Remember that thou art mortal.

—Words that a slave would whisper into a hero's ear upon his triumphal (i.e., in a triumph) return to Rome (and words that Mel Brooks did not take too kindly to in "History of the World, Pt. I").

As Barry Bonds blurs past 700 home runs en route to—dare I say it?—800 and potentially Sadaharu Oh’s all-time professional home run record (868), we should keep in mind that we are witnessing greatness that cannot be evaluated solely on home runs.

I've already enumerated the reasons why this may be Bonds' best season ever and, therefore, the best season in major-league baseball history. But Bonds' past four years, the ones after he turned 35, mind you, may be the best four-year span in baseball history as well. These four years follow and improve vastly upon an already first-ballot Hall-of-Fame career. Take a look at his ratios and some salient stats broken down by era:

Bonds 2001-04 dwarves the previous Bonds even though his most similar batter at the time was Mickey Mantle and he had an OPS that would have been thirteenth all-time.

His four-year on-base percentage (2001-04) is .558. That's almost fifty points better than the next man, Babe Ruth 1920-23. Here are the top ten previous four-year OBPs (min. 1000 plate appearances):

By the way, that is John McGraw, the manager. He was once a tough-nosed third baseman, who drew a ridiculous number of walks and times hit by a pitch for Brooklyn (among others) at the end of the nineteenth century.

And before you say that (Bonds' high OPS) is attributable mainly to his ungodly walk totals, consider that his four-year slugging percentage (.812) would be the first over .800 ever. Here are all the men who have slugged over .700 for four years:

Bonds' four-year OPS is 1.370, which is over 70 points higher than the previous high. Here are the previous highs. Again it's basically the best four-year spans for Bonds, Ruth, and Williams:

And what's incredible about all this is that Bonds has done this over a period in which the opposition has done its best to take the bat out of his hands as much as possible. He has been walked, either intentionally or semi-intentionally, and hit by a pitch at a ludicrous pace. Here are the breakdowns by era:

Even though his overall walk rate has "just" doubled (almost), his intentional walks are up over 200% and his hit by a pitch ratio is up about 150%. That means that Bonds gets to bat only about two-thirds of the time that he steps to the plate as opposed to four-fifths of the time prior to 2001. Remember that Bonds had two seasons with 147+ walks prior to 2001, too. His at-bats per game have dropped by .6 over this period even though his plate appearances per game have remained unchanged (4.2655 prior to 2001; 4.2638 since).

Given what Bonds has done when he has been allowed to bat, it's not surprising that teams are trying to avoid pitching to him, but the strategy appears to be failing. He has hit home runs 60% more often over the last four years than previously based on total plate appearances. Even in his limited at-bats Bonds has delivered more often, almost doubling his home run-to-at-bat ratio and increasing his home runs per game from .23 to .37 (a 60% increase).

Given that Bonds is just 54 home runs away from the all-time record, you have to wonder where he would be if his opponents had actually pitched to him over the last four years, and of course, his production remained at the same level over the extra at-bats. He has 207 homers over the last four years, but if he had been given the same number of at-bats, instead of being walked or hit by a pitch, over this period as previously, he would project to 250. That would leave him at 744, just eleven shy of the record. It would also be the most ever by a player over a four-year period. His 207 are still tied for eleventh, and with a couple of weeks left in the season, expect him to crack the top ten. Here are the men who hit over 200 dingers over a span of four seasons:

However, the lost walks would reduce his walk totals by 45% over the period (from 731 to 405), leaving him with "just" 1952 for his career. That would leave him 238 short of Rickey Henderson's total and would place him just fourth all time (behind Henderson, Ruth, and Ted Williams). So I guess it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, I guess, if Paul makes one-quarter of what Peter does.

It will be interesting to see where Bonds career goes from here. Can he maintain the high level of play as he begins his first full season after the age of forty? If so, will teams continue to walk him at a ridiculous rate or develop a new approach? How will the inevitable decline occur, all at once or in stages? And when will it happen?

I leave you with one curious thought about Bonds' future. If he declines slightly and is just one of the best players in the game as opposed to possible the greatest hitter ever to play, opponents may more quickly abandon their walk-him-at-all-costs strategy, giving him more at-bats with which to obliterate the home run record. Perhaps, he'll have better numbers, at least the counting kind, if he is slightly more mortal over the last stage of his career. That alone makes him one of the most unique players, if not the best, to ever play the game.