Gary Peterson

The San Francisco Giants might not be weary of Barry Bonds’ act. But someone is.

There wasn’t much in the way of revelation in the news that broke Thursday morning (“Bonds tests positive for amphetamines; occasionally guilty of rolling stops, too”). But there was some clarity to be gained.

The old news first. According to a story in the New York Daily News, Bonds tested positive for amphetamines during the 2006 baseball season. As per baseball’s current (and entirely fallible) drug testing program, there was no penalty, unless squirting into a cup is your idea of cruel and unusual punishment. Bonds was referred to counseling and automatically subject to increased testing. According to protocol, his name was not to be made public. Except that it was.

It made for titillating headlines on slow news day. But it broke no new ground, given that Bonds had already been filleted, seared and served with a wedge of lemon by last summer’s best-seller, “Game of Shadows.” And that the book merely confirmed what many people have suspected since Bonds’ 73-homer parade through the 2001 season — that the man has long resorted to extra-legal, extra-natural means to gain a competitive edge.

Amphetamines? He might as well have tested positive for vegameatavitamin. It was just another log on the fire.

Slightly more enlightening was the revelation that Bonds blamed his test on a substance he had taken from the locker of teammate Mark Sweeney — a charge that was confirmed to the Daily News by Sweeney’s agent, Barry Axelrod. This, of course, is a take-off on the old “the left-handed pinch-hitting specialist ate my homework” dodge. And it caused nearly as much of a flap as the test result itself, to such a degree that Bonds felt compelled to issue a clarification/denial/apology which, frankly, clarified little.

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And still, no new news here. Bonds has long been a clubhouse cancer of Hall of Fame proportions, having fought with teammates, turned his nose up at pregame stretching and fielding drills, refused to pose for team photos and, as was revealed at the end of last season, napped in the clubhouse when the Giants could have used his services.

All this non-news had a predictable effect on veteran Bonds-watchers, which is to say a great many people craned their neck in an effort to see how the Giants would react. But this, too, is a nonstarter.

It’s true enough that the one-year, $16 million contract on which the Giants and Bonds agreed to in principle last month remains unsigned. And it’s apparently true that one of the hold-ups is the team’s attempt to include language in the contract that limits the posse and the petulance Bonds brings to work on a daily basis.

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Inquiring minds wonder, is this where Giants managing partner Peter Magowan grows a spine and ends this preposterous deal with the devil? While the patience of the fan base appears to be wearing thin, the answer where the Giants are concerned remains:

No. He is them, and they are him until the final dollar has been wrestled from a bamboozled public.

Which brings us to the moment of clarity. At one point Thursday, Bonds’ attorney, Michael Rains, issued a biting statement asking the musical question: Of the (presumably) many players who tested positive for amphetamines last season, why has only one name leaked out?

He knows the answer to that one. The Giants may not have had their fill of Bonds (and the income he generates) but someone has. Someone leaked Bonds’ name to the Daily News. Someone leaked reams of classified information to the authors of “Game of Shadows.” Someone dug up Bonds’ former mistress, and propped her in front of a camera so she could portray him as a bullying, womanizing, steroid-ingesting, tax cheat.

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Someone sent Sen. George Mitchell to look for dirt. Someone declined to show up for Bonds’ 715th home run last season, and has expressed ambivalence about being there for No. 756. Someone subpoenaed baseball to gain access to confidential steroid test results from 2004 (for obvious reasons). Someone is spending a lot of time and money trying to prove that Bonds perjured himself in front of the BALCO grand jury.

There are two common denominators where those someones are concerned — the federal government and Major League Baseball. Neither institution enjoys being mocked by someone who considers himself bigger than the rules of whatever game he happens to be playing.

They can’t drop the hammer on him, and the Giants won’t. The difference being, the feds and MLB, however covertly, are going to keep fighting the good fight. What that means to you, dear reader, is that the next time Barry Bonds drives 37 in a 35-mph zone, you’ll be the first to know.

Second, tops.

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