Check out the Internet athlete. That's him boarding the team bus with a gym bag slung over one shoulder and a laptop case hanging off the other. Inside that leather case is the life he once handed over to his sport. The family he kissed goodbye that morning. The friends he can't reach from the road. The hobby that used to wait until season's end. The business he thought would have to wait until after retirement. The stock tip his broker never volunteered. The education he skipped.

The Internet athlete pries open his laptop like a child opening a present because somewhere in that little box is all the time his teammates are wasting.

Barry Bonds is an Internet athlete. Yes, the guy who snubs fans, reporters and teammates for sport, the guy who once threw a bat-hurling temper tantrum because the Giants' batting practice pitcher was not lefthanded. Watch him after a game, as he leans his face into the ivory glow of his Toshiba laptop. He's instant messaging with his 9-year-old daughter, Shikari, who's back home in Los Altos Hills, Calif. His eyes flit from keyboard to screen, pecking and peeking hurriedly. Then a missive from his daughter stuns him: "U type 2 slow, dad." Bonds' fingers drop like hammers: D-O-N-'-T R-U-S-H M-E. He shakes his head and flashes a grin no pitcher would recognize. "Nine years old!" he says. "Talking like that to her father!" ...

Right after buying the Washington Capitals in May '99, America Online exec Ted Leonsis created the first Internet team, dishing out laptops and AOL accounts to everyone on his roster.

Goalie Olaf Kolzig loves talking tech. He'll gladly tell you about the day he logged on at lunchtime to check his stocks only to be interrupted by the digitized sound of a door opening -- a greeting from someone on his buddy list. Somewhere in D.C., Leonsis had logged on. "Hey!" the boss wrote. Kolzig fired back, "What's up with AOL?" Leonsis steered the conversation to hockey. "He never answered my question," Kolzig says with a knowing smile.

To read the rest of our cover story, get the July 24 issue of ESPN The Magazine.