Recently Hank Aaron was answering questions at a news conference outside County Stadium in Milwaukee, where he hit his final major league home run in 1976.

Standing near a plaque commemorating homer 755, a number Barry Bonds is chasing, Aaron said he had no thoughts about Bonds, adding, “I don’t even know how to spell his name.”

Did he think Bud Selig, the commissioner, would be on hand in the event Bonds breaks the record?

“That’s his decision,” said Aaron, “and I’m sure he’ll make the right one.”

It made me think, if Selig decides on being present for the occasion, it could be a long road trip for the commissioner.

Consider. When Bonds hit number 746 on May 27, it was his first home run in 15 games. And he hasn’t homered since.

Moving along, let’s say Bonds has tied Aaron at 755. What does Selig do? Does he begin following the San Francisco Giants, home and away, waiting to extend a reluctant hand to someone hitting baseballs under a cloud of suspicion, someone after a record held by the commissioner’s longtime friend?

Hank Aaron already has spoken on where he planned to be should Bonds hit number 756.

“I’ll probably be playing golf,” said the senior vice president of the Atlanta Braves.

Somewhere, you figure, Babe Ruth has to be laughing.

It turned out, when Aaron broke the Babe’s record of 714 career home runs back in 1974, it was a record Ruth established in 1935, in his final game as a player for the Boston Braves. The Braves had purchased Ruth from the Yankees to hype dwindling attendance. They paid him a salary of $25,000, plus $5,000 for filling the role of “vice president,” plus a cut of the receipts during exhibition season.

For a while, it worked. Home attendance picked up. On May 25, in a road game against the Pirates, a crowd of 10,000 at Forbes Field had no idea what they were watching. They were watching a 40-year-old Ruth hit home runs 712, 713 and 714 in his final game as a player. Eyewitnesses said 714 was the longest homer ever hit at Forbes, traveling out of the ballpark, into another park across the street. The crowd gave the Babe a standing ovation.

A week later, Ruth announced his retirement. “The Braves double-crossed me,” he said. The owner called Ruth “an imbecile.” The manager said Ruth was “undermining discipline.”

Not one major club expressed interest in the Babe. In fact, the only offer was a classic example how legends can be discarded. A promoter in Iowa offered him $17,500 to join his barnstorming team that would play in minor league cities.

He declined, turning instead to golf and leisure. In 1938, however, Babe jumped at a chance to return to the game as first base coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Part of his job also included staging batting practice exhibitions.

He knew he was being exploited, yet he still felt it could lead to fulfillment of a longtime dream: a manager’s job.

Nearsighted and 43, the Babe was unveiled in St. Louis where a crowd of 15,000, tripling the previous game’s attendance, watched him defeat Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize and Dolph Camilli in a distance-hitting contest.

It was the start of a happy few months. Then, one night in August, the Dodgers beat the Braves 1-0, and a writer from a New York newspaper, Dave Camerer, gave Ruth credit for flashing a hit-and-run sign that led to the winning run.

The story raised the ire of the Dodgers manager and his shortstop, Leo Durocher, no friend of Ruth.

“Ruth is nothing more than a white elephant to drag in customers,” said the manager, feeling they were alone in the locker room. But Ruth had heard it all. He also heard the writer defend him. A week later, when a doubleheader in Brooklyn was rained out, Camerer entered a crowded locker room.

Ruth, off in a corner, was about to put his spikes away when he saw the writer who had come to his defense. “Here, kid,” he said to Camerer, “even if you don’t use ’em, maybe some day you’ll have a kid of your own.”

Ruth patted the speechless writer on the shoulder, turned and walked out of baseball for good.

Camerer gave the last pair of spikes worn by Ruth to the Hall of Fame. They’re still there, sitting among the Babe’s memorabilia, in Cooperstown, N.Y.

PH END FINNEY

(Peter Finney is a staff writer for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. He can be contacted at pfinney(at)timespicayune.com.)

2007-06-11-AARON-BONDS

AP-NY-06-11-07 1628EDT