Barry Bonds Ready For His Closeup

If you've been watching ESPN at all over the last couple of days, you've seen the ads: The reality show "Bonds On Bonds" debuts tomorrow.

The 15-second commercial shows Bonds' enormous head in various poses. It's Barry with a bunch of cameras in his face! It's Barry with holding a bat and looking ominous! It's Barry clowning around with an adorable child! It's Barry ... As You've Never Seen Him Before!

We find it amazing that this is actually happening; until we saw the ad, we really thought ESPN would come to its senses about this. Some think it's not that big of a deal, that it's the difference between ESPN and ESPN Original Entertainment, that everyone knows this is done by an outside film crew that has nothing to do with Bob Ley. This is, of course, ignoring the point: The leading figure in sports' biggest scandal, in the midst of chasing down the greatest record, reviled in every city other than his own ... using an hour-long program to release verbal press releases. "Game Of Shadows" details how Bonds occassionally makes half-hearted attempts to manage his public image, when there's money in it for him. This usually happened by maniuplating spineless local beat reporters. Now he's using ESPN.

He'll tell you what he goes through. He'll let you in. There's no better person to get it from than him.

Bonds On Bonds [USA Today] (fourth item)