SAN FRANCISCO -- The national spotlight has faded. The kayaks mostly are gone, leaving McCovey Cove -- once again -- all to the fish. The night-time chill and mist remain, but the carnival long ago left town.

One year after Barry Bonds set baseball's all-time home run record, all that's left is the fog.

Like him or not, Bonds attracted a lot of fans to the park. (Getty Images)

"It's amazing how he was such a big part of everything, and now he's not even ..." Giants outfielder Dave Roberts says, his sentence hanging there momentarily before disappearing the way of everything else Bonds around both this ballpark and this city.

AT&T Park mostly has been scrubbed clean -- at least, on the inside -- of all things Bonds. There are two small references, one an orange sign affixed to a brick wall in right-center field, near the spot where historic No. 756 landed, and described by one Giants player as "itsy bitsy." The other is a small leaderboard next to the 421-foot sign in right-center field listing the four names in the Giants' 500-homer club: Bonds, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Mel Ott.

"I couldn't believe they did that," says Paul Cardinale, the general manager of Momo's, a popular restaurant and bar across King Street from AT&T Park. "It's obvious that Barry built the house, basically. He put a lot of butts in the seats. All the regulars in our restaurant, a lot of season-ticket holders, they all noticed. It was pretty harsh."

But it isn't just at the ballpark.

"It's sort of like all traces of Barry Bonds have been erased from the city," says Curtis Huber, curator for the past 15 years over at the Wax Museum at Fisherman's Wharf.

Huber should know, because he has helped. The Wax Museum, located across the Embarcadero from the longstanding tourist destination Pier 39, banished its life-size figure of Bonds from its lobby in April, demoting it to downstairs with the rest of the wax statues.

"When he was in the lobby, people used to come by and take pictures," Huber says. "It didn't necessarily generate ticket sales, but he was a San Francisco icon and we left him up there. Some people thought it looked like him. Some people thought it looked too mean. Some people thought we made his head too big.

"But it was totally proportional."

The museum now features Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie figures in the lobby -- they bear an eerie resemblance to the stars, particularly Jolie's lips and Pitt's hair -- as well as that of Harrison Ford ("Top-earning swashbuckling film hero").

Bonds is downstairs in a sports display next to, among others, figures of Mays, Muhammad Ali and Joe DiMaggio. A wax artist who formerly did figures for Madame Tussauds in London designed the statues of both Bonds and Willie Brown, San Francisco's former mayor, and talk about an actual wax likeness. Both are killer.

"Everyone loved it when (Bonds) was hitting the homers, but I wouldn't say people are pleased with what's happening now," Huber says. "He's our second sports figure to let us down, the first one being O.J. Simpson. Of course, what O.J. did had nothing to do with his career. What Barry did is directly connected to his record-breaking career."

And what Barry did, as it relates to the present, may as well have happened in another lifetime, not as recently as one year ago.

"I don't really hear people talking about it much anymore," says Jay Fossier, a waiter at Caffe Delucchi in the popular North Beach Italian neighborhood. Fossier is an avid baseball fan, grew up in Chicago following the Cubs and moved here to the Bay Area 2½ years ago. He remains an avid baseball fan, attended Monday night's game here with Atlanta and marvels at the lack of recognition of Bonds inside AT&T Park.

"I thought it was a bad thing," he says. "For three years, you get as many people in the park as you can. Then, the moment he's gone, it's like, 'Barry who?' "

Turn the turnstiles, turn the page

Giants principle owner Peter Magowan, who will retire as president and managing general partner after the season, bristles when he hears talk that the club has gone out of its way to whitewash the recent past.

"There are signs out there on the walk behind the wall," Magowan says, referring to the dozen or so bronze plaques embedded in the cement boardwalk that runs between the ballpark and McCovey Cove -- seven of which are devoted to Bonds and his accomplishments. "That's a bunch of bulls---, that the Giants haven't recognized Barry Bonds.

"You don't see pictures of Juan Marichal when you look around (from the stands). You don't see pictures of Willie Mays, or Willie McCovey. Where are they?"

Still, in many ways, after the intense focus on Bonds for the past seven or eight years, it's jarring to visit the park today. It's as if you pulled up to Mount Rushmore, only to find they've removed the faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln.

"I don't think it's been hard," Magowan says of adjusting to life after Bonds. "Barry was a great player, and he did an awful lot for us. I, for one, am very appreciative. Over his first 12 years here, we had the third-best record in baseball. Only the Yankees and Braves were better. But we were in last place with him. And we had young people whom we had to find out about, guys like Freddy Lewis.

"Our fans miss him, I'm sure. But a lot of them appreciate the way we're going about our business now. We had been criticized for waiting too long to turn the page. It was the right time."

