Major League Baseball can be forgiven for being one of the most anal sports organizations on the planet. Baseball is a numbers game, after all, and makes billions of dollars off the obsession over keeping score. However dickish the Roger Maris home-run asterisk was, it did have some statistical merit.
The career home-run record set by Barry Bonds is more problematic. Any talk of putting an asterisk next to his 762 (and counting) homers, or to wipe them from the record books altogether, is purely a moral issue. And to do so requires first and foremost indisputable proof that Bonds broke the MLB rules regarding steroid use.
Track and field athletes like Marion Jones have had career achievements officially rendered null and void because of steroids, so there is precedent for MLB officials to do the same with Bonds. But their best hope for redemption is if Alex Rodriguez breaks the record and stays out of trouble.

Cleveland rocks. The Indians have all the earmarks of a well-run franchise from top to bottom. But they won’t erase the memory of the worst season for Major League Baseball since the 1994 strike.

This was the year Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756, breaking Hank Aaron’s career record. It was met with muted enthusiasm at best. Bonds was never the fan favorite, but once he became the center of the league’s ongoing steroid controversy, MLB officials distanced themselves from Bonds as if he were made of cancer.

Next month, George Mitchell is expected to release the results of his investigation into steroid use in baseball. Names could be named. If the use of performance enhancers is as widespread as anecdotal evidence suggests, some of those names will be from the Indians.

No matter who’s side you are on, this report is already the overwhelming baseball story of the year. And it’s only going to get bigger.

Now that Barry Bonds has broken Hank Aaron’s MLB record of 755 home runs, the last frontier is Sadaharu Oh’s world record of 868. However, Bonds suggested recently that he doesn’t foresee himself playing in 2008.

Then again, after he missed most of 2005, people wondered if Bonds would even catch Aaron. But he’s enjoyed a relatively healthy campaign, playing in 103 of San Francisco’s first 118 games (sometimes as a pinch hitter) and clubbing 24 home runs. At that rate, he would finish the year with 33 dingers.

The remainder of the season is bound to play out a little differently. The Giants have a lot of National League West matchups from here on in; the Padres have given up the fewest homers in the majors at 80, and the Dodgers are the fourth-stingiest team at 95. Without delving too deeply into park factors, let’s chalk up 30 home runs for Bonds in 2007.

He hits it high… he hits it deep… way deep.

So Barry Bonds is now and forevermore to be thought of as the all-time MLB home run king – at least until Alex Rodriguez or someone else breaks the record. But Bonds had other memorable moments on his way to No. 756. Here are 10 of the most notable.

May 30, 1986: Bonds makes his MLB debut in center field for the Pittsburgh Pirates, at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Batting leadoff, Bonds goes 0-for-5 and strikes out three times. But he also gets a walk. He’ll get another 2,500 or so after that.

May 31, 1986: Bonds gets his first major-league hit, a double off Dodgers pitcher Rick Honeycutt. Honeycutt was caught cheating six years earlier when he taped a thumbtack to his hand while pitching for the Seattle Mariners.

June 4, 1986: Bonds goes deep off Craig McMurtry of the Atlanta Braves, his first MLB dinger. The solo shot was part of a 4-for-5 night for Bonds at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

November 19, 1990: Bonds is named the National League MVP by the Baseball Writers of America Association. He’ll collect six more of those awards.

May 4, 1992: People names Bonds one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. It can only go downhill from here.

Oct. 17, 1992: Game 7 of the NLCS. The Pirates are up 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. The Braves have loaded the bases. Francisco Cabrera lines a single to left. Bonds tries to throw Sid Bream out at home plate, but Bream barely makes it in safe with the winning run as the Braves go on to the World Series.

December 8, 1992: Bonds signs as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants. The Pirates haven’t had a winning season since.

August 23, 1998: Bonds hits his 400th career home run off Kirt Ojala of the Florida Marlins to become the only player ever to hit 400 homers and steal 400 bases. Meanwhile, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa steal the spotlight with their quest to break Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 (no asterisk).

October 5, 2001: Bonds goes deep twice off Dodgers starter Chan Ho Park, Nos. 71 and 72 of the season, to break McGwire’s MLB record.

March 2, 2004: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Bonds received steroids from BALCO Laboratories.