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You forget reality, sure you can look at numbers and say Bonds did better, but you know what, that won't matter.. The Babe will still be the person people talk about.

Bonds has undercut his ability to have a great place in baseball history. His numbers speak for himselves, but its the fans that dictate the great ones, not merely the numbers.

Bonds no matter how good he ever plays can never hope to become an Icon.... People will be talking about the Babe long after someone hits 200 homers in a season... only a few stat geeks will even remember Bond's name.

Just face facts, this is a guy who set a new home run record for a single season, and in this age of marketing could not even get any significant marketing deals from that feat, because frankly every advertiser in the world knows that people generally think he's a jerk. Bonds place in baseball history will be simply his numbers, he will not leave behind a legacy. Aaron, Babe, Gehrig, Dimaggio, Mays, Mantle, Ripken et al they left behind legacies... Bond's because of the fact he just can't help but be a jackass, will leave behind no legacy, just stats.

One of the most illustrative stats of what Babe Ruth accomplished is that in 1927, the year he hit 60 home runs, no other TEAM in the majors hit that many. So for Bonds -- or McGwire or Sosa for that matter -- to have a commensurate impact, they would have had to hit about 250 in a season. That is a better measuring stick of their relative impact on the game.

On some of the other issues -- Ruth was very popular with the vast majority of his teammates, even the more educated and refined ones like Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt who might have been expected to be put off by his occasionally loutish behavior. He was clearly a loveable human being whose enormous faults were totally overtaken by the sheer enormity of his personality. Most of Bonds's teammates do not like him at all. We are comparing one very talented and outstanding athlete in Bonds to an American legend.