Bonds’ return to Giants next season still up in air

SAN FRANCISCO – Barry Bonds posed for the team photo last month alongside all his teammates. He has been taking part in pregame stretching, too, a rarity for the San Francisco slugger in the past.

This season, Bonds has appeared more comfortable in his own clubhouse than in recent years. Perhaps he is relishing the mundane rituals of a 162-game season, knowing this quite possibly could be it for him in a Giants uniform.

Or in any baseball uniform.

So, as the Giants head into their final homestand of 2006 starting Monday night, many of Bonds’ biggest supporters over the years may be about to get their final glimpse of the seven-time N.L. MVP playing regularly in San Francisco.

The 42-year-old Bonds would like to finish his career in the city where he’s spent the last 14 of his 21 big league seasons. Yet he repeatedly has said his future is in the hands of the Giants.

“Did you read the quotes that I’d like to stay at home? That hasn’t changed,” Bonds said of next year, which likely would be his final season.

“I’m not at an age where I can pick where I play,” he said. “If you want me, call me. … I don’t even know what I’m going to do. Right now, I’m going to wait until the off-season, take care of my family and talk to my son and my wife. They’re the ones who are iffy, not me.”

While the Giants’ brass has said it can see the club moving forward without Bonds, there are significant considerations that come with such a decision: San Francisco hosts next summer’s All-Star game and Bonds is a big reason the Giants draw 3 million fans each year.

Bonds hit his 734rd career home run Saturday in Milwaukee to pass home run king Hank Aaron’s National League record and move within 21 of tying Hammerin’ Hank’s all-time mark of 755.