It's an insult to compare Bonds to Ruth. Bonds has been HR champ twice in 20 years. Ruth would have made the Hall as a pitcher. He missed 4 of his prime youth years, and still turned around and was HR champ 12 out of 14 years. He averaged 2 to 3 times as many HRS as the nearest guy, and often hit more than entire teams. To be an equal comparison of dominance over their peers, Bonds would have needed to average 80-100 home runs a year for 14 years.
A true comparison to a player today, imagine after 4 years of dominant pitching, Pedro Martinez or Clemens hit 80-100 HRs a year for 14 years.
Different era, so your comparisions aren't valid.
Also, Ruth didn't play against or with Black, Latin or Asian players, nor did he have to face specialists, like Closers and Middle Relievers.
In those days, Pitchers went the entire 9 innings, so Ruth was facing the same old tired-armed Pitchers all season long.
Ruth was an out of shape lop who drank excessively and smoked and probably wouldn't even make a current Major League roster.
No he wouldn't, or at least it's pretty damned unlikely. Ruth was Cy Young quality for a couple of years, but he was already winding down by the time he started shifting to the outfield fulltime. Check out his walk and strikeout rates, for one. He certainly wasn't in Roger's or Pedro's class.
It's also unrealistic to think Ruth ever would have matched the type of home run dominance he displayed at his peak in any decade other than the 1920s. I speak of outhomering whole teams, or finishing 35 home runs ahead of the next guy. That couldn't have been duplicated in any other period of baseball. Ruth was simply playing the modern game, while the rest of the guys were still transitioning from the dead ball era.
Babe Ruth became a full-time outfielder in 1919 (although he still pitched in 17 games, 15 of them starts, and went 8-5 with a 2.98 ERA). That year, he broke the AL single-season home run record (16 by Socks Seybold in 1902), then the 20th Century single-season record (24 by Gavvy Cravath in 1915) and finally the all-time Major League single-season record (27 by Ned Williamson in 1884) and ended the season with 29 homers. The next year, after moving from Fenway Park to the Polo Grounds upon his purchase by the Yankees, he hit 54 homers, pushing his career total to 103 homers, thus breaking Home Run Baker's AL career record of 80 (actually, his home run production in 1919 and 1920 alone would have been enough for Ruth to break Baker's record). In 1921, Ruth broke Gavvy Cravath's 20th Century record of 119 career homers, and later in the season broke Roger Connor's all-time career record of 138 homers; Ruth hit 59 homers that year to finish the season with 162 career home runs. In his first three seasons as a full-time outfielder, Babe Ruth hit more homers (142) than any other player in Major League history had hit for his entire career. Babe Ruth reached 250 career homers in 1924 and 300 career homers in 1925. In 1929, the year in which Rogers Hornsby and Cy Williams became the second and third players in history to reach 250 career homers, Ruth hit his 500th career home run. And in 1934, the year in which Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby became the second and third players in history to reach 300 career homers, Ruth hit his 700th career home run.
Oh yeah, and he retired the following year with a career batting average of .342 (6th all-time, behind Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker and Ted Williams, among 20th Century players with 4,000 plate appearances), a career on-base percentage of .474 (2nd all-time behind Ted Williams) and a career slugging percentage of .690 (best of all time), plus a career won-lost record of 94-46 (his .671 career winning percentage is 6th among 20th Century pitchers with 100 career decisions), a career 2.28 ERA (11th all-time among 20th Century pitchers with 1,000 or more innings pitched) and only 7.18 hits allowed per 9 innings (12th all-time among pitchers with 1,000 or more IP; which is even more impressive when you consider that the first 9 guys on the list debuted in the Majors after 1950).
Barry Bonds is a great, great player, and there's no doubt in my mind he's the greatest left fielder of all time (ahead of Stan Musial, Ted Williams and Rickey Henderson). But there's only been one Babe.
Now, now, that's an exaggeration.
Ruth had a career .690 slugging percentage when the league average was .400.
Bonds has a career .611 with the league averaging .407.
Babe Ruth was in a league of his own, but Barry holds up okay in comparison, which says something in itself.
Besides, comparing performances from different eras is pretty foolish. Put Bonds in a time machine, send him back to the 20's, and I'll bet you he hits lots of home runs -- just not in the majors, since they didn't let blacks play.