BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT

Is Barry Bonds contemplating retirement at the end of the 1995 season? Bonds told several Bay Area newspapers that he is, but the story in Saturday’s editions surprised San Francisco Giant Manager Dusty Baker.

“Barry told me yesterday that he’s going to come back next spring in the best shape possible and that he felt we could win it in 1996,” Baker said. “Talking about retiring and doing it are two different things. Do you think with the cost of that divorce he’s going to retire?”

Bonds and his estranged wife, Sun, have been going through a messy and public divorce. Bonds wouldn’t discuss his feelings Saturday. He said in the newspaper accounts that he was prepared to walk away from the $25 million left on his contract because he was tired of constant scrutiny and being blamed for baseball problems out of his control.

“We’re all frustrated by this season, but we’re not talking about quitting,” Baker said.

*

Bret Saberhagen, who was scratched from his Thursday start because of recurring inflammation in his right shoulder, a condition that’s been “tough to digest” because of his desire to help the Colorado Rockies’ division title bid, threw off a bullpen mound and predicted he will be able to start against the Dodgers in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

“It was better than it has been, and with treatment between now and then, I should be able to go,” he said.