ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The last time the Giants came this close to a world championship was two years before Barry Bonds was born, in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series when Willie McCovey lined out to Bobby Richardson with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and Willie Mays on second base representing the winning run.

That loss was so heartbreaking that in the ensuing months, cartoonist Charles Schulz drew two "Peanuts" comic strips that pictured Charlie Brown and Linus sitting morosely on the curb, saying nothing for three panels before finally screaming in anguish in the final panel, "WHY COULDN'T MCCOVEY HAVE HIT THE BALL JUST THREE FEET HIGHER!!!"

	Barry Bonds gets a postgame hug from Giants vice-president Larry Baer.

Summers and decades pass. The earth moves and the Giants nearly do as well, threatening to leave San Francisco for Denver, Toronto, Santa Clara and St. Petersburg before settling into a lovely ballpark three miles from Candlestick. McCovey becomes an MVP, then a Hall of Famer and then a cove. Mays goes from the greatest player in the game to the godfather of the greatest player in the game.

And all the while the frustration continues, and now it is passed on from godfather to godson. Four decades after his godfather was stranded on second base in a heartbreaking Game 7 loss, Barry Bonds stood stranded at his locker, surrounded by dozens of reporters who wanted to know what he was feeling after another Game 7 loss.

What does it feel like to come so close?

What does it feel like to wait 17 years for this?

What does it feel like to play your entire career for this moment . . . and lose?

"Wait a minute -- back up. You're on my son," Bonds said as reporters pressed in on him and his son. "Back up or I'll snap. I'm not playing around when it comes to my son."

Bonds, of course, would rather call a fumigator than a press conference and he was predictably -- and understandably -- surly after the 4-1 Game 7 loss to the Angels. He gave curt replies to the questions he deemed reasonable and no answers to the ones he didn't.

"Next question. That's a stupid question," he said when asked whether he felt his best chance at a World Series had just passed him by.

"One-for-three with a walk. Doesn't sound like a bad day does it?" he said when someone mentioned something about his Game 7 performance. "Did you want me to go 3-for-3 with three home runs? What do you want from me?"

"What are you going to write? That I had a good postseason and we still lost?" he said when someone asked whether he took any satisfaction in his personal postseason accomplishments. "Doesn't that just show you that it takes a team to win?"

Then again, what was he supposed to tell reporters anyway? What can you say when you play 17 years for this moment, destroy a decade-old legacy of postseason failure and play a magnificent World Series ... and still lose? What words would possibly express how you feel?

WHY COULDN'T SPIEZIO HAVE HIT THAT BALL JUST THREE FEET LOWER!!!

Bonds had a historic World Series, batting .471 with a .700 on-base percentage (highest ever in more than four games), a 1.294 slugging percentage (highest ever), four home runs, eight runs, six RBI and 13 walks (most ever). For the entire postseason, he hit .356 with eight home runs, 16 RBI, 27 walks, a .614 on-base percentage and a .978 slugging percentage.

	“	It's sad to say, but I do feel like a loser. Because we know we could have won this Series. There has to be a winner and there has to be a loser and we're definitely not the winner. So we're the loser. ”
		— Rich Aurilia

He hit better than almost anybody ever has in a World Series.

And it wasn't enough.

"He definitely put to rest a lot of talk," first baseman J.T. Snow said. "But in the end we didn't get the ring and I'm sure Barry would trade everything for the win."

Had the Series ended in the seventh inning of Saturday's Game 6, Bonds would have been the unanimous series MVP. His name would be on candy bars and his face would be on cereal boxes.

But Game 6 did not end in the seventh.

The Giants led 5-0 with eight outs to go and lost. They led 5-3 with six outs to go and lost. They led 1-0 for perhaps 10 minutes Sunday in Game 7 with far too many outs to go. And then they lost. Again.

"If you ask guys what game they'll remember I'm not sure what they'll say but for me it will be Game 6," San Francisco shortstop Rich Aurilia said. "We lost Game 6. They beat us in Game 7.

"It's sad to say, but I do feel like a loser. Because we know we could have won this Series. There has to be a winner and there has to be a loser and we're definitely not the winner. So we're the loser."

The entire focus of this Series was how the Angels would pitch to Bonds and whether they could keep him from beating them. For six games whatever approach they took failed. And then in the final game with the championship on the line, Anaheim took the only approach that works against Bonds -- the Angels made sure he never came to bat with a runner on base. The 1-2-3 batters in San Francisco's lineup were hitless in 12 at-bats.

"How to pitch to Barry Bonds was a tough thing for us," closer Troy Percival said. "We pitched to him the whole game and I never would have expected that, but it worked."

Bonds lined out in the first, singled hard to short in the fourth, popped out in the sixth and walked in the eighth. He didn't get a chance to bat in the ninth when Percival retired Kenny Lofton with two runners aboard.

After a 17-year wait, his World Series was over.

As the Angels and their fans celebrated their first world championship, the Giants were left to think about how close they had come and how they would have been the team spraying champagne if only they had not blown that 5-0 lead.

"You hope you can put it behind you," Aurilia said. "But if you never get another chance to be in the World Series, or to win a World Series, you'll probably think about it."

"Will it haunt me?" Bonds said, repeating a question. "Why would it?"

Because it will. Because 44 years after the Giants moved to San Francisco, they still haven't won a World Series. Because four decades after McCovey lined out to Richardson, Bonds' godfather still is bothered by the memory of how that game ended.

Because the frustration continues, now passed on from godfather to godson as easily as a between-innings toss from the center fielder to the left fielder.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.