05/20/2006 5:51 PM ET Bonds ties Ruth with homer No. 714 Giants slugger now 41 shy of Aaron's all-time record By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com Barry Bonds is greeted by his son, Nikolai, after hitting career home run No. 714. (Kevork Djansezian/AP) OAKLAND -- One to go. Giants slugger Barry Bonds took another step closer to the pantheon of the baseball gods Saturday as he tied Babe Ruth for second on the all-time homer list with the 714th of his 21-year career against the Oakland A's. Bonds, 41 years old, is now 41 behind Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, who is the all-time leading home run hitter in Major League Baseball history with 755. The homer was Bonds' sixth of the season, and also tied him with Ruth as the top left-handed home run hitter in MLB history. The solo shot came on a 1-1 pitch as Bonds led off the second inning against Oakland's Brad Halsey, with Bonds taking the left-hander deep to right field. Bonds and the sellout crowd of 35,077 at the McAfee Coliseum knew it was gone the minute the 90-mph fastball connected off the bat. As he made his way toward first base, Bonds pointed toward the front row of the seats behind the dugout where his family was seated next to Giants president Larry Baer, Halsey having just become the 420th pitcher to allow at least one of Bonds' milestone homers. The partisan San Francisco Bay Area crowd began to give Bonds a standing ovation as he circled the bases and chanted "Barry, Barry," a mantra that was repeated when he came to bat with a chance to pass the Bambino later in the game. It had almost been two weeks and 40 plate appearances since Bonds hit homer No. 713 on May 7 in Philadelphia and he had been 4-for-29 with 10 walks and been hit by a pitch once since then. By the time Bonds reached home plate, where he hugged his 16-year-old son, Nikolai -- a batboy for the Giants on Saturday -- the noise had reached its crescendo. Bonds met his teammates in a group hug in front of the team's first-base dugout and then blew kisses into the stands toward his wife, Liz, and daughters, Aisha and Shikari. After that, Bonds stepped forward from the dugout and doffed his helmet to the cheering throng. And then did it again, responding to a curtain call. The 390-foot homer was caught by Tyler Snyder, who snared it with his glove as if he was catching a picnic fly ball. Snyder, 19 and a resident of nearby Pleasanton, Calif., then left the ballpark, an A's spokesman said. Ruth hit No. 714, the last homer of his illustrious career, on May 25, 1935, as a member of the Boston Braves. The homer, coming at Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field, was his last of a three-homer, six-RBI outburst that day. The Babe played his last game five days later. At the time, former Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig was second on the all-time list with 352 homers, according to David Vincent of SABRE. Aaron, who came up with the Braves and moved with them from Milwaukee to Atlanta, tied Ruth nearly 39 years later -- on April 4, 1974, Opening Day of that baseball season at Cincinnati's old Riverfront Stadium. Aaron passed the Bambino on April 8, 1974, at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Bonds, whose Ruth-tying homer was hit a little more than 32 years after Aaron's, continues to play on a gimpy right knee. Bonds says that his right knee is consistently sore, a condition that has become chronic since he had surgery three times on the knee last year, the first two to remove and repair torn meniscus and the last to flush out a serious bacterial infection that threatened the very existence of his leg. Bonds hit homer No. 700 against San Diego Padres right-hander Jake Peavy on Sept. 17, 2004, at AT&T Park, the ballpark nestled on China Basin. It has been an odyssey, but it has taken Bonds nearly 19 months since then to tie the Sultan of Swat. The knee surgeries kept him out of all except 14 games last season and limited him to five home runs, the low figures in both categories of his career. Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. -- 問我為何住西子灣頭 只因滄海是我的鄰居 余光中 作 --

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