Barry Bonds and Barry Zito Are Homies

First there was a story on the Giants official team website, then an article in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated. Both were about the same subject -- Barry Zito has Barry Bonds' back. It's pretty cheesy you know, SI has a photo of the Barry's hanging out by the batting cage, fists adjoined in a knuckle pound, identical t-shirts adorning their backs, "Don't Ask Me ... Ask Barry!" It's really cute -- in that 6th grade schoolgirl type of way. And according to the SI article, Bonds is the one who came up with the idea for the shirt. But the Giants website says it's Barry Zito who's resulted in the change of Bonds, asking to locker nearby the prickly veteran.

"I'm certainly going to protect Barry," Zito said. "He'd protect me at whatever cost. I've learned that in the short time I've been around him. I know all these beat writers. With me there, they won't be able to attack him as they would if they had Barry alone. They know they may have to answer to me, or might feel repercussions regarding interviews now. If he wanted me to blackball somebody, I'd probably do it."

Quite clearly, Barry Bonds is feeling the love as well

"He's a terrific dude...Great players have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. We're just going to have a lot more press on our side. It's going to be fun. He's a great pitcher, man."

Aww, this is sooo sweet. For an encore performance, the two will be photographed holding hands while shopping at Union Square.