The greatest

Move over, Babe, move over, Hank -- Bonds is coming through

You don't have to like Barry Bonds. I'm certainly not asking you to. Heck, I'm not asking me to.

Sure, he's done a ton of amazing things, unbelievable things, in his long and distinguished baseball career. He does more practically every day. But if you're not a Bonds fan at this point -- and everybody knows the reasons you might not be -- well, you're probably on the other side for good.

Still, when you take a look at Bonds, the player, and some of the things he's done, it's hard not to see this guy -- this sometimes angry, sometimes maddening, sometimes standoffish superstar -- for what he is. Which is the best hitter. Ever.

Face it. Look at the numbers. Look what he's doing, at age 39. Look what he's done the past couple of years. Look at his career, as a whole.

Look at his handful of MVPs, the 73, last year's batting title, the on-base and slugging records, the way every pitcher on every other team flaps like a flag in a Pac Bell breeze when he approaches the plate.

Look how he completely changes a game. Look at all those walks. Look at what he means to the San Francisco Giants. Look what he did to the pitiful Atlanta Braves this week.

And don't look now, but with 104 more home runs -- what's that, a couple of years or so, the way he's going? -- Bonds will pass Henry Aaron to grab the most coveted record in baseball.

"It's gonna happen," said Mark Grace, the longtime National Leaguer who is playing out his final days with the Arizona Diamondbacks. "And I'd love to see it."

Oh, there are all sorts of reasons that Bonds may not get to Aaron's record of 755 career home runs. I mean, come on. He's 39. That's pretty old. Historically speaking, there aren't a lot of hitters who have gone deep with any kind of regularity at his age.

Only five players in history, in fact, have hit as many as 25 homers in a season at 40 years old. Only nine 40-year-olds have hit as many as 20 homers in a season.

If Bonds follows that late-career path, he's a looong way from 755. If he follows that, he'll get his AARP card first.

But Bonds, of course, doesn't follow. It's part of his ever-loving charm. Only one player in history hit more home runs between the ages of 35 and 38 than Bonds. (Babe Ruth had 170. Bonds had 168, according to the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia.) Bonds turned 39 in July. He's on pace, this season, for 50 homers.

As many reasons as there might be that Bonds won't pass Aaron -- mainly, the advancing age thing, though the fact that he walks a few million times is important, too -- there are at least as many why he will.

This is an era of offense like no other, as we all know. There are a lot of small ballparks, a lot of bad pitchers, and Bonds has shown an unparalleled ability to take advantage of both.

"Maybe," his manager, Felipe Alou, said Thursday after Bonds' second game-winning homer in three nights, "there might be a league on another planet where he's just another guy."

There is not a better left-handed hitter in the game, obviously. No one has a quicker set of hands. No one is stronger, or has a better batting eye, or is smarter at the plate. No one scares pitchers like he does, or hits mistakes as hard.

His offseason workouts are legendary. (They're too tough for Gary Sheffield, for instance.) They keep Bonds in wonderful shape. And let's be honest here. Bonds knows just how much energy to exert at all times. He never puts out an iota more than he needs.

He is so good at this point in his career that he makes Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco, a notoriously tough hitter's park, look like Coors Field with the wind blowing out.

"The only tougher field," Grace said of Pac Bell, "is O'Hare."

Bonds has a record five Most Valuable Player Awards already -- including the last two -- and he could make it six this season, considering he leads the league in on-base percentage and slugging percentage, home runs, walks ... many of the usual suspects.

He is comfortable with the Giants, and he's signed through 2005. After that, he's wondered about going to the American League for the cushy life of a designated hitter.

But all that gets away from the main reason Bonds may well do this thing. And that is this:

The dude is simply too good to dismiss.

The year after his spectacular 2001 season, Bonds and Aaron met to talk baseball at the Giants' spring training home in Scottsdale, Ariz. Bonds has grown up around greatness -- with his father, Bobby, and his godfather, Willie Mays, and many others -- but that spring in 2002 was the first time Aaron and the younger Bonds had had a meaningful talk.

Aaron told Bonds that records were made to be broken. He told him that he had held the home run record long enough.

Bonds was flabbergasted.

"He told me," Bonds said at the time, "to get all I could get out of the game of baseball."

In a couple of years, Bonds should pass Aaron to become the greatest slugger of all time -- if he doesn't already own that title. In a couple of years, there may be nothing more for Bonds to get out of the game.

You might not like Barry Bonds. He sure doesn't make it easy.

But, really, how can you not appreciate what he's done?

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.