With Jason Giambi now apparently off the market, advanced to The Bronx with $125 million (give or take) beneath his wings, we can now turn our attention to the winter meetings, and with them, a happy series of visions, to wit:

	Barry Bonds is testing the free-agent market after a record-setting season.

That cheerful face at the front desk and asking, "Hello, welcome to Copley Place. May I have your name, please?" ... that genial soul standing in the lobby, directing guests to Fanueil Hall and Boston's other historic landmarks ... that chatty fellow in the press workroom, giving interviews to everyone from The New York Times to the Worcester Telegram ... OK now we've gone too far.

We're talking here of Barry Bonds, the best free agent nobody admits to wanting in baseball history. The Giants' left fielder and his 73-home run carry-on bag is for sale like he's never been for sale before, and the winter meetings, which begin Sunday, are the trade show to end all trade shows.

The fun part, though, is in watching the one team that won't be pitched, and what that team intends to do about it.

The Giants.

Of all the flesh-peddlers' auctions in recent sporting history, the Bonds sale is going to be one of the finest examples of slapping a dollar sign on the muscle anyone has ever seen. He is stacking his resume against his birth certificate, his agent's reputation against his agent's reputation, and his current team against 29 other teams who seem, at least for the moment, to be curiously resistant to his charms.

Or do you think he did three hours on a San Francisco all-sports radio station two weeks ago because he sees the upside in the medium?

So far, no team's general manager has risen up and stated publicly that Bonds is his guy. The contract length (five years) and salary figures ($20M per annum) stated by agent Scott Boras have left the market largely unmoved.

But Boras is on his home field at the winter meetings, pitting 30 men of varying degrees of wallet and brain size against each other for the man he will pitch as the nonpareil talent of the age.

On that, Boras is absolutely right, and he's got the home run record in his briefcase to prove it. What he does not have, however, is the timing to make this work easily.

Labor unrest on the horizon, a nosediving national economy, memories of the Alex Rodriguez deal still fresh and pink in the marketplace, even Giambi siphoning off the attention of George Steinbrenner -- all of it conspires against a smooth, easy transition to a $100 million payday.

Of course, taking general managers at their word when it comes to player acquisition is spotty, although some truth is occasionally and inadvertently emitted. This is as compared to the owners when talking about their profits, which were proven to be unbelievable on their face again yesterday when the Giants estimated their profits for the 2001 season to be in the $1 million-$5 million range, while commissioner Bud Selig announced to Congress that they lost $100,000.

But that's another story in the dog-eats-food-off-ground genre -- "Owners Can't Keep Their Stories Straight -- Again." Of more fascination, potentially, is the Giants' peculiar dilemma re: Bonds.

Of course, there is no dilemma if Boras can drum up a bidder or two this week, perhaps while delivering room service. In a market so quiet that the Yankees haven't closed the Giambi deal, Boras will have to produce a record number of Buffalo wings, perhaps even more than the catering record he set last year while baiting the Rodriguez hook for Texas owner Tom Hicks.

If Boras scares up a bidder, the Giants slink away, secretly happy that they aren't committing more than they want to spend on one position, no matter how well-manned that position might be.

But if Boras comes away with nothing in these cost-cutting times, as strange as that seems for a 73-homer man, Bonds can do nothing but return to the Giants --- and the Giants end up bidding against themselves anyway.

More precisely, they will have to figure the lowest number of years and dollars they can offer without overtly insulting Bonds. And yes, that matters, especially if as seems likely now, the Bonds money will eat up any money general manager Brian Sabean would have been allowed to use for Jason Schmidt or other needs.

After all, when you're making $5 million while losing $100k at the same time, finances can be particularly tricky.

Sabean has been careful not to publicly declare a drop-dead number for Bonds, largely out of fear that he would be inadvertently setting the market against himself. But faced with the possibility that his drop-dead number might be the only number, Sabean now must figure how tightly Bonds' shoes can be squeezed while leaving him a content and motivated camper.

Maybe Bonds' own sense of pride in his legacy will be enough to allow the Giants to offer only a token bump. Maybe he will find the offer so profoundly insulting that he will give 75 percent effort for 75 percent of what he thought he should be paid. It's all maddening speculation, which is what the winter meetings are made for, anyway.

Either way, Barry Bonds will dominate the winter meetings the way he dominated the season. You'll find him at the concierge desk, making your reservation at Legal Seafood. And have a nice day.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.