Oh, it's a tough life, all right. Barry Bonds doesn't want to be here, sitting in the dugout at Pac Bell Park in the middle of the afternoon on the off-day between Games 2 and 3 of the National League championship series. The problem is, the man has no choice. Capital-B Baseball says be here, and so he is here. Irritated, exhausted and in no mood to take the state-mandated batting practice, Bonds is here and he's unhappy. On top of everything, he has to hit in one of the last BP groups, when he should already be on his way home to his wife and kids. He shakes his head. You wouldn't put your dog through this.

Somebody with a sympathetic bent -- or maybe an eye toward perspective -- mentions good-naturedly to Bonds that he's pretty well-compensated for his trouble. Wrong move. Now he's off on a rant about taxes. You wouldn't believe how much they take, and California is the worst. He shakes his head. Every city takes its share, and by the time everybody's pocket is lined, you'd be surprised how little is left. In the end, it seems, everybody's net is roughly the same. What a world.

He's tired, too. Did he mention that? Last night's game ended late and the flight from St. Louis to San Francisco arrived in the small, creepy hours of the morning. Did he sleep on the plane, someone asks. Wrong move. A man can't sleep when there's a planeload of team investors whooping it up like the trophy was already theirs. A 2-0 lead in the series doesn't mean you've won anything. He shakes his head. This is what he's been through. And now you expect the man to take batting practice?

Ah, but there's a smile creeping in along the edges of Bonds' dire countenance. There is hope, after all. All is not lost. Someone mentions the alternative to all this, to the bunting and the media and the fascistic batting practice. The alternative, as it appears from outside the third base dugout at the corner of Third and King in San Francisco, is another October spent watching other teams play. Bonds shakes his head. There is silence, accompanied by a little more smile.

"I've got to wake my body up," Bonds says, finally. "My body's used to doing nothing this time of year. My body's shutting down. Right now it's saying to me, 'Man, it's October. I'm supposed to be off.' " He's laughing now. Barry Bonds, playing in the World Series? Even he appreciates the absurdity embedded within the beauty of that sentence. "You know what my body's thinking? It's thinking it's time to go into hibernation. I have to say, 'No, not yet.' "

It's obvious this man is harboring a dirty little secret: The irritation is all show. He doesn't want you to know he's having the time of his life. To acknowledge this would amount to sacrilege. It would serve to dismantle the entire Bonds aura, and so he dwells on the irritants -- the batting practice, the raucous plane ride, the lack of sleep. But the alternative, the bleak and lonely alternative, is what pierces the armor of his persona.

And so pretty soon he's on a roll, a self-deprecating give-and-take free of the petty nuisances that invade the life of the high-priced superstar. He's laughing at his inability to catch a Jim Edmonds fly ball down the line in the ninth inning of Game 2. ("I just missed it. Flat-out missed it.") He details his methodology for dealing with ticket requests ("If you can't buy 'em yourself, watch the game on TV, dude"), his lack of fussiness in the batter's box ("What do I want to step out for? Why? I say get it over with. Either get me out or let me hit. Or walk me") and his answer to Tony La Russa's pre-NLCS suggestion/challenge that Bonds expand his strike zone to help his team ("I don't expand nothing").

It's hard to tell definitively, but the word that comes to mind watching Bonds laugh and smile and needle himself is peace. After all these years, could it be? Could it be self-satisfaction mixed with that elusive word? Well, why not?

The man is in the process of refuting the last remaining criticism of his career -- the Postseason Failure Thesis, as taught in seamhead seminars everywhere -- by changing every game he plays in the 2002 postseason the way he changed every game he played in the 2002 regular season.

Forget statistics. The best player of his time is molding each game by his mere presence. He is lurking in the fourth spot in the order, a huge rock tossed into a lake, sending ripples in every direction.

Matt Morris understands the problem Bonds presents, and how it goes well beyond the simple and persistent quandary of to-pitch-or-not-to-pitch. In Game 1 of the NLCS, which Morris had the misfortune to start, Bonds changed the game before he even left the dugout. Morris gave up a run after walking Bonds semi-intentionally in the first, then never regained his bearings. He tried to pitch around Bonds in the second and failed, and the result was a two-run triple.