So far, life post-Bonds hasn't exactly left the club reeling. The Giants, entering Wednesday's game with the Braves, are 47-65, fourth in the NL West.

After 113 games a year ago with Bonds, the Giants were 49-64, fifth in the NL West.

Bonds' absence also hasn't exactly been crushing at the gate, though the Giants are running roughly 200,000 behind last year's attendance pace and are bracing for that number to grow -- if marginally -- in the dog days of a non-competitive season.

So far, they're on track to draw between 2.8 million and 2.9 million fans in 2008. Last year, they drew 3.2 million. Part of that is because of a decrease in their season-ticket base, from roughly 26,000-27,000 a year ago to the 24,00-25,000 range in 2008, according to a club spokesperson. That still ranks in the top game's top five.

"You've got to remember, though, that last year we had the All-Star Game, which is normally worth a couple hundred thousand in attendance," Magowan says, referring to the usual bump in season tickets because the hosting club usually makes sure season-ticket holders are able to purchase All-Star Game tickets if they desire.

"Plus, we hosted the Yankees last year for the first time since the 1962 World Series, and we had three home weekend series with the Dodgers, which is very unusual and which usually draws 125,000 every time. And, we had the home run chase. Nobody expected us to draw 3.2 million again this year. We budgeted and planned to be down, and we are down."

At the same time, Magowan notes, the Giants drew three million-plus fans over eight consecutive seasons through 2007, something that had been done by only three other franchises in baseball history: the Yankees, Dodgers, Rockies and, now, the Giants.

And is determined that the Giants will experience the precipitous drop in attendance that struck Baltimore (from 3.7 million in 1997 to 2.1 million in each of the past two seasons) or Cleveland (from 3.4 million over four consecutive seasons between 1997 and 2000 to 1.7 million in 2003).

Time will tell. For the boom years over the past decade, the Giants always will be indebted to Bonds. And that legitimizes the arguments of those who say that the club owed him far more than last September's see-ya-later.

On the other hand, the game is bigger than one man, and in baseball, as in most other aspects of life, what goes around generally comes around. Treat people the way you want to be treated and eventually, when the day comes that you're down and out, others will help pick you up. Mistreat people, and eventually you'll end up on your own.

In the end, between Bonds and the Giants, with federal agents and Mitchell Report hounds closing in, it never was anything more than a business arrangement: Bonds filled the ballpark, and he was paid a king's ransom for doing so -- more than $179 million during his 15 seasons by the Bay.

End of story, end of (Steroid) Era.

"I pride myself in knowing our season ticket holders, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's 80-10-10," Magowan says. "I'd say 80 percent think we did the right thing, 10 percent thought we should have kept him and 10 percent thought we should have gotten rid of him before last year and forgotten the whole home run chase."

The shadow goes

Bonds has not been heard from, aside from a few telephone exchanges with some ex-teammates -- most frequently, Roberts. Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, held court with the media in New York last month before the All-Star Game, bitterly complaining that he offered the slugger around the game for the major league minimum salary of $390,000 and still could find no takers.

Bonds has not appeared at AT&T Park this season -- though the Giants, celebrating their 50th anniversary since moving west, have invited him back for this Saturday's celebration honoring the outfielders (it's part of an ongoing, position-by-position celebration throughout the summer).

So far, though, they haven't heard back from Bonds. Finding someone around here who believes he will attend is more difficult than finding someone willing to autograph a copy of last winter's Mitchell Report, which was particularly damning to the Giants in revealing what lots of folks believed anyway, that there was a lack of institutional control to the point where a member of Bonds' entourage allegedly was trafficking in steroids inside the clubhouse for a time.

Notably, the club, which has an off day on Thursday, has no plans to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Bonds' absconding with what once was the most hallowed record in all of sports.

"He's in a funny position," Magowan says. "He wants to play, and no one has picked him up. So do we treat him as a retired player, or not? Maybe it would be easier to reach out to him if we knew he was retired. But we don't know that."

Meantime, their games once a fixture on national television, the Giants now are waist-deep in a rebuilding project. Once a dominating presence on national highlights shows, the Giants have receded into baseball's shadows.

One year after commissioner Bud Selig's uncomfortable visit to witness the setting of the most controversial record in baseball history, the press box now is like a ghost town. Downstairs, the big-screen television that sat on the floor and doubled as a barrier to Barry's locker is gone.

And several of those orange, rubber chickens that once were so visible -- remember when fans would hold them up each time the opposing pitcher would intentionally walk Bonds? -- are relegated to hanging in KNBR's "bunker," the radio station's under-the-stands broadcast booth.

"Honestly, it's hard to describe, what's happened here," Roberts says. "I just think it was such a conscious effort for this team to go in a different direction. But, obviously, no one can forget what he meant."

