Gary Peterson

The Giants will deny this, of course. But as we speak, it is believed they have an army of numbers crunchers seated around a conference table in a bunker below AT&T Park.

It's apparently quite a scene -- actuarial tables strewn about, batter-pitcher matchups taped to the wall, laptops humming quietly and a medical dictionary (opened to the section on shin splints) sitting next to a 50-cup coffee maker.

It's the crunchers' task to provide Giants' management with the best educated guess on when Barry Bonds will hit his record-breaking 756th career home run. As you might guess from the smell of sweat and the occasional burst of profanity, it's no easy task.

The projected record-breaking date has been a wildly moving target as Bonds has heated up and cooled off. The updates can't come fast enough for the Giants, who are very much interested in having Bonds hit the magic dinger in San Francisco. If that means sitting back and watching the big moment happen on the shores of McCovey Cove as per the natural course of events, fine and dandy. But if it means the Giants have to manipulate Bonds' playing time to suit their own agenda, well, they aren't paying those brainiacs for nothing.

We can hear your lips curling into a sneer from here. If it comes to the thinly veiled manipulation route, scores of fans will regard it as one more Bonds-induced pox upon the game.

An understandable reaction. But shortsighted.

There are two reality checks in play here. The first involves the universally beloved home run king Bonds is about to unseat. Henry Aaron, you'll recall from the video, hit his record-breaking 715th home run at home in Atlanta. But it might have happened differently had the Braves not taken matters into their own hands.

Aaron opened the 1974 season one home run behind Babe Ruth. The Braves opened with a three-game series in Cincinnati. In the first half-inning of that series, Aaron cracked a three-run homer. He came to bat three more times (ground out, walk, fly out), then was removed in a double switch.

The teams were off the following day. The day after that, Aaron sat as the Braves lost.

It was clear what was happening, enough so that commissioner Bowie Kuhn instructed the Braves to play Aaron in the final game of the series. (This is the same Bowie Kuhn who was in Cleveland the night Aaron broke Ruth's record, honoring a commitment he'd made to speak before the Indians' Wahoo Club.) Aaron played, going hitless.

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The night after that, the Braves opened a 10-game homestand. Aaron didn't make the home folks wait long -- in his second at-bat of the first game, he homered to left, supplanting Ruth as the game's greatest home run hitter.

Say what you will about the Braves' methodology, the strategy paid off in real dollars. A crowd of 53,775 attended that game, the biggest home-opening gate the Braves had known in their eight seasons in Atlanta. (The final nine games of that homestand, by the way, drew a total of 53,973.)

The Giants aren't looking for that kind of attendance spike. It's about the moment for them. They have sunk more than $150 million into their professional relationship with Bonds. They have tolerated his moods. They have taken public relations hits as a result of his involvement in the BALCO investigation. They have paid in currency both real and psychic, and now they want the moment on their terms.

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And here's reality check No. 2: We should want that for them as well.

Not because Bonds, Giants managing partner Peter Magowan or COO Larry Baer are sympathetic figures. But because the moment is going to happen. Thus, it might as well happen in as palatable a manner as possible.

Bud Selig may not want to commit to being on hand for the occasion -- word has it the Wahoo Club is looking for keynote speakers -- but he doesn't really want Bonds hitting No. 756 in any of the first seven cities the Giants will visit after the All-Star break:

Chicago, where bleacherites will savage one another for the right to throw the baseball back onto the field;

Milwaukee, where a plaque was recently unveiled to honor Aaron's 755th homer, and where Bonds would surely be roundly booed;

Los Angeles and San Diego, National League West burgs where fans have long delighted in giving Bonds the business;

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Pittsburgh, where Bonds burned bridges on his way out of town 14 years ago;

Atlanta (Aaron Country South); or Florida, where no one shows up to watch baseball.

So it will come to pass, should the boys from the bunker advise the Giants to start tweaking Bonds' playing time, that you probably won't hear much from Major League Baseball. And should the crunchers pinpoint the big moment for a Tuesday night at 10:13, when most everyone east of St. Louis is asleep, that might qualify as what Bowie Kuhn used to refer to as "the best interests in baseball."

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