtually anything in his home from his laptop computer.
"Yeah, Barry sure does like his gadgets," says Giants right fielder Ellis Burks.
Paul Trapani
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The Barry Bonds post-game interview is an experience so dumbfoundingly dysfunctional that everyone involved should feel significantly dumber for having been a part of it.
It begins when the local sportswriters move en masse toward Bonds' section of the clubhouse. The group stops when it reaches the massage chair, which is strategically placed to protect the king of the world from just such an advance.
The reporters stand there, notebooks and tape recorders in hand, waiting for someone else to ask a question. Bonds thumbs through his mail as if the reporters are not there. Santa Rosa Press Democrat Giants writer Jeff Fletcher breaks the ice with an interrogational softball.
"How is your calf?" (Bonds left this particular game in the seventh inning after aggravating an injury to the calf.)
Bonds turns his back to the reporters and starts tidying his locker. "Man, I don't need all these shirts," he says, quickly shuffling through boxes of giveaways, tossing the shirts in a garbage bag.
"Barry, how is your calf?" Fletcher asks again.
"More shirts I don't need," Bonds says, throwing a box in the bag. Bonds then picks up his mail, thumbing through the envelopes until he finds something that interests him. "Now this I want to read," he says.
"Which calf is it?" Fletcher asks.
Bonds turns toward his lockers, but as he does he casually slaps his right leg. It's his right calf! The reporters ask a few more calf-related questions, one of which Bonds chooses to answer.
Later, in the press box, a local writer sums up the feeling of many: "Every time I talk to Barry, I just stand there thinking, "God, I really hate you.'"
The hate goes both ways. Over the years, Bonds has found ample opportunity to voice his displeasure with the media, arguing that they are responsible for his negative public image.
"The pain is so great sometimes," Bonds told Baseball Weeklyin 1998. "This hasn't been fun at all. The media -- particularly the white media -- has ruined everything. They've called me names. They've thrown stones. They've tried to portray me as some horrible person, a monster, like I'm an animal. ... The Bible says you don't have to be nice, or not nice. Just speak the truth. Jesus spoke the truth all the time, but not everybody liked him, either."
According to the writers who cover the Giants, Barry has made an effort to better deal with the media this season. "It's not a big effort, but he's less likely to pretend we aren't there," says one writer.
"He's unpredictable," says San Jose Mercury News beat writer Daniel Brown. "When he has a great game and you would assume he would want to talk, he usually doesn't talk. When he makes a mistake, he'll sit there and talk to us. It's like he is absolving himself of the error."
Bonds' most obvious effort at improving his public image is his weekly radio show on KNBR, where he has endeared himself to some fans with his candor and sense of humor. Still, some reporters who cover the Giants argue that the pleasant Bonds fans hear on KNBR is very unlike the man they see blow off teammates, fans, and the media.
"Don't let his nice act on KNBR fool you, because that's a bunch of horseshit," says one broadcast reporter who covers the Giants. "You want to know what Barry is? Barry's a prick."
"That isn't a very nice thing to say," I say.
"Yeah, well, the truth fuckin' hurts."
If Barry were an animal, what animal would he be? I ask this desperate, clichéd question to former Giant and current Brewer Charlie Hayes (a friend of Barry's) as he sits in the visiting team's clubhouse two hours before a game at Pacific Bell Park.
"He would be a combination of a deer and a tiger," Hayes says. "A deer because he can be so graceful. A tiger because he can be so ... mean."
This is a wonderful answer. It is both poetic and revealing, and I am eager to ask him other questions I have prepared:
If Barry were a vegetable, what would he be?
If you and Barry were stranded on an island without food, who would eat whom first?
Should we judge kings of the world based on what they say, what they do, what is said about them, what they do when everyone is looking, or what they do when no one is looking?
Hayes leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Then he says this: "You know, sometimes I think we analyze Barry too much. Sometimes I think we should just sit back and admire what Barry does on the field. That's the interesting Barry."
I am about to dismiss this as just more baseball-player nonsense when it occurs to me, in a rare moment of clarity, that Charlie Hayes is absolutely right.
