Barry’s moment
The ball bobs in McCovey cove, licking its wounds. Barry Bonds stands on home plate, blowing a kiss to the heavens and holding his arms high. He lingers there half a beat, as if to claim the space, the crowd cheers, and his son runs out to hug him.

	Much like the sight of Barry Bonds in the batter's box strikes fear in pitchers ...

A great hitter at the height of his powers stands in the spotlight, each dinger another brick in the wall of history. Everything gathers around him in these moments. Sixteen years worth of hitter's acumen and superstar confidence flow through him; two of the best back-to-back seasons of all-time seem to bathe him in light.

It's a grand and glorious thing, really something to see.

But it's the kind of moment, too, that seems impossible to share. Watching it, you think about how incredibly good he is, but you also think about the gap that seems to exist between him and his teammates, about the way Barry is and isn't playing alongside them, about the way some of them seem to feel slighted in his shadow, and the way others seem to hold him in awe.

The other night, after the Giants clinched a spot in the Series, Jeff Kent said (I'm paraphrasing), "Barry's a great player and he's waited a long time to get here, but we have a lot of great players and a lot of guys who have waited a long time and worked hard to get here.”

Barry’s great, but -- at the height of post-game euphoria, a disquieting, jagged little edge, a tear in the family fabric, a clanging note in the celebration song.

It’s not that a disconnect between Bonds and his teammates hurts the Giants’ play. They won 95 games and two playoff series. He was an unprecedented, most valuable mad-man; Kent was probably the second-best player in the league. All was well.

No, it’s the way it sits with us, the people who watch and root and get wrapped up. For us, it feels a little awkward, a little like sitting through a silent dinner after your parents have had an argument.

These are great times for Giants fans. But there is tension in the joy, a nagging something that makes it hard to really revel in the all-consuming, lose-your-head bliss of it all.

It’s a weird, bittersweet thing. We look at Barry standing on home, in the light and din of greatness, and we know he is the heart and soul of the reason the team is on the doorstep of a championship. And at the same time, we look at him standing there, in a moment that is so absolutely his own that no one else can touch him, and we wish things were smoother, more democratic, that he were less the star and more one of the guys.

Troy’s face
Troy Percival makes this face. Have you seen this face? It’s just before he throws, as he looks in for the sign. He twists up his unshaven face like a mangy lump of Silly-Putty that’s been lost behind the couch for weeks. He looks like he bit into a bad apple, like somebody slipped him some bad milk.

	... the sight of Troy Percival on the pitcher's mound makes hitters a little uneasy.

I think he’s trying to look fierce, trying to work the evil eye, like a 93-year-old man sitting in his rocker on the porch with a shotgun in his lap, just waiting for a couple of punk kids to set foot on his lawn so he can blast ’em into next week all legal and proper-like. In his head, on the inside looking out, I bet he imagines he looks like a bad dude, thinks he’s got a look -- like Bob Gibson had, like Dave Stewart had -- and that his crunched-up face is a Nuke Laloosh-thing, announcing his presence with authority.

It doesn’t look tough, though, it looks funny. It’s the face of a man playing tough, the put-on scowl of a kid, an exaggerated, Tex-Avery-cartoon thing. You half expect his skin to boil red, his eyes to pop out on stems, and his tongue to drop to the dirt.

I’m watching him come in to close against the Twins last week and I’m thinking, who’s gonna break it to him? who's gonna tell him it’s not working?

But then, as I’m watching him strike guys out for the umpteenth time this year, I’m thinking, he knows. He knows and he doesn’t care. He’s not working the tough-guy angle, he’s working the fearless goof angle. He’s funning. He’s mocking guys, mocking the whole idea of pressure and toughness, having a field day with tightly-wound hitters who think this moment is the be all and end all.

But then he comes set and scrunches up his face again, like Vassily Alekseyev doing the clean-and-jerk (and Vassily was straight-out bad, my friends), and I start thinking, no, he is serious; this is the game face. And the more I think about it, the more I come around to see how it actually is kind of intimidating. He slips into it so proudly, so completely, he looks like a wild-eyed true-believer, like Jewels about to waste “Flock of Seagulls,” and there’s nothing scarier than that.

A minute later, another batter down and one stepping into the box, I’m reconsidering yet again -- no, no, I’m thinking, he’s toying with mugs up there; he might as well wink at ‘em for as tough as he looks with this face.

And back and forth it goes -- he’s a goof, he’s an intimidator, he’s playing, he’s not even playing.

Most hitters can’t quite read him, either. Is he trying to scare them? Is he mocking them? Is he plum crazy? They have no idea, and next thing they know some righteous 98-mph gas blowing through their kitchens and they’re looking for a seat.

It’s great to watch. After a while, I stop trying to figure it out and just enjoy it.

I enjoy it most, I think, because it feels like a microcosm of the whole Angels thing. They’re the perfect blend of fearless and wacky this year. One minute they’re glaring down seasoned pitchers, drilling balls all over the yard, and leaving guys weeping and in need of therapy, the next minute they’re flashing aw-shucks grins, goofing off and saying how much fun it is to be here.

Percival’s face is like the rally monkey -- silly, but in a deadly serious, laugh-if-you-want-to-but-we’re-comin’-to-get-you sort of way. The personality of the team is in that face, the tough bluster and relentless pursuit of fun is in that face.

I wouldn’t want to stand in against a face like that, but I sure love watching it from here.

Eric Neel is a columnist for Page 2.