Barry Bonds Hits 755, Ties Hammerin’ Hank
Posted August 4, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Major League Baseball‘s all-time home run record now belongs to two men. For now.
Barry Bonds hammered dinger No. 755 into the San Diego night Saturday, tying Hank Aaron on the career list and putting the San Francisco slugger one swing away from an unparalleled, if slightly tarnished spot in baseball history.
Bonds slapped the historic homer in the top of the second inning Saturday, sending a 2-1 Clay Hensley offering the other way over the left field wall in Petco Park, making the hurler the answer to a trivia question sure to be posed by fans for years to come.
Barry took an extra 45 minutes of batting practice before Saturday night’s game, and it looks like the additional cage time paid immediate dividends. Bonds had been stuck on 754 since July 27.
After Bonds connected, he took a half-dozen steps and clapped his hands. There was no trace of a smile and it was difficult to see one on the face of league Commissioner Bud Selig, stationed in the seats. The Commish stood and put his hands in his pockets as Bonds’ family hugged and high-fived. When Bonds crossed the plate, he lifted his batboy son, Nikolai, and carried him several steps in an embrace.
Surprisingly, the Petco Park crowd stood and cheered, though there were some boos mixed in. Several fans did hold up asterisk signs, however, suggesting the slugger’s record is tainted because of his reputed steroid use.
But steroid use or not, Bonds has hit 755 balls out over big league fences, and nobody can take that away. He was walked in his next two at-bats.
