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1) Will Bonds break Aaron's record??

It is entirely up to him and, more pertinently, his health, since he has had a few problems with a particularly nagging hamstring of late. I have heard him say he isn't much certain of playing beyond two more seasons, so it may yet be an open question. I could make a guess and say that if he plays next season and goes out of the yard maybe 40-50 times and feels healthy enough, then does the same thing again the following season, he might go one more for the record. If the legs continue to give him trouble, though, I'm not willing to guess he would linger for the record. Barry Bonds can be an impudent jerk only too often, but give the man his props enough: he won't hang around if he thinks it will hinder his team or leave himself looking foolish on the field.

2) Had Bonds been hitting against the likes of Koufax, Marichal, Gibson, etal., and without the benefit of the use of steroids, smaller ballparks, and tighter baseballs, in your opinion how many HRs would Bonds have hit in...say... 1964-68?

First - show me the hard and real evidence of steroid use in him before we even think about going there. Now: In the primes of Koufax, Marichal, and Gibson, he might yet have hit 50 homers in a given season and maybe a couple of seasons. Even in the prime of those pitchers there were power hitters putting up fatted enough numbers - like Barry's godpoppa, for one. Koufax and Marichal were right at their peaks and Gibson was just climbing up to his own when, in 1965, Willie Mays hit his 500th career home run and swatted 52 jacks on the season. Bonds, elementally, has almost the same tools as Mays had (Bonds is a better fielder than he seems given the larger-than-life image of his offence, but Mays was certainly the superior fielder of the two), and combining that to the intelligence (don't laugh, folks) he shows when he works at the plate, I can see little reason why he wouldn't flourish even with Koufax, Marichal and Gibson in the league.

All three pitchers could be and were reached often enough for home runs. Juan Marichal surrendered 320 home runs in his career; Bob Gibson, 257; Sandy Koufax, 204. Each of these men in their peak seasons seems to have averaged about 20-24 home runs surrendered in a season. Bonds could well enough have put up some fat home run seasons even with them in the league against him, though he would have to approach each man differently, of course. Against Sandy Koufax, he would have had to wait for a mistake coming in low - Koufax's was a fastball that when it was thrown right, at full power, tended to "explode" up on a hitter when the hitter thought he had it lined up to drive off the belt. Against Juan Marichal, he would have had to be a reader of a sort: Marichal had about six variations on his delivery for any one of his pitches, even with that famouse Rockette-high leg kick, but an intelligent hitter could wait, watch, and drive one if he just went with the pitch. Against Gibson, it was a question of catching up to the pitch and watching the ball through that flying-wing motion of Gibson's, as long as you expected the fact that Gibson's ball came in looking smaller and faster than it actually was against the busy-ness of that motion and, especially, the whip motion of his throwing arm making it look like the ball might either tail away or rise up and in. Of the three, you probably had to train yourself hardest to watch the ball itself on Gibson.

But great hitters keep their performance papers active and current enough against the great pitchers, and in Bonds's case it almost doesn't matter what park he hits in. Though if he were playing in Candlestick as his home park, he would have to take his godpoppa's advice and just go with the pitch, don't expect to be able to pull it every day. That was how Willie Mays, contrary to the popular infamies about Candlestick, actually didn't lose much in the way of home run and other slugging numbers in that park and actually hit about the way you would have expected him to hit in spite of it.

Thanks for your in-depth analysis -- You are a tremendous vault of knowledge for the game of baseball ...

I've seen Bonds dragging that leg out in the field -- that hammy ain't gonna make it if the Giants get into the playoffs, though it hasn't seemed to affect his hitting too much. With the physical rehabilitative therapies available to modern athletes, big Barry ought to recoup enough to surpass Aaaron -- once he exceeds 700, IMO he's gonna ride it out no matter how foolish he might look in the field...then there's always the DH, isn't there?

Nope, no "hard evidence" that Barry Bond uses steroids. Only the circumstantial evidence of drilling 80 dingers a country mile last year. Some have said steroid use can also alter the cranium and head size. Bond's head does appear to be...shall we say -- HUGE?

Ok, if we assume Bonds hasn't used any supplimental enhancements and played in the 60s you think he'd still be as prodigious a homer-hitter? Yep, I know Mays did bop 52 in '65, had 49 in '64 and fell off the 37 in '66, but barely anybody was hitting 40 HRs between '64-'68; don't believe Aaron did; Killebrew, McCovey, Frank Howard, Yaz -- who else? Anyway, funny how you so aptly described Gibson, Koufax, and Marichal -- would have been fun watching those match-ups. Don't think Bonds would have had such an easy time especially with Koufax. The superior pitching overall aided by the higher mound back then became killer -- now in my opinion, Bonds would have been in that 35-45 range, but that's what makes baseball so great -- ANYTHING is debatable and nothing provable...