The lips rarely move, so we’re left to interpret what the rest of the face is saying, what the knitted brow might mean, what the occasional launched sunflower shell connotes, what the steadfast gaze reveals.

Tim McCarver: Correct me if I’m wrong, Joe, but I think I just saw Barry Bonds slightly wrinkle his nose. Yes! Third inning and already a wrinkled nose!

Joe Buck: Good gracious, you’re right! The man is baring his soul! Wait, hold on a minute. Just like that, he has reverted back to his normal poker face, but don’t be fooled. There’s a lot going on behind that cool veneer.

Tim McCarver: Have we mentioned that Barry never has been to the World Series before?

Joe Buck: By my count 324 times.

We’re going to see a lot of Bonds’ fascinating visage in the coming days, so much so that if we haven’t memorized his every facial pore by the time the World Series is over, then shame on us.

Fox will pan to Bonds in the San Francisco Giants’ dugout so many times that Anaheim’s creepy Rally Monkey, out of jealousy, is going to bite someone and spread a virulent disease that threatens to wipe out mankind. Fox will break into the game with a special report to announce that Bonds has not been infected.

Americans can’t be trusted to follow more than one lame story line at a time because we’re apparently dumber than a microscope slide full of single-cell organisms.

The story line for this World Series is that Bonds finally has been invited to the ball (though Anaheim’s David Eckstein still hasn’t been asked to junior prom).

The story line is that Bonds somehow deserves a world title, that he needs a championship ring to be complete, that he’s due, that it all has been one big misunderstanding. That’s why Fox will train a camera on Bonds in the dugout, why the network will elbow us in the ribs so often we’ll puncture a lung.

But pay close enough attention to those shots of Bonds and you’ll see the real story, the story of Bonds living in his own hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Watch and see how often he interacts with his teammates. Just about never.

We saw this time and again in the National League Championship Series, and there was little mention of Bonds and a team that has almost nothing to do with one another.

Keep that in mind in the next week while the adoration of Bonds is in full genuflection.

Not until Kenny Lofton lashed the series-winning hit on Monday did Bonds let himself go, and even then it was like a librarian who stops herself from unloosening her bun during business hours.

Bonds might as well be competing in the modern pentathlon, he’s so alone in this thing. But the subject of Barry as Ogre doesn’t make for prime-time fun, so you won’t hear much of it from Buck and McCarver.

It’s an unfortunate approach because the Bonds dynamic could make for some decent conversation while Bonds gets intentionally walked for the 17th time. Does it matter that Bonds and Jeff Kent apparently hate each other’s insides and outsides?

Instead, we’ll watch people in inflatable rafts wait like piranhas for the next Bonds home run to splash into the San Francisco Bay. Could be worth an Emmy.