Ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to Barry Bonds, the future Hall-of-Famer who has shattered Hank Aaron’s record of 755 home runs. US sportswriters loved to call Aaron’s record the most hollowed one in all of sports. Whilst some sporting records might make us beg to differ, the home run record that was surpassed by Bonds has been one of the most important, and most insurmountable records of all time.

With a mighty swing, in front of a home crowd that forgave him many times for putting self accomplishments ahead of their beloved team, plus for the substance abuse hoopla, San Francisco Giants slugger Bonds became baseball's home run king. He sent career homer No 756 deep into the stands in right field to take this long standing record from Aaron .

With the season still going on, and with Bonds looking like he is far from being done with baseball, it is not too foolish to say that he will be able to pull far away from Aaron’s mark, once thought to be unreachable. He has already begun putting some distance between himself and every past great. Babe Ruth is beginning to look like a weak hitter compared to Barry’s current number of career homers.

'I urge all fans of the sport never to regard him as a hero. He is, after all, the anti-hero. He's the guy who has never put the team and winning ahead of his personal accolades'


But how do we, and how will we, perceive Bonds, the record holder? Will we all become like Giants fans and forgive the man for all of his past sins? Will we be giving him the hero treatment? In other words, has Bonds somehow magically gone from being the showcase of everything that is wrong with professional baseball to being a national hero?

I urge all fans of the sport never to regard him as a hero. He is, after all, the anti-hero. He's the guy who has never put the team and winning ahead of his personal accolades. He is the selfish player in a team sport. His attitude would be a must in any individual sport, but he has chosen baseball over any other opportunity.

Looking back at past greats, we the fans have been known to forgive anyone passing a milestone for sins past. Baseball has had many controversies and controversial stars but all has been forgiven over time. Though never before has there been someone whose sins have actually been performance enhancing. We forgave alcoholics, we forgave some game fixing, we forgave sinful relationships. We forgave them because none had an effect on the greatness of the player. Sure, fixing games affected the score, but anyone involved could not be accused of having hit a home run because of it.

With Bonds you do not know where you stand. With the recently enforced crackdown on steroid use in all  sports, this form of cheating is the least tolerated by the public. Has Bonds been guilty of it, has his record been a result of it? These questions make us wonder. In effect they tarnish the mark he has achieved.

There is another side to this story, however. To be fair, Aaron and Bonds will never be judged on a level playing field. In Aaron’s time, pitchers did not pull off the kind of small stunts (also a form of cheating) that they do today. Would Aaron get even close to his record if he were to face today’s pumped up, wised up, tricked up pitching crew. When you’re asking do batters cheat because pitchers started to, or vice versa, it really is an unanswerable question like the classic: which came first, the chicken or the egg?

How does this have anything to do with Barry Bonds, the record, and how all of this will be perceived? I don’t know. I just know that in my opinion Bonds is a rare talent, an incredible athlete, a record holder, but he is also a bad teammate, a negative example in many ways, and he sure is no hero as far as I’m concerned. Still, breaking this hallowed mark is an impressive feat no matter what I or anyone else thinks.