By Charlie Vascellaro

Much has been made over how the baseball community will react to Barry Bonds’ impending record-breaking 756th home run, in particular whether it is right for home run king Hank Aaron and/or commissioner Bud Selig to be in attendance and celebrate Bonds' record-breaking blast when it occurs. 

While Aaron and Bonds are and will be No. 1 and No. 2 on the all-time home run list for a while, sharing unique distinction as prolific sluggers and all that goes with breaking baseball’s most hallowed record, the two took very different paths. There are enough differences in their backgrounds and personalities to explain why people may prefer to have Aaron remain the all-time home run king.

While Bonds is less than 10 home runs away from tying Aaron’s mark, here are 10 things that set them apart: 

1.) Aaron was born in the segregated rural town of Mobile, Ala., to working class parents of modest means. The family lived in a homemade house built by Aaron’s father at a cost of $110 for the plot of land and another $100 in building materials.

Bonds was born --a Louisville Silver Slugger in his hands -- into a family of baseball royalty. His father, Bobby, was a three-time All-Star, one-time Most Valuable Player and close friend of teammate Willie Mays, who was named godfather when the younger Bonds was born.

2.) Aaron was a self-taught player who learned the game on a homemade diamond he and his friends carved out of a grassed-over pecan field, playing games with balls made of old rags and nylon stockings wrapped around a golf ball.

Bonds was a 10-year-old phenomenon for his Lions Club Little League Yankees in an affluent San Carlos, Calif., neighborhood. He learned the game hanging around the San Francisco Giants' locker room.

3.) Aaron was a cross-handed hitter, playing sandlot ball for segregated recreation league teams and fast-pitch softball for a high school that did not have a baseball team. Later, he dropped out of school to play on the semiprofessional Mobile Bay Bears, whose manager was also a scout for the Negro Leagues' Indianapolis Clowns, where 18-year-old Aaron would sign to play for $200 a month.

Bonds attended Junipero Serra High School in San Matea, Calif., an athletic powerhouse already famous for producing numerous championship sports teams as well as NFL wide receiver Lynn Swann and major leaguer Jim Fregosi.

4.) Aaron received his education during the waning days of the Negro Leagues, where he endured such indignities as listening to employees at a Washington, D.C. restaurant break, rather than wash, the plates on which he and his black teammates had eaten breakfast.

Bonds turned down the San Francisco Giants' signing bonus offer of $70,000, instead accepting a scholarship to play at Arizona State University. He was later drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

5.) Aaron and two Jacksonville, Fla. teammates were among a group of five black players to integrate the 50-year-old South Atlantic League, where they were on the receiving end of constant racially-motivated verbal abuse and physical threats. 

Bonds played 71 games at Prince William of the Single-A Carolina League and 44 at Triple-A Hawaii before being promoted to his first big league team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in 1986.

6.) Aaron made his major league debut in 1954, seven years after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, when black players were still not allowed to stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as their white teammates. They were continuously subjected to racial baiting and taunting byopposing white players, teammates and fans.

Bonds arrived in the majors 32 years later and while racism certainly existed and remains, at the time of his arrival many black athletes had become a celebrated part of American sports and pop culture in a way that the players of Aaron’s era never enjoyed.

7.) Aaron was an extremely integral part of the Milwaukee Braves' first pennant run, capturing the MVP award in 1957. He led all hitters with a .393 batting average, three home runs and seven RBIs in the Braves' improbable win over the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Bonds was a bust in his first three playoff appearances with Pittsburgh and first three postseason series in San Francisco, posting a .192 average in 114 at-bats. Even with his one outstanding World Series performance in 2002, his composite postseason batting average over six playoffs and one World Series is a mediocre .245.

8.) Aaron moved with the Braves from Milwaukee to Atlanta, becoming the first prominent black athlete to play professional sports in the deep south in 1966. Despite an initial reluctance to playing there, he accepted the responsibility and used his newfound role to champion the cause of civil rights both vocally and by way of example. 

After signing a six-year, $42.75 million deal in 1993, Bonds moved from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, where he began to develop contemptuous relationships with teammates, opponents, fans and the media-at-large that continue to this day.

9.) Aaron hit 40 home runs with 96 RBIs and a .301 batting average in 1973 as a 39-year-old in his 20th professional season. In his autobiography “I Had a Hammer,” written with Lonnie Wheeler in 1991, Aaron admits to having experimented with “greenies” (amphetamines) while suffering through a rough stretch at the plate in 1968.

Bonds hit a single-season record 73 home runs as a 37-year-old in 2001 and followed with 46, 45 and 45 the next three seasons, amid accusation and suspicion of steroid use. Bonds would only admit to having rubbed something called “the clear” into his body and has vehemently denied or simply refused to answer questions concerning his use of steroids and/or human growth hormone, despite the freakish transformation of his head and body size.

10.) Aaron has worn the home run crown with dignity and remained a diplomatic elder statesman of the game, picking and choosing moments to speak out on topics such as the place of blacks in managerial and executive positions. He has been careful not to denounce Bonds' accomplishments, but acknowledged that steroid use in general presents the possibility of tainted accomplishments.

Bonds has worn a chip on his shoulder and a shield on his arm (a piece of equipment that has enabled him to steal the inside of the strike zone, which this writer believes should also be a banned substance). He has been mostly aloof and unapproachable, and at the times when he has chosen to speak through the media, has been defensive and cast himself as a victim.

But when Bonds breaks the record, Aaron and Selig should be wherever it happens for a final acknowledgement and celebration of Aaron’s historic accomplishment.

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Charlie Vascellaro is the author of a biography of Hank Aaron, a volume in the Baseball’s All-Time Greatest Hitters Series published in 2005 by Greenwood Press of Westport, Conn.

Issue 2.22: May 31, 2007