As usual, when Barry Bonds talks, the message is hard to decipher.

Both embattled men talked to the San Jose Mercury News' Andrew Baggarly during the weekend in Boston, and their words reflected the dire state of the Giants, the once unfathomable things that are now on the table.

The Giants are 10 1/2 games out of first place after losing to Milwaukee last night, and there is little hope they will reverse their collapse. The Summer of 755 isn't going the way the organization had planned — though certainly the way many outsiders envisioned. The Yankees will arrive this weekend to feast on the Giants. The All-Star Game three weeks from Tuesday will be a party in the midst of a funeral.

Because this thing is over. This era of Barry Bonds is finished. And the sooner the Giants realize it, the better and healthier the franchise will be.

That was what Sabean, the Giants general manager, was saying Sunday, when he left open the possibility of trading Bonds before the July 31 deadline, as part of a potential sell-off for the last-place team.

"I don't know if there is (a chance) because of all the factors involved," Sabean said when asked about trading Bonds. "And it wouldn't be my decision unilaterally. So it's a complicated question and it's not a simple answer."

It's complicated by the home run chase — that sideshow that Magowan, the team's owner, and Baer, its executive vice president, cherish above all else. At Bonds' current post-May 8 pace of one home run every 12 games, he would have just 751 at the trade deadline.

Even if someone wanted to rent Bonds for two months — and that's no guarantee — would the Giants be willing to part with their slice of immortality, tainted though it is? Would they be able to get more for Bonds if he were on the brink of the record? What if they pass on a decent offer for Bonds in order to see the record broken, then finish a hopeless 20 games out?

Also complicating things: Bonds used his Fenway platform to announce that he absolutely plans to come back next season. So the nightmare — another season hamstrung and weighted down by the past — could come true. A midseason trade would cut the cord and save Sabean from another embarrassing off-season of being told one thing, then being forced to reverse course. That is, if he's around.

Bonds said that if the Giants want to trade him, they should go ahead. (He forgot to mention that he has a no-trade clause.) But he sounded less than enthusiastic about the future on the sinking ship when he said, "I'm stuck here till the end."

The end is coming. And the possibilities for how to finish it are looming.

"You have to take a step back and you have to try to be realistic about it," Sabean said in another Listen-up-Peter-and-Larry message.

The Giants haven't been realistic for years. Bonds as savior is a failed idea. What worked in 2002 doesn't work five years later. It won't get the Giants to the World Series, won't get them to the wild card, won't get them nearer to the fresh new future their fans so desperately desire.

Bonds said don't blame him for the team's problems.

"I just want to know how you can blame a guy who's 43 and leading both leagues in walks. Have you ever heard of that before? Ever? I mean, have you?"

Nope, but then how many parts of the Bonds saga have you heard before? Ever?

The blame lies not with Bonds, who is still the best player on the Giants — which isn't saying much right now. Nor with the team's aging batters, who can't do anything when Bonds is on base. The fault doesn't even lie solely with Sabean — who could have done a lot more to shore up the farm system during the dead years, but has also been stuck carrying out his bosses' failed mandate.

The main fault lies with Magowan and Baer, who have made every piece of the Giants about Bonds, sacrificing their own credibility as well as the reputation of the franchise. The future was something they thought they could put off forever while they lived in the past.

In yet another Hey-Larry-and-Peter-are-you-paying-attention moment, Sabean voiced confidence in the fans' intelligence and said he thought they would be fine with rebuilding.

"I think if you're honest with people and they understand what the landscape is, they'll be accepting," Sabean said.

That's in direct opposition to what Magowan believes. He even voiced his Giants-fans-are-morons rationale to Foxsports.com when he said that a rebuilding "wouldn't go down very well with our fans."

Magowan said in spring training that Sabean would be held accountable for the team's performance, a statement made while forcing Sabean onto a dead-end path. Now Sabean is saying, "If I'm to be accountable, then can I please choose my poison?"