Baseball: Barry is miscast as simply a Bonds villain.

Byline: OLIVER HOLT AWARD WINNING SPORTS COLUMNIST REPORTS FROM THE US

BARRY Bonds, America's most controversial sportsman, is sitting alone behind a pillar in a corner of the San Francisco Giants clubhouse, watching the White Sox at the Phillies on TV.

Bonds, who also may be America's greatest sportsman, is not known for being sociable. His corner is like his lair. He's the only Giant with his own television set in the changing room.

A recent poll of Major League players voted him baseball's least friendly. The adjective reporters most often use to describe him is "surly".

So an hour before the first pitch in the Giants game against Toronto Blue Jays on Monday, I wandered over to him expecting a flea in my ear. Maybe a few expletives. At best, a scowl. I introduced myself. Bonds shook hands and smiled. "I thought you guys only watched soccer," he said. "Beckham ain't in LA till July, you know."

Bonds knew all about David Beckham, about Manchester United, Real Madrid and the Galaxy. Knew how England blew their best chance to win the World Cup in Germany. "You still get all that racial s**t going on over there in soccer?" he said.

I only asked him one baseball question. What would it mean to him when he broke the most hallowed record in American sport and passed Hank Aaron's mark of 755 home runs?

"That's like asking how you're going to feel when you win the World Cup," Bonds said. "I don't know. I'll only know when I do it. That's when everything that's inside of me will come out. That's when I'll know."

Bonds hadn't hit a home run for 15 games before Monday and only one in more than a month.

But in his second at-bat against Toronto, he smashed a pitch over the centre field wall for home run 747. The 38,000 crowd at AT&T Park went wild and as Bonds chugged round the bases, a giant screen flashed the message: "The Road to History".

It's a road most of America doesn't want to travel because most Americans - certainly most white Americans - don't want Bonds to break Aaron's record.

For several years now, Bonds' reputation has been tainted by allegations of steroid use and he was heavily implicated in the Balco scandal that brought down athletes Dwain Chambers and Tim Montgomery. Bonds denied knowingly taking steroids when he testified in front of a federal grand jury in December 2003 but the San Francisco Chronicle reported yesterday that Bonds may still be being investigated for perjury. His critics harbour a dream charges will be brought against him that will trigger his suspension from baseball before he has time to break Aaron's record.

Bonds' body shape has changed dramatically. It is said his head has grown by two cap sizes, another indicator of steroid use. His personal trainer and friend, Greg Anderson, was jailed for refusing to testify about whether Bonds and other athletes lied about their drug use.

He is cheered to the rafters at AT&T Park but greeted by boos and placards reading "Cheat" at rivals' stadiums. Jemele Hill, a sports columnist for ESPN.com, called for divine intervention to prevent Bonds eclipsing Aaron. "If Bonds breaks the home run record, it will be like the OJ Simpson trial all over again," he added.

Outside San Francisco, America is doing its best to turn its back on Bonds and pretend his home run hunt isn't happening.

Mastercard pulled out of negotiations to sponsor his chase of Aaron, Aaron himself has said he will not be present when Bonds breaks his record and baseball commissioner Bud Selig has refused to say whether he will be in attendance when Bonds hits No.756.

Yet there are reasons why we should be uncomfortable about the persecution of Bonds. One is steroids were legal in baseball until 2003. Taking them may have broken a moral code but they were not against the rules of a sport whose gruelling season of a minimum of 162 games pushes bodies to the limit.

And for those who mourned when Bonds overtook Babe Ruth's 714 home runs last season, claiming Bonds had an unfair advantage because of alleged drug use, there is another truth to acknowledge. Ruth, who retired in 1935, never faced a black pitcher as there was a colour bar in baseball until 1947. How's that for an unfair advantage?

When Mark McGwire openly took steroids during his home run race with Sammy Sosa in 1998, America looked the other way as it didn't want anything to ruin a great story making its national pastime healthy again after the ruinous strike of 1994.

But America doesn't want to look the other way any more. It wants to stare.

And so Bonds sits in a corner in the clubhouse, watching TV by himself, a pariah who won't give up the chase.

CAPTION(S):

MISS IT! Many Americans are clinging to the hope that Bonds (also left) will not break Aaron's home-run record