Bond’s Home Run Chase - Not Notable

It seems almost certain that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds will pass Hank Aaron as baseball’s all-time home-run king sometime this summer, but his pursuit has generated little public interest.

There may be several reasons for this, ranging from Bonds’ prickly personality to the suspicion that he may have used performance-enhancing drugs later in his career, say two Duke University professors.

“Career home runs is perhaps the most single hallowed record in American sports. And baseball itself is a sport obsessed by numbers and record-keeping more than any other,” said Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology who studies sports and society. “This makes the lack of fanfare around Bonds nearing Aaron’s mark especially puzzling, and yet also revealing about the state of American sports and society.”