By Chris Ballard

	Bonds' bomb against Glavine on May 8 left him 11 shy of breaking Aaron's record. Brad Mangin/SI

But in San Francisco they are accustomed to his excellence. So the hype comes from elsewhere, imported from faraway studios where broadcasters rant breathlessly. Here, they are patient. There are so many Bonds swings, and have been so many over the last 15 years, that an early-inning at bat in May does not merit mania. Real passion? That can be found on the lower level of AT&T Park, at a concourse food stand, where a TV is showing the Golden State Warriors battling the Utah Jazz in the second round of the NBA playoffs. Around the set, fluttering moths to the digital flame, stand two dozen men. Men who've paid 40, 50 dollars to go to a Giants game but now, even when Bonds is batting, stand and scream at a TV. This is Warriors country -- at least for the moment. At least until Bonds gets closer to the record.

Down on the field, Bonds takes a mighty cut and sends the ball screaming toward rightfield. At this, a split-second charge goes through the ballpark, the masses roused as tens of thousands appraise the ball's arc and make an instantaneous calculation: Does it have the distance, could it be number 744? And for a moment they are brought together again, the residents of this city, as they are four times most days (except for day games after night games, of course), by this middle-aged man with the gimpy knees and the sweet stroke. For better or worse, as San Franciscans their identities are now intertwined in small but powerful ways with Bonds's. And just as he is seen in so many guises -- Hero, Cheater, Record Breaker, Egotist, All-Star, Villain -- so are they. On the surface they are i-bankers sipping Sierra Nevadas and hipsters with ironic T-shirts and little boys eating big hot dogs, but each is also something else: Defender, Enabler, Critic, Rationalizer, Cynic, Don't-Give-a-Rat's-Ass-er.

To the nation, they are a unified whole: Bonds fans in the Bay Area. While the rest of the country is divided on his pursuit of Aaron -- 52% don't want him to break the record, according to an ESPN/ABC poll last week -- it is assumed that in San Francisco they blindly follow their hero, despite the revelations from the BALCO investigation about his alleged steroid use. That is, when they aren't lighting up enormous medically sanctioned blunts or proposing to their gay partners.