Miami ? When Barry Bonds changed his shirt in the Giants’ clubhouse before Tuesday night’s game against the Marlins, his body looked so soft and doughy, you wondered whether Bonds might giggle if you poked him.

He moved slow. You could see laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. Know what captured the bulk of Bonds’ attention in the clubhouse? His teammates’ Scrabble game.

This is big, bad Barry?

Like most of America, I’m angry at Bonds for being allergic to integrity, but not to creams and clears.

I’m angry that a once prolific hitter’s lasting contribution to society won’t be 715 home runs, but showing us how ugly one man can be.

But when you take a real hard look at Bonds in person, it’s difficult not to be struck by how much Bonds has changed. And I’m not sure for the better.

I’ll take angry, insolent, insufferable Barry over the worn-down, worn-out, mellow Barry now making the rounds in Major League Baseball.

On Monday, Bonds was a live wire, proclaiming his body felt so good he might challenge Hank Aaron for the all-time home-run record. And that loud kerplunk you heard afterward was Bud Selig falling to the ground.

A day later, it was obvious Bonds’ mouth wrote a check his body couldn’t cash. Bonds complained about soreness in his back, prompting Giants manager Felipe Alou to scratch Bonds from the lineup just a couple of hours before the game.

“I was looking to give him two days off,” said Alou, who already was going to hold Bonds out of the final game of the series. “Now it might turn into three.”

Short of death, I’ll never feel sorry for anything that happens to Bonds, but it’s disheartening to see him become the Major League Baseball version of the Elephant Man.

He’s something to gawk at and ridicule. And when those two options get boring, you can only hope he begins blathering about his fondness for Sanford and Son.

Bonds is still a traveling circus, only minus the bearded lady, sword swallower and tightrope act. He is no longer entertaining. He is just withering.

“I think right now, we’re entering a time where everything has calmed down,” Alou said. “We’re probably going to have to manage Barry differently.”

Since that tasty cream is no longer an option for Bonds, things figure to get worse for the aging slugger before they get better.

Bonds has deteriorated to the point where a long flight from the West Coast and a fourth consecutive game make Bonds barely coherent.

“I could see him suffering,” Alou said.

As much as I’d like to see Bonds take a cue from Sammy Sosa – who for all we know might have been sucked into the Bermuda Triangle as Sosa has been so eerily quiet since he retired – it would be truly disappointing if Bonds left baseball whimpering.

Sure, his actions warrant an unkind exit from baseball, a sport he undermined with his dedication to BALCO. I don’t want to see Bonds break Aaron’s record because I strongly subscribe to the theory that cheating and prospering are a bad mix. And Aaron is one of the most excellent men ever to play sports.

But not even on my most mean-spirited days do I wish for Bonds to be banished to some injury-riddled existence where he increasingly sounds like Willy Loman.

“I don’t want to go back to the other side of me,” Bonds said to reporters on Monday.

I’m not wishing for nasty Barry to resurface, but I’m not entirely comfortable with a Barry that claims to now possess a “softer side.”

Where is big, bad Barry when you need him?