This Home-Run Watch Isn’t Too Deep

San Francisco. Sunday. Sept. 30, 2001. Second inning. Jon Miller with the call:

“Deep into left center field!

“Going back there is Crespo!

“And it is . . .

“GONE!

“A HOME RUN!”

That’s five now for Benito Santiago this season.

Seventh inning. Score tied, 4-4. Miller again:

“A high drive deep down the left-field line!

“Into the corner!

“This one is way back there!

“It is ...

“A HOME RUN!”

Bubba Trammell has given the San Diego Padres the lead.

That’s as close as Barry Bonds came to a home run Sunday, fading back, back, back and studying the flight of the ball as it bounded over the left-field fence.

Chasing history?

On this day, with Bonds needing one home run to tie Mark McGwire’s single-season record, ESPN at the ready and NFL fans surfing over in between punts, all we got was Barry chasing Bubba.

In four trips to the plate, Bonds got one pitch to hit, which left him on even terms with the baseball, which got one Bonds to hit.

First inning: Bonds watches four pitches outside the strike zone.

Third inning: Bonds grounds the first pitch he sees to the right side of the infield.

Fifth inning: Bonds watches four pitches outside the strike zone.

Seventh inning: Bonds is hit on the right elbow by the first pitch.

And that was it.

Two questions:

1) How will McGwire send the checks to Padre pitchers Brian Tollberg and Jose Nunez, UPS or overnight express?

2) Why has it taken six months and 156 games for the National League to figure out that this is the way you pitch to Bonds?

(Or at least the new way you pitch to Bonds. We all know the old way: In the playoffs.)

It was smart baseball and lousy television. ESPN came to Pacific Bell Park loaded for Barry, with explicit pregame instructions to cover his quest by whichever means possible--by land, by air, even by sea, by stationing reporter Scott Walker on a bobbing boat in McCovey Cove with a nine-inning supply of Dramamine.

But that was the only boat ESPN floated, thanks to the Padres’ bypass-Bonds strategy. San Diego won, 5-4, and ESPN was left to its own devices to pass time until the Cowboy-Eagle kickoff.

Bring on the in-booth interviews! First came Bobby Bonds, Barry’s dad, who complained, as most dads do, about how much harder he and his generation had it than their kids. See, Bobby played his career watching fly balls wither on the warning track of blustery Candlestick Park, which, as analyst Joe Morgan noted, cost Bonds a possible 40-home run, 40-stolen base season in 1973, when Bonds finished with 39 homers. “If we played in a ballpark like this,” Bonds said, “it would’ve happened.”

Next came baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who now has the same travel itinerary as dozens of national baseball writers, following Bonds across the map until No. 71 or the end of the regular season, whichever comes first. Selig refused to predict when, where or if Bonds would break the record, but did seem to have a clear understanding of Padre Manager Bruce Bochy’s pitching strategy.

“I’ll be here with you guys,” Selig told Miller and Morgan. “If not, we’re going to be together in the coming weeks.”

ESPN filled more time by cutting away, back and forth, to other action--to the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks, to the Phillies and the Marlins, to the Indians clinching the American League Central title, to the mariners on their kayaks, rafts and inner-tubes in McCovey Cove.

(Best replay of the day was another look at Bonds’ into-the-bay 69th home run Saturday. ESPN slowed down the action and highlighted the ball as it cleared the right-field bleachers, then circled two phony home-run balls tossed into the water by “practical jokesters,” as Miller called them. Occasionally, just to rub it in a little more, the pranksters will scribble “SUCKER” on the fake balls. Great weekend fun for the entire family.)

Finally, ESPN turned to the subplots. If Bonds wasn’t going to be allowed to catch history, how about the Padres’ Rickey Henderson, who needs two runs to break Ty Cobb’s career record and five hits for 3,000, and Tony Gwynn, making his last major league appearance in San Francisco?

Sorry and sorry. Henderson went 0 for 4 and was hit by a pitch, the only time he reached base during the series. Gwynn, stepping up to pinch-hit in the ninth, pausing at the plate to soak up one last standing ovation, dug in and struck out. It was that kind of day.

Still hoping for a Padre, any Padre, to serve Bonds a hittable pitch, Miller and Morgan realized this could be a telecast to keep in the home video library. So they went easy on Bonds and his surly reputation. Morgan went deeper than necessary, trying to convince us that Bonds has lightened up during his record pursuit, to the point where he now “kind of embraces the press conferences.”

Right. Bonds embraces the press conferences he is forced to attend after every home run he hits the same way he embraces a cactus.

And he will have two more of them, unless Bonds decides it’s not worth the hassle. Or the Astros and the Dodgers decide to pitch to him the way the Padres did Sunday.