Love him or hate him apparently most people hate him—Barry Bonds is now the home run champ. The career homer champ and the single-season champ.

Although he may not hold the career record nearly as long as his predecessor did (over 33 years). It is appropriate that Alex Rodriguez hit his five-hundredth on the same day that Bonds tied Aaron at 755. A-Rod just turned 32, and he leads the majors with 36 home runs. If he can match his career average over the next five years—a big if, I admit—Rodriguez will be over 700 before his 37th birthday. If A-Rod can remain healthy and effective until he is Bonds' age (another big if), he could be approaching a thousand dingers.

When Aaron broke the record on April 8, 1974, his closest competition, Willie Mays, had already retired in the offseason. Next in line was Frank Robinson (552) and Harmon Killebrew (546) both of whom were 37 and aging rapidly.

When Aaron retired after the 1976 season, there was no real competition to his crown. No one under the age of 36 was within 400 of his record. The biggest threat was Reggie Jackson, who at age 30 just hit 27 home runs, quite a bit in those days (tied for sixth in the majors), to bring his career total to 281.

Here are the active home run leaders at the end of 1976:

Beyond Reggie were a few kids by the names of Mike Schmidt and Dave Kingman, who came in at numbers one and two for the home run title that year, but they were not within 600 of Aaron's record:

Bonds' record comes with a built-in serf whispering "Remember, thou art mortal" in his ear. Then again, Barry is far from finished. He leads the majors in OBP (an amazing .495), OPS (1.064), park-adjusted OPS (179), walks (114), and intentional walks (34). Even though he has "just" 22 home runs so far this season, he is averaging one every 12.1 at-bats, third best in the majors. One can still make an argument for Bonds being the most feared hitter in the game at age 42.

Whereas Aaron hit just forty more home runs after breaking the record, Bonds could have another hundred under his belt when he retires if he remains healthy. Sadaharu Oh's professional record of 868 home runs may be within his reach. (Then again, Josh Gibson has been credited with anywhere from 800 to 1000 home runs in his career while his Hall plaque estimated it at "almost 800".)

Bonds projects to 33 home runs this season, which would be his most since 2004, but is still the least he has hit in a full season since his Pirate days (i.e., 25 in 1991—he hit 26 in 130 games last year and 33 in a strike-shortened 1995 season). Even at his current pace, it would take him another three years to reach Oh. He would be 46 by that time.

Aside from home run records, he has plenty of hitting records and/or milestones to keep him occupied until he is ready to hang up the arm brace. He now has 2915 hits. He projects to another 39 in 2007, which would leave him just 46 shy of 3000 hits. When and if he reaches the figure, probably some time before the All-Star break, he will be the 28th man to do so.

Bonds is fourth all-time with 5936 total bases. He has very little chance of catching Hank Aaron in this category at least. Aaron's 6856 total bases leads all batters. However, he projects to 6014 by the end of this season, which would make him just the fourth man to 6000 total bases. And number two is within his reach (Stan Musial at 6134).

Barry has 9774 at-bats and projects to 9913 by the end of 2007. There are just 24 men with 10K ABs in baseball history. Consider that Bonds has over 2500 walks to go along with those at-bats. He currently has 12512 plate appearances and can expect to 12713 by season's end. Another season would put him in the top five all of which accumulated over 13K plate appearances.

Bonds current has 1981 RBI and should become the fourth man in baseball history to eclipse two thousand by the end of 2007. His projected total of 2008 should be just behind Cap Anson's 2076. The top two, Aaron at 2297 and Ruth at 2217, might be a bit harder to reach.

Even though Bonds is thought of as an RBI man, it should be remembered that his 2212 runs scored places him third all time. He projects to 2243 by the end of the season, and he could own the record by the end of next season. Both #2, Ty Cobb (2246), and all-time leader, Rickey Henderson (2295), are within his reach within one healthy season.

Also, within his reach is the all-time extra base hit record. He is currently second (1432) behind Aaron (1477). His 2007 projection (1449) puts him one healthy season behind Aaron (I wonder if Bud Selig will attend those games).

Bonds is also second in times on base (5560), but has little chance of catching the all-time leader Pete Rose (5929). Even with his 2007 projection (5658), he will probably be almost three hundred times on base behind Rose.

Bonds has stolen five bases this season without being caught once, even so he probably cannot improve much on his 32nd place standing in stolen bases. His 514 still put him in elite company-just 36 men have stolen 500 bases. He does have almost 500 more home runs than any of the 31 men who stole more bases than him. The closes is Rickey Henderson's 297 HRs.

Of course, Bonds has already obliterated two other records, career walks and career intentional walks. His 2540 are exactly 350 more than the next man (Rickey Henderson at 2190). He will keep adding to that total with a 2007 projection of 2599.

His 679 intentional walks are almost 400 more than the next man (Aaron at 293 though they were not officially kept until after his rookie year). Bonds may break 700 by the season's end (he projects to 697).

All of the walks made me wonder. You hear steroids mentioned whenever Bonds' record is brought up, but very rarely do you hear that Bonds has broken a record while opposing pitchers have refused to throw him any pitches to hit. Using his 2007 projects, Bonds will be walked more than 1500 times more than one would expect given the league averages over his career. That's more than any other player in baseball history.

Here are the men who exceeded his league's walk expectancy by the most over the course of their careers. Their totals are broken down by unintentional and intentional walks:

(* = through 2006)

Bonds has lose basically one plate appearance in eight over the his career to walks above the league average. Couple that with parts of two seasons (1994-95) lost to a strike. Bonds 1994 home run total of 37 project to 52 without the strike. His 33 in 1995 project to 37. That would give him another 19. With those projects, he would be finishing 2007 with 787 homers, 3,022 hits, 2,054 RBI, 2,293 runs (two behind the career record), 532 stolen bases, 10,136 at-bats, 12,986 total plate appearances, 6,155 total bases, and 2645 walks (706 intentional).

Giving him back the 1545 lost plate appearances due to the walks above expectations, that would project Bonds to 93 more home runs. Compensating for the strike and the at-bats lost to excessive walks, Bonds would project 880 home runs by the end of this season. Take that Sadaharu.

He would also have 11,342 at-bats #6 all time), 3382 hits (#8), 690 doubles (#5), 88 triples, and 6887 total bases (#2).

Apparently, however, it does not matter what sorts of gaudy numbers Bonds puts up could have put up. His fate will be determined by what happens (or maybe what doesn't happen) with the Balco case. He'll be tried in the court of public opinion, and in the eyes of many, he has already lost there.

It's sad given that we would like all of our sports records to be untarnished, unalloyed stories of personal triumph. Maybe that's a bit naïve. Who knows, given the widespread use of performance enhancements throughout sports and the apparently ever-worsening inability of organizations to catch those who partake in them, maybe in fifty years more jaded eyes will have less of a problem with Bonds' alleged missteps.

As for me, to channel manager Kid Gleason during the Black Sox trial, he is the best ballplayer I have ever seen. Period.