MILWAUKEE -- It's 11 o'clock -- or 2, 4 or 6 o'clock. Could be any o'clock.

Do you know where commissioner Bud Selig is?

A fan lets Barry Bonds know what he thinks about The Chase. (US Presswire)

Keeping track of the guy's whereabouts is the in thing right now, more hip than an iPod Nano. Last time I watched this many people track someone with such zeal in the baseball world, villagers were flocking and craning to get a load of Pamela Anderson bouncing down a Dodger Stadium aisle in a halter top.

Will the Commish grace us with his presence when Barry Bonds* finally pushes aside the game's legitimate home run king, Hank Aaron?

Will the Commish stay at home and push voodoo pins into a No. 25 Giants doll with an exceptionally large head?

Will he travel to San Francisco next week, do his best rain dance and then skidaddle to next weekend's Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, N.Y., and hope Big Helmet smacks No. 756 while he's gone?

Inquiring minds and the barking dogs on talk radio demand to know, and what we learned here Friday night as The Assault on Aaron blazes into its final stage is that, well, ah ... what, exactly, did we learn at Miller Park?

This: The jockeying for position between an uncomfortable and agonizing commissioner and an arrogant and self-centered slugger is going down to the bottom of the ninth.

Selig and baseball's ball-and-chain were in the same ballpark, but in totally different worlds.

Even with Bonds* now at 753 career homers and breathing hot on Hammerin' Henry's neck, the commissioner remains determinedly non-committal about watching No. 756 in person.

"I'll decide that after Sunday," Selig said.

Meaning: Once the Traveling Circus and Freak Show packs up and moves on following Sunday's series finale, he'll get back to you.

But now, with The Chase practically being played out on Selig's front porch this weekend -- his office is only four or five miles away from Miller Park -- what else is he going to do?

One, above all, Selig remains passionately in love with the game. And two, it's kind of hard for him to not be here this weekend. The guy takes a wrong turn on his way to Gilles Frozen Custard and he's here.

What if Bonds* reprises Thursday in Wrigley Field, smacks two homers and ties Aaron this weekend? What if he wallops three and steals the record of the man who made Milwaukee famous as a baseball city in the 1950s and 1960s?

Will the commissioner stand and applaud?

"Whatever happens, happens," he said with the enthusiasm of a man watching broccoli boil. "My reaction will be, if he's closing in on the record, if he hits 'em, he hits 'em."

Odds are highly against that, here at least, because Big Helmet is going to get fewer and fewer pitches to hit as Nos. 755 and 756 take their turns on deck.

Yet, in that crazy way baseball has of building drama and linking generations, the timing of the Giants' stop here this weekend is incredible. Friday's series opener -- July 20 -- marked the 31st anniversary of Aaron's final homer. No. 755 came just across the parking lot, in old County Stadium, against the California Angels' Dick Drago.

Conceivably, if Bonds* can milk three homers this weekend, the only two men in more than 100 years of baseball history to drop homer Nos. 755 would have done so not only in the same city, but within a long pop fly of each other.

"If you wrote that script, nobody would believe it," Selig said.

Stepping away from the sepia-toned Field of Dreams motif and returning to baseball's current cold and cruel predicament, not only did Selig and Bonds not cross paths Friday night, the commissioner admitted that he hasn't spoken to Bonds, "not for a long time. It's just the way it's worked out."

Meantime, Selig said he has spoken with his good friend Aaron "very recently," though he declined to characterize Aaron's mood.

"I'm going to let Hank speak for himself," Selig.

Regarding Selig's attendance at No. 756, the feeling here is very simple: If this thing drags out for three or four weeks, it's ludicrous to expect the commissioner to drop everything and tromp around the country like some high-powered groupie.

But -- and this is the important part -- I think he should make an effort to be there for the very simple reason that he is complicit, along with others, in the Steroid Era. The players union shoulders most of the blame, but the fingerprints of Selig and others are there and visible.

There's a fine line between publicly sanctioning the impending achievement of Bonds -- which is what a Major League Baseball-sponsored celebration would do -- and hiding in the broom closet and continuing to pretend that the era didn't exist.

Bottom line is, what was once unassailable and then was deemed unbelievable now has become unavoidable. Bonds* has one more game like he did Thursday in Chicago, and Aaron is caught. And what should be a celebratory time instead has become a joyless march of drudgery.

Giants third base coach Tim Flannery was saying before Friday night's series opener that what's really struck him this year is how mean so many people are. When the Giants were in Boston last month, Flannery said, someone threw a couple of bottles of urine into the dugout.

"I know -- it splattered all over me," Flannery said.

He also said he saw a father hauled away in handcuffs from behind the dugout after an altercation while the man's son watched.

"His son was looking at dad, and then looking at Bonds, like, 'Who's the bad guy here?'" Flannery said.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he's simply been struck by the electricity.

"How excited everybody is to see Barry come out of the dugout and hit," Bochy said. "At home, it's always been like that. On the road, there are the boos, but you sense the fans are excited to have a chance to watch the guy.

"Soon he'll be the greatest home run hitter of all time. I would have loved to have been around to see Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. They were the greatest of all time, and I never did see them.

"But you feel it."

Bonds* is scheduled to play in two of the three games here this weekend -- likely Friday and Sunday. There is a sizable media contingent now following the Giants, though so far, it's not overwhelming. It was comparable to that of an opening day in Milwaukee, according to the Brewers' press people. Maybe a smidge more.

Bonds was booed loudly in each of his five plate appearances -- 0-for-4 with a strikeout and a walk -- but the booing sure didn't prevent the Kodak moments. Flashbulbs popped wildly each time he was at the plate.

And in a suite he maintains in Miller Park overlooking the club he once owned, Selig joined the sellout crowd of 43,121 in their ambivalence.

Interestingly -- tellingly? -- when Selig was asked about former commissioner Bowie Kuhn not attending the game in which Aaron broke the Babe's record, the commish pointed out that former commissioner Ford Frick wasn't there when Roger Maris broke the Babe's single-season record with homer No. 61, either.

"I find that interesting," Selig said.

Just as it's fascinating that Selig, a history buff, would bring that up. A hint that he doesn't plan to be there when Big Helmet's big moment comes? A clue that Selig will not view the new homer record as legitimate, just as Frick didn't coronate Maris?

It's getting late in The Chase.

Where is the commissioner?