The media take stock of Bonds
It's Game 66 in the year 2007 and Barry is finally paying us a visit.
The great Mr. Bonds had seen Fenway Park, but he'd never been inside it before yesterday. "I'm trying to see everything," he said as he peered past the tightly packed corps of media folk assembled to hear the pregame utterances of the most controversial baseball player of our time. "They say the park is small, but it looks bigger than Philly or Houston."
(You might as well know right now: Barry doesn't answer queries pertaining to, you know, his, um, issues.)
Baseball. The questions all had to do with baseball. Just baseball.
"I'm here to play baseball," he said when asked what kind of reception he expected from the Fenway faithful last evening. "I'm an opposing player. I guess opposing players can't expect a nice reception."
He blanched when he saw just how many people had gathered to grill him. Well, I think that's what it was. Looked like a blanch to me. He also initially rejected the little mike he was asked to wear for the interview. "I don't do that," he said. He relented when he was told it was linked to a speaker that would enable those in the back to hear.
He was brandishing a tape recorder of his own. This is part of his m.o. as he goes from city to city. "I keep it so I can have it for my own personal records," he explained. "You have your records; I have mine."
He took the 3-and-0, 83-mile-per-hour verbal fastballs and swatted them out of the park.
Interleague play: "I think interleague play is great," he said. "This team hasn't played here in a long time [try 90-plus years]. That brings excitement."
He's right about that. When the schedule came out, the first thing you did was check out the Yankee games. The second thing was to circle June 15-16-17 on the calendar.
The Wall: "I'm not righthanded. I've never had that feeling."
On Tim Wakefield, a Pittsburgh teammate in 1992: "If he had pitched that last game [of the National League Championship Series], we'd have both been in the World Series. He's a good pitcher. He's always been a good pitcher."
On career length: "As long as my body holds up," he declared. "I'm just happy to be out there for my teammates as much as I've been out there. I'm working hard. Time starts to work against you eventually."
On playing in the All-Star Game, which will be in his home ballpark: "That's important to me because of where it is. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen."
(In case you haven't heard, he has fallen to fourth among NL outfielders in the latest voting tally. And manager Tony La Russa is noncommittal on the subject of selecting Bonds as a sub. In Ye Olden Days, the Musials, Williamses, and Mayses of the world were always accorded that respect, so this just goes to show how astonishingly polarizing Barry Bonds is.)
On how he's doing: "April I was hitting the ball. May I wasn't. June [waves hand] up and down. And if I get a few hits, they just walk me, anyway."
On his public perception, as shaped by the media: "I probably know five of you. And you really don't know me personally. What have I ever done to you?"
On being the designated hitter here: "I'm 43. That helps."
On whether he thought about playing in Fenway all these years: "Not really," he said. "Because in San Francisco, I would only think about it if we were playing a World Series. But my whole history is San Francisco."
His whole history is a lot of things, not all of them positive. Is there anything left to be said?
You're either for 'im or agin' 'im.
You either believe that he is a freak of nature or you believe he is a freak of chemicals, if you know what I mean.
You either buy what's in the book "Game of Shadows" or you don't.
You either believe the Mount Everest of juicy circumstantial evidence pointing to him being a steroid abuser or you don't.
You either think he should be celebrated as the greatest home run hitter of all time, and greatest player of his generation, or vilified as someone who, while professing a deep, abiding love for the game, trashes it by his very presence.
That about sum it up?
But the unarguable fact is that he had never played a game here before last night. He should have been here in '99 for the All-Star Game, but he was injured. So last night, in the 22d year of his fascinating career, he finally came to play some baseball at Fenway Park. And it was a certified, Capital E, Event, reminiscent of a Yankee game, only with orange and black splashed around the ballpark.
His batting practice was a revelation. In his first cycle, he hit two warning-track fly balls to deep center and a ground-rule double to right. On swing No. 7, he found his groove, hitting one over the visitors' bullpen and into the right-field stands. He would hit six more homers during BP, including one over the Green Monster. Over everything. Who needs to be righthanded?
He made the park look very, very small. Like Philly or Houston.
He went 1 for 3, with his 25th intentional walk of the year. But he absolutely crushed a 2-and-1 Julian Tavarez offering in the first, the wallop ruled foul by first base umpire Charlie Reliford. When the ball left the bat, it looked as if it were heading for the Budweiser sign. At that moment, the ballpark looked very small, indeed.
Barry has two more days to shrink it even more.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail is ryan@globe.com. 
