At some point in the next week or so — perhaps even before this paper finds its way into your hands — Barry Bonds will surpass Hank Aaron's all-time record for home runs.

For those who may not be aware, the career home run record stands as perhaps the most hallowed of all records in sports, symbolizing longevity, power and consistency.

While such a great achievement would seem an ideal opportunity for sports fans to unite and reflect on a tremendous career, it has instead divided fans into two camps, equally unbending in their beliefs.

Fans in one camp will take the opportunity to honor Mr. Bonds and portray him as a heroic man who was a victim of a vicious smear campaign. In the other camp, fans will see Mr. Bonds' eclipsing of Mr. Aaron's mark as one of the darkest days the sport has seen. Mr. Bonds has been connected with steroid use, and while he has denied pumping his body, his head has continued to grow (much akin to Pinocchio's nose).

Any animosity toward the San Francisco Giants' slugger is not, however, racial, as some would have you believe. Mr. Bonds is disliked not because he is black, but rather because he is a sour, ill-tempered, egotistical prima donna. He always has been.

When he was a freshman at Arizona State University, he was nearly kicked off the baseball team — a unanimous vote was required; one teammate voted for him to stay — for generally being a bad teammate.

Sure, there will always be some backwards Americans who despise any black athlete, or person, for that matter, simply because of his or her race. But those people represent not only a small part of the population in general, but also a small portion of the sports-conscious public.

For the vast majority of fans, Mr. Bonds is not disliked because he's black. For anyone to say that would be to completely ignore the fact that other black athletes such as Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Michael Vick (oops, strike that one) and Ken Griffey Jr. are celebrated as some of the greats in sports. These people are cherished not only because of their great skill and achievements, but also because they seem to be genuinely good people.

The only way to prove that anti-Bonds sentiment is not racially motivated, but instead because he cheated and treated everyone not named Barry Bonds like garbage, would be to swap a well-tempered Bonds into the situation. Unfortunately we can't exactly do that. But we can do a comparison almost as telling.

Mr. Griffey is an excellent counterexample to the argument that hatred for Mr. Bonds is racially motivated. Both are sons of noted former ballplayers. Both are blessed with unimaginable levels of natural skill and ability. The main difference between the two, however, is that Mr. Griffey is a likeable character.

Always with a smile on his face, "The Kid" played centerfield effortlessly and has as smooth a swing as could be imagined. He is such a fan favorite, the Seattle Mariners, his former team, held a Ken Griffey Night when he returned as a member of a visiting team.

Now ask yourself this, if Mr. Griffey were the one sitting one home run short of breaking the home run record as I type this, what would be the feeling of the country? Sure, there would be the racist pockets of the population out to get him. Almost every baseball fan, however, would be in his corner, cheering his every swing. Moreover, how could it be a racial issue when the man he is chasing is black? That, to me at least, makes no sense. Even Mr. Aaron himself has been less than warm to Mr. Bonds' chase.

When Mr. Aaron eventually broke Babe's record in April 1974, legendary broadcaster Vin Scully remarked, "What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting an ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol."

A Harris poll that same year found 63 percent of fans said they agreed with the statement that they were "shocked to hear people are rooting against Aaron because he is black."

We've come a long way in terms of racial equality since then. I won't try to ignore the fact that there are still racial inequities around today, but don't try telling me that the public's animosity toward Mr. Bonds is one of them.

Ben Voelkel ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in journalism and political science. He is also sports editor at The Badger Herald.