You avoid him, and get burned. You try to confront him, and get burned. What's a pitcher to do? Asked after the game to explain his uncharacteristic meltdown, Morris said, "Nerves and Bonds. A little of both, I think."

In Game 3, which the Cardinals won 5-4, Chuck Finley threw a high fastball over the inside of the plate and got Bonds to pop to short rightfield with the bases loaded in the second inning. In the fifth, with runners on first and second and nobody out, an emboldened Finley threw the same pitch -- shoulder-high, out of the zone, in on the hands. Bonds seemed to know it was coming. Somehow, in a near miracle of timing, strength and quickness, he managed to keep his hands above the ball and turn it into a 450-foot, three-run, splashdown homer.

More stunning than the blast was Bonds' reaction. Gone was the customary nonchalance, and in its place was a vocal, animated leadership. He touched home plate, kissed his son Nikolai and went back to the dugout yelling and pointing and shaking his fist. Come along for the ride, his actions said.

With four homers and 9 RBIs in his first nine games this October, Bonds is clearly not the same guy who previously professed a desire to ride shotgun in the postseason.

Location is a factor. In the cleanup spot in the Giants' order, Bonds lurks. There is no other word for it. He is a looming presence in the first inning, because pitchers will do anything to avoid facing him with a runner on first. Before, when he hit No.3, starters knew what they faced and managed accordingly. Now, the unknown seems to have spawned a phobia.

	Bonds has finally begun to shake his postseason image.

La Russa, ever the pragmatist, says, "In some respects it's easier when he hits fourth because if you do a good job, he doesn't come to bat in the first inning. On the other side of it, Jeff Kent is a hitter you have to respect, so that means you have to pitch to Rich Aurilia in the second spot. And Bonds adds to Kent, so ... "

So you have to get the first three guys out, which makes it that much harder to accomplish. La Russa shrugs. It's the Rubik's Cube of pitching: You have to give Rich Aurilia and his hot postseason bat something to hit in order to avoid Kent, and you're forced to pitch to Kent in order to avoid, or at least minimize, Bonds.

You see the ripples moving outward. You see Morris' brain churning to make sense of it all. You see Benito Santiago driving in four runs out of the fifth spot in Game 1. You see the Giants consistently jumping out to an early lead, the key to their divisional win over the Braves and their 2-0 jump-start on the Cardinals.

There's a psychology to a batting order, and Dusty Baker changed the Giants' season when he altered that psychology in late June. He put Bonds in the fourth spot and bumped Kent to third. Bonds' take on the move?

"I'm the power hitter on this team, and the power hitter should bat fourth," he says. "I'm not stealing bases anymore, so why bat me third? Put someone else in front of me and make him a better hitter."

He shrugs. "It don't matter to me. I'm going to hit no matter what, but every guy who has hit in front of me has had the best year of his career. It's always been that way. Bobby Bonilla, Rich Aurilia, Jeff Kent. Jeff won't admit it, though, but that's all right."

So what's the best way to deal with Bonds, short of walking him every time and being labeled a baseball eunuch?

Before the NLCS, La Russa tried mind games, suggesting that Bonds would be more help to his team if he shelved his fabled patience and strayed out of the strike zone every now and again. Bonds laughed at the insinuation, but you can't blame La Russa. National League pitchers tried the intimidation route earlier this season, throwing up and in without warning, and the only thing they got in return was a smug, insulting stare. And when a guy has already conquered the physical aspect of the game, what do you have left?

About the mind games, Bonds summons his trademark dismissiveness and says, "I'm too old for all that. I don't give a damn. You reach that point when you're old. You don't listen to anything. You just play."

He shakes his head. It's October, and the idea of Barry Bonds in the World Series is sounding more probable every day.

"Don't worry," he says. "We'll get there. We're smart. We're handling it the right way. We'll get there."

He looks happy. He looks peaceful. When you get right down to it, he has no complaints.

Just don't tell anyone.

This article appears in the October 28 issue of ESPN The Magazine.