Bonds still rates a look

SEATTLE – Barry Bonds pulled into another city Friday on his Needles and (Federal) Pens Tour – and, incredibly, wasn’t the guest with the lowest approval rating.

Then again, George W. Bush – dropping in to squeeze money out of the Medina swells on behalf of a freshman Congressman seeking re-election – is the only one of the two still playing a game of shadows.

Talk about two thankless jobs – Sitting President, and Resident Scoundrel of Our National Pastime.

But, hey, somebody has to do them.

Bonds, of course, is better paid for his trouble. But as Babe Ruth – now No. 3 in home run history to Bad Barry’s No. 2 – once rationalized a similar salary comparison with Herbert Hoover, Bonds is having a better year, even if he has hit only 10 dingers, has the feds breathing down his considerable neck and is the subject of a best-seller that painstakingly paints him as a serial, and purposeful, steroid user.

Indeed, the President’s hired men even killed a Top 10 terrorist last week and still there was no bump in his favorables.

Guess he needs a Jason Grimsley at his disposal as a distraction.

Bonds’ visit to Seattle this weekend with the San Francisco Giants has been likened to the circus coming to town, and truly Bonds is something of a bearded lady – the press stopping by his locker every once in a while to tug on it and see if it’s real.

He has been – according to teammates, reporters and broadcasters – astonishingly less churlish to the intrusions, but of course a Giants employee is always at the ready lest someone ask Bonds about ingestions, injections or indictments. Absent those answers, all other questions are pointless – so what is there to get mad about?

We can report that he plopped on a clubhouse couch – his home locker recliner doesn’t make the road trips – to watch “Happy Gilmore” before batting practice Friday and none of his teammates got up and walked away, so there does seem to be something to Bonds declaring this to be his happiest baseball circumstance and the Giants cooing likewise.

And although he repeated again his plaint that his PR battle is “one I can’t win,” the reaction at Safeco Field may have suggested otherwise.

His cable show on ESPN may have been canceled for dismal ratings, but Barry is generally better live anyway. A crowd of 41,133 – first 40,000-plus gate at Safeco since Opening Day – turned out Friday night for the series opener, and only scattered single and obstructed-view seats remain for the weekend.

The first-night audience was treated to nearly all the essential dynamics of Bondsian drama:

•A 462-foot home run off Felix Hernandez, who left a 94 mph fastball belt high. This after Bonds had put a batting practice pitch into the upper deck in right field, a rare shot even so – although he once did it five years ago in the All-Star weekend home run derby.

“But I won’t be in another one of those,” he snorted, a nod to his virtual pariah status.

•An intentional walk in the fifth, with two out and a man on second and the Giants down a run. Those circumstances may not have mattered as much to Mariners manager Mike Hargrove as this one: Eddie Guardado was pitching. The fans booed, revealing their collective IQ to be near that of the price of a Safeco beer.

•A last at-bat showdown that ended with M’s closer J.J. Putz dropping a sinking fastball on Bonds for called strike three and a 5-4 Seattle victory.

“He gave me a great split in that situation,” Bonds acknowledged graciously.

It isn’t the kinder, gentler Bonds to whom the customers are responding. Even decrepit and disgraced, he is a performer who creates theatre in every at-bat and gives opposing fans someone to hate, which is important when the you-gotta-love-these guys are no longer so lovable.

Not that everyone hates.

“Folks got love for you, Barry,” hollered an adorer. “That’s right. You’ve got respect – that’s a lifetime of achievement out there.”

Mostly, however, fans love to see puffed-up idols muddied – the boos prove it. But they don’t necessarily dig a beatdown, especially if the bullies are the government and the media.

The revelations about Grimsley, a mediocre pitcher, and his use of Human Growth Hormone are a signal that a little sanity might be creeping into the hoohah over performance enhancing drugs.

Bonds may be the easy villain and the symbol for the violation of the sport’s statistical – let’s not say ethical – sanctity, but if mopes like Grimsley are juicing, this is a runaway train and Barry ain’t the conductor.

Bud Selig, the ham sandwich in the commissioner’s office, issued an open letter to fans this week insisting HGH use would not be tolerated, though there’s no test for it.

But since he impaneled a committee to probe the charges against Bonds in the book “Game of Shadows,” it would have looked, well, hypocritical if he hadn’t at least said, “Shame, shame.”

And the feds? They wanted Grimsley to wear a wire – to ensnare none other than Bonds, for crimes against baseball.

Your tax dollars at work.

Heck, if the President had all those things working for him, his approval rating would be 35 percent. Easy.