SAN DIEGO -- At 7:29 p.m. local time Saturday, in the top of the second inning, Barry Bonds hit career home run No. 755 off Padres pitcher Clay Hensley. It was the first home run he had ever hit off Hensley, who became the 445th different major league pitcher to surrender a home run to Bonds.
It came on a 2-1 pitch, a 91-mph fastball. The swing was clean and true, hands back, head in, follow-through a study in grace and power. The crack of the bat was sharp, familiar, prodigious. The ball flew 382 feet on a low, sharp line to the opposite field, over the left-field fence and off the facing of the second deck of seats at San Diego's Petco Park.
The sellout crowd came to its feet -- some cheering, some booing. Bonds' teammates burst from the dugout to await him at home plate, and he circled the bases quickly, clapping his hands on his way to first, and slapping a celebratory high-five with Giants coach Tim Flannery as he made his way around third base.
His 16-year-old son Nikolai stood at home, holding his father's bat in his right hand, shifting from foot to foot. As Bonds crossed the plate, father and son shared a hug, whispering something in tight, touching foreheads, squeezing each other as if the room were their own and not a stadium full of 42,000 onlookers.
The crowd stayed standing, at full throat, cheers and applause still crashing over a steady undercurrent of boos, a blend of appreciation and allegation. Cameras flashed from every corner and level of the park as Bonds' teammates, in an impromptu receiving line, led by manager Bruce Bochy and second baseman Ray Durham, congratulated him one by one, each man with his own hug and handshake, bench coach Ron Wotus with a kiss.
Bonds' family, wife Liz and 7-year-old daughter Aisha Lynn, came to the foul-ball netting in the first row of seats behind home plate. Bonds reached through to hold their hands and leaned in to kiss them before making his way to a seat in the dugout.
There was no chanting, no "Barry Sucks." People didn't turn their backs or throw things. Adam Hughes, the lucky fan who caught the home run ball, held onto it. The crowd stood again in tribute (again with a mix of cheers and jeers) when Bonds took the field in the bottom of the inning. Bonds took off his cap and made a small wave toward the stands down the third-base line.
In the eighth inning, after walking in each of his next three at-bats, Bonds came out of the game for pinch runner Rajai Davis. The crowd, most of whom had booed him every time he came to the plate, stood to applaud. He slowed as he approached the dugout steps, doffed his helmet once to the left and once to the right, and stepped down off the stage.
Earlier in the afternoon Bonds had taken more than 100 swings worth of extra batting practice, and hit 19 of them over the wall. He hit to the opposite field, as he'd done the last two nights in regular batting practice. "He worked on some things," Bochy, who threw to him, said before the game. "He wanted to get his timing back and hit through the ball more."
It had been eight days and 28 frustrating at bats (10 of them walks) since Bonds' last home run. In the interim he was a celebrity ducking cameras, a personality jousting with the press, a suspicious symbol of the steroid era debated and lamented, a Hall of Fame slugger debated and appreciated. He was pressure unreleased. He was waiting itself. "I had gotten myself so deep into trying to relax," Bonds said afterward.
I had gotten myself so deep into trying to relax. It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my career.
-- Barry Bonds
"It was the hardest thing I've ever gone through in my career."
From the moment he walked onto the field and into the cage Saturday, he seemed determined to be a hitter. No more. No less. The thing reduced to its essence. See the ball, hit the ball, stay back, be quick, be what you've always been, stripped down. Be a hitter.
When he finally hit the home run he was somewhat surprised he'd been able to pull it off. "I finally, mechanically did something right," he said. "I didn't know where it was going. I don't even think it was a strike. I knew I hit it, though. I was relieved."
It is, of course, not as simple as getting a bat on a ball. Not for everyone else. Allegations about performance enhancing drugs may always be a part of Bonds' record, and may always be tied to this achievement. Bonds' antagonistic relationship with many media and fans outside of San Francisco may mean his accomplishments will forever inspire derision in lockstep with recognition.
These truths were in the air at Petco Saturday night, just as they've been every day and everywhere Bonds has played in this chase of Henry Aaron and the all-time major league home run mark.
But if such suspicions are a given, an unavoidable fact of Barry Bonds' claim on baseball history, it's also true that all that bottled-up weirdness notwithstanding, home run No. 755 was an undeniably electric moment Saturday night, a baseball rush, something to remember, something to see.
It was an intense relief, for Bonds, for writers up in the box, for folks in the seats, too see the ball go over the fence. "The hardest part is over now," he said smiling afterwards.
It was a gasp and a burst, something palpably impressive, the way all home runs are, and most especially the way home runs hit by Barry Bonds are.
It was something you knew was coming: The ball he hit for a single in Dodger Stadium the other night was ripped; the balls he fouled off Friday night were near-misses, straight back; after the extra batting practice session Saturday afternoon, Bochy said "he thinks he may have found something"; and after the game Bonds said the task was to "go back to what my dad taught me, to do the things I've always done." The drought couldn't last forever. He's too good. Been too good for too long.
It was something you couldn't quite believe; a ball absolutely punished by a 43-year-old man; a ball crushed after so many had been missed these last eight days.
It was a shot charged with history (what Bonds has or hasn't ingested or injected) and with history (everything he accomplished in the game in the years before suspicions began to surface).
And it was infused with the crowd's collective urge just to see it go down, too. Call it car-crash rubbernecking mixed with grudging respect. Call it the basic human impulse to witness something singular. Call it the boastful desire to tell friends you were here. Call it an intoxicating cocktail of judgment and admiration. Call it being a fan, the thing reduced to its excitable and sometimes contradictory essence. See the hitter, boo the hitter, see the home run, cheer the home run, get swept up, see the thing in context, rejoice and react, be many things all at once, be here, be in it.
Commissioner Bud Selig was here, watching Bonds tour the bases, and he issued a statement afterwards: "Congratulations to Barry Bonds as he ties Major League Baseball's home run record. No matter what anybody thinks of the controversy surrounding this event, Mr. Bonds' achievement is noteworthy and remarkable."
But there was nothing so clean or so muted about 755 (nor will there be about 756), not for Bonds, not for the fans who'd paid their money to see him, not for anyone who loves and follows baseball.
Saturday night was a lot of things - messy, strange, compelling, impressive, welcome and unwelcome all at once. It was a happening, from the mighty swing on the field to the crowd's response, to Bonds taking a celebratory phone call from his daughter Shikari (who couldn't be at the game) during the postgame press conference, but it was nothing so tepid as "noteworthy," nothing summarized by a scripted statement.
Bonds himself could hardly speak when it was over, losing his train of thought during answers to questions after the game, and saying several times that he literally couldn't explain the feeling or the experience.
"I don't know what it's like," he gushed when asked what it felt like to finally be shoulder to shoulder with The Hammer. "It's Hank Aaron. It's Hank Aaron. I can't explain it."
That was the thing about Saturday night, in all its ragged glory: For those on hand at Petco Park, it wasn't to be explained, just experienced.
Eric Neel writes for Page 2 on ESPN.com.