By John Klima
February 16, 2009

“It belongs to Barry,” Henry Aaron told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “No matter how we look at it, it’s his record, and I held it for a long time.”

Through all the theatrics, court dates, leaked grand jury testimonies, 50, 60 and 70-home run seasons, this is what Barry Bonds got right.

For all the bat flips, intentional walks, bickering with players, fans, coaches and media, this is what Bonds inadvertently did well.

The greatest contribution Bonds made to baseball was removing the all-time home run record from Aaron’s keep.

It was not because Aaron did not deserve the record, but he does not deserve the rancor that will forever accompany the record and the manner by which Bonds surpassed it.

Aaron has paid his dues, Bonds will pay for his decisions, and these two distinct personalities should not be connected to one another in any other way than their names are next to each other on an all-time home run list that has been permanently altered.

Aaron still has the spirit of a ballplayer. He honors and respects those who came before him and those who came after him. He has never derided Bonds because he has proven to be too good of a man to do it.

From the moment Aaron rounded the bases after hitting his 715th home run, he has been followed, as he was by the two fans that flanked and shocked him as he rounded second base on that memorable home run trot. Aaron’s record was a victory for posterity and perseverance, but what likely meant most to him was what he achieved as a natural and pure hitter. This has long been lost.

The home run record awkwardly crammed his career consistency into the backseat. Aaron is remembered for enduring the hate mail he received at the end, but what about all the years when as a young Negro League player from Alabama, when tremendous talent was no promise of making it out of the segregation?

What about the hard times in the minor leagues and all the hard times in the majors that we never heard about because Aaron outlasted them and never called attention to those detractors?

That was a proud code among black players from Alabama. No matter how talented a player you were, it was more important to retain integrity. Many old ballplayers died with these silent wounds.

Aaron’s greatest victory as a player was not the home run record, but helping to dispel the notion that black major league ballplayers could not be trusted. He helped destroy the idea that black players were illiterates, drunks, substance abuses, womanizers, lousy teammates, and players of poor character. He helped prove they belonged at the highest level, which alone is a victory that should never be understated by any modern athlete in any modern sport.

Aaron achieved this with offensive production and stoic concentration. He was well aware that black players in the years following integration were held to a much higher standard by white front offices, a standard contemporary black players often privately believe still exists.

Aaron doesn’t deserve the burden of this version of the all-time home run record.

Barry Bonds does.

He has brought it upon himself with the very characteristics that executives in Aaron’s era feared most about black players. He pursued the home run record purely for self-indulgent reasons, using self-indulgent methods to fulfill his fantasy. Bonds’s godfather Willie Mays should have taught him better. Mays should have heeded his mentor, Piper Davis, whose ideals have always been demonstrated admirably by Henry Aaron, and so masterfully neglected by Barry Bonds. Baseball wasn’t always about money, but humanity.

The home run record will never again possess the same humanity it did when Aaron possessed it. When this ugly mess runs its course and Bonds retains his record until the next performance-enhancing drug user takes it away, it will remain what it has become. It is a trivia answer, cheapened by drugs and dollars, the sad creation of the game’s values gone astray.

John Klima’s book “Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend,” will be published in Fall 2009 by John Wiley & Sons Publishers.