Former first baseman J.T. Snow, now a special assistant to GM Brian Sabean, uses Bonds' old locker. Pitcher Matt Cain is next door, in one of the lockers that was left vacant for Bonds to use. It was fellow pitcher Barry Zito, located a few lockers down the row, who suggested back in April that Cain move.

Cain left it in the hands of the equipment manager, Mike Murphy, to decide.

"I told him, 'I don't want to be in his old locker,' " Cain said.

Game of shadows, indeed.

"Anytime you have a player like Barry Bonds on your club and he leaves, it's going to change," manager Bruce Bochy says. "It's going to change the culture of the clubhouse, and it's going to change the brand of ball that you play. Barry was a dominant personality. It pretty much was his clubhouse, because of the player of stature he was.

"Now, you're seeing other players' personalities come out. Not only the players they are, but the persons they are. How they walk around. You see them being more verbal."

With less power, the Giants now are building around pitching and defense, and even looking to mix in some speed. In Cain and Tim Lincecum, one of the game's best pitchers at any age, they have an excellent start. Left fielder Fred Lewis (.278, seven home runs, 32 RBI) has shown promise. First baseman John Bowker, shortstop Ivan Ochoa and second baseman Emmanuel Burriss qualify as finds this year as well.

As the transition from old to young continues, Bochy recently informed Roberts and shortstop Omar Vizquel that their playing time would be reduced.

"As we've gone through this transformation, the players understand the type of ball we want to play," Bochy says. "They understand that it's important that everyone contribute, pitching staff, bullpen, bench ... everybody's got to carry the load. One guy is not going to carry you. And I think they look forward to that."

Strange, watching a Giants outfield that has combined for only 22 homers (Lewis eight, Aaron Rowand nine and Randy Winn five). The contrast between now and then in the outfield could not be any more dramatic.

"Weird," Atlanta manager Bobby Cox says. "Your stomach doesn't churn when you get to the ballpark anymore worrying about him. What are you going to do -- pitch to him? Not pitch to him? You're up two runs and there's a runner on first, do you put him on and take your chances with the other guy? I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that, and I think other managers would tell you the same thing."

'People have moved on'

One year after No. 756, and the owner of City Kayak -- the outfit about a block away from AT&T Park that sent so many of those kayaks into McCovey Cove in the past -- is actually out of town on vacation this week. During a Giants homestand.

All those ball hawks who splashed around the Cove in the past, waiting for that horsehide-covered, million-dollar lottery ticket to drop from the sky? Gone.

In what would have been an unthinkable move in any of the past several years, there was Meghan Kestler-Tobias, manning the kayaks for vacationing owner Ted Choi, closing up shop for the day Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. With game-time little more than three hours away.

"It's totally different," Kestler-Tobias says. "Completely different. Everything's changed. You don't get a full stadium. You don't get full water."

That's the City Kayak term for gauging the traffic on McCovey Cove. The company owns roughly 160 kayaks and, in past years, Kestler-Tobias says, nearly every one of them would pretty much be rented at $15 an hour for three or more hours.

Business has dropped so dramatically now that City Kayaks doesn't even bother with night games anymore, only renting its vessels during day games. Even then, there generally are only six or seven kayaks in the water then. Where business would bring in $5,000 each night in the past, it's down to $400 or $500 a game now.

And Choi?

"I don't know if he's ever taken a vacation," Kestler-Tobias says.

Meanwhile, over at Momo's, "We've definitely taken a little hit," Cardinale says. "Not a big one. A lot of people have been leaving games earlier and coming over to drink and eat. It's San Francisco. It's another reason for them to drink."

Bonds helped make lots of people lots of money. And though attendance is down, with or without Bonds, "it's still a great place to see a game," Fossier was saying over in North Beach, at Caffe Delucchi, on Tuesday afternoon.

"I think we handled it the right way," Magowan says. "Saying goodbye is never easy, whether someone dies, gets divorced or gets traded. It's not easy, especially if there is some level of caring for the other person."

A year later, the roar is elsewhere. It's in Chicago, where the Cubs are attempting to win their first World Series in 100 years. It's in Tampa Bay, where the Rays are attempting to write the finishing chapters to what would be one of the great stories of any year. It's in Los Angeles, where the latest hot trend in Southern California is Manny Ramirez and dreadlocks.

Only 12 months later, in San Francisco, the fog continues to roll in thick at night, obscuring the past and muffling the echoes.

"People have moved on," Cardinale says. "At the trade deadline last week, people were talking about him a little bit. Is Barry going to go to Boston? Is Barry going to go to New York? There was a little buzz at the bar because they're all Giants fans. But it's kind of a dead issue. It's too bad. He was one of the greats."