It is sadder than it is anything else. It is sadder than it is disappointing, maddening, disheartening, or any other emotionally-laced adjective you want to use. Barry Bonds sits on the doorstep of history, but there’s nobody inside to throw him a party. Oh sure, there will be a few jubilantly awkward moments with his teammates, and a smattering of fans will hail his feat, but the majority those east of San Francisco will collectively shrug their shoulders and turn the channel to something more relevant, like the X Games.

It’s sad, too, that it’s Bonds who is about to swing past Aaron on the final turn of this home run race. I’m sure many people hoped our next Home Run King would be worthy of the hallowed title that goes along with 756. This is, after all, our favorite record in sports now that 61 has been “drug” through the mud. And the holder of such records should be a man of honor and dignity. A man with reverence for the game and the legends it was built upon. Instead it seems the only thing Bonds reveres is his own image, which actually isn’t that hard to do, considering the size of his head, both metaphorically and literally.

What’s even more sad is that children these days have to grow up watching this chemically-enhanced “man” bat balls into the San Francisco Bay while their parents got to see The Hammer hit them from the launching pad in Atlanta. By nearly all accounts, Henry Aaron was one of finest men to ever play professional sports. A human being should never be subjected to watching some of the things Hank went through much, less experiencing them. Through it all, though, he held his head high and not once did he reciprocate the hatred that piled up letter by letter in his #44 locker. And If Barry sees today’s media and fans and calls their antics “racism” then clearly Arizona State should have offered more history classes.

When people claim racism plays such a major role in the life and times of Barry Bonds, they do a blatant disservice to those who actually have encountered violent acts of racism. I’m pretty sure Bonds doesn’t have to sift through hundreds of letters of hate mail every week. Nor does his daughter need protection from the FBI on account of kidnapping schemes. And if Barry has a bodyguard who carries a .45 in a binocular pouch, “just in case” then it has been lost on me. It’s a sad thing for Mr. Aaron and others, who actually felt the weight of a country divided, when Bonds reacts as he does to twinges of “racism” in today’s world.  Of course those might not be racist twinges he’s feeling either.

Everybody from President Bush to my mother has an opinion on whether or not Barry Bonds has ever taken steroids. To tell you the fact of the matter has long since been lost on me. I don’t think needles are necessarily the point of this subject. Surely kids these days have been negatively influenced by the steroid scandal that has out-headlined the wonderful stories of Dan Haren, Chase Utley, and Hanley Ramirez. That, too, is sad because kids should have heroes they can take hold of, people they can believe in. Barry’s attitude and stature, though, pretty much disparage any inkling of hope and tangibility he could offer to those replicating his luscious left-handed swing in parks and cul-de-sacs across America. But the fact of the matter is there are other players whom kids can revel in. People don’t have to like Bonds.  In fact, they don’t even have to care about him. At the same time though we want a man, a man’s man even, to be the next record-holder. This, though, Barry does not offer us. So as you can see it isn’t what Bonds has added to his body that troubles us so much.  It’s what he lacks, namely honor and character, that hurts the most.

One would have to be jaded to say we didn’t hope for more than this in Hank’s successor. And one would be crazy to say that anybody but Hank will always be the Home Run King. For a person of royalty should always be kind, and always be loyal, and, most importantly, always be of the noblest character -- basically all the things Hank Aaron embodied, and all the things Bonds doesn’t. So let us not bemoan the fact that we aren’t even excited like it was 1998 when ignorant bliss rendered each heart-stopping McGwire and Sosa at-bat even more climactic than the last. The truth is always better than an innocent joy because at least it’s real, even if some of the home runs aren’t.

And that is exactly the point. Let the Bonds saga be a tutorial to all the Little Leaguers and high school standouts playing this great game. It is sad that the reality of it all was lost long ago in a laboratory on the San Francisco Bay. But I hope we let history merge with reality to form a lesson in the form of dignity. For while Barry is knocking on the door to enter the kingdom, there is only one man capable of letting him in, and Henry Aaron is far too splendid a King to do something like that.

Hopefully those before us will sit down with those behind us and tell them where they were when they saw or heard 715. That record was made by a man whose path was far greater and longer than the 360 feet he took around the bases that muggy April night in Atlanta. The Presidential Medal of Honor bestowed upon him is evidence of that. And on April 8, 1974 as Hank had touched first, second, and third, he fell into our homes, and our hearts embraced him and everything he was about.

So this isn’t about what you do, but about who you are. Because 50 years from now, when both Hank’s and Barry’s records have been far surpassed, nobody will care that they ever set them. They will only remember these men for who they really were. People will forever remember Hammerin’ Hank as the Home Run King and the reason he was bequeathed with such an honorable nickname. They will always remember Barry too. They will remember him and his prescription for revulsion; a potion concocted with arrogance, disagreeability, and drug allegations. New teammate Rajai Davis, who was recently traded from Pittsburgh, inadvertently and comically sums up the situation perfectly when talking about his unavoidable encounter with the Giants left fielder saying, “Hopefully he’ll like me, and I’ll get a chance to talk to him.”

So in the next few days (or weeks) while Bonds gets fraudulently summoned for encore after encore in passing Hank, let us close the curtain on this era and start looking to the past in search of the next great one. For Mr. Aaron should be the example for all those looking to follow his footsteps around the base paths three-quarters of a thousand times. And may we not be hurt by what is happening because we aren’t the ones who should be considered losers. While we get to keep clapping for our future heroes, the applauding in Barry’s life will fade swiftly and abruptly. However we will certainly be afforded the opportunity to look through the glass of our TV screens in search of new Kings in the mold of our old one. We should be sad for Barry, though, because, with the records behind him, he will have to look into his rear-view mirror to see them, and the subsequent image is, in and of itself, more Bondage than any human should have to tolerate.

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