Columnist Dean Juipe: Reaction mixed on Bonds

Dean Juipe

Friday, June 29, 2001 | 10:20 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

It's the most revered single-season record in sports and there are always issues when it's threatened.

This time it's Barry Bonds in pursuit of baseball's home run record and as many fans hope he fails as succeeds.

Midseason arrives with Bonds well ahead of the pace he would need to eclipse the current standard, which is 70 by St. Louis' Mark McGwire in 1998. Bonds goes into tonight's game with 39 home runs in 78 games with the San Francisco Giants.

He has already had a taste of a pressure that will do nothing but intensify if he continues on his present course. His immediate reaction to the scrutiny and attention was to turtle-down his availability and keep the inquirers from his cozy shell.

But just in the last week he realized he had to say something about his robust homer production, and he has appeared in a couple of TV interviews in which he attempts to portray himself as nothing more than a God-fearing man who takes an ambivalent attitude toward his quest. He says he doesn't care about the record and would readily trade it for a World Series ring.

The ring, this season at least, is likely out of the question.

The record, however, is within his grasp.

But do you want to see him do it? It's 50-50 that you don't.

Bonds is one of those guys whose performance speaks for itself, yet whose personality hardly ingratiates him with the general public. He's distant, perceived as cocky and a poser when he launches a long ball.

For many an older fan, Bonds exemplifies what's wrong with today's highly paid athlete.

That said, he has also been on the receiving end of a good deal of unexpected support even in visiting ball parks. That he's in the chase for a time-honored record at the age of 36 is enough to thrill many who would otherwise look askance at his achievements.

The only player in major league history with more than 400 home runs and 400 steals, Bonds also has nine consecutive seasons with 30 or more homers and hit his personal peak with 49 last year.

When the time comes, he'll be elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

Yet Roger Maris is not in the Hall of Fame and that tells you something about the delicacy of breaking a record that many sentimentalists wish still belonged to Babe Ruth. When Maris clubbed 61 in 1961 to break Ruth's 1927 record of 60, it was an achievement that elicited awe without evoking any great appreciation.

Maris, like Bonds to some extent, and perhaps wrongly to some extent, was not widely regarded as a great guy who deserved the acclaim that holding the record brings.

McGwire -- and Sammy Sosa, who also surpassed Maris' record -- did not face that type of belligerence. McGwire was castigated in some circles for bulking up with questionable drugs, yet he was just charming enough to gain the public's favor.

And Sosa continues to be seen as a slugger with quirky, albeit harmless, characteristics.

Bonds? With his sincerity open to question, it's like we're not sure yet.

But he's not particularly lovable, which is unfortunate for a man chasing a record of such emotional importance.