Whether you like Barry Bonds or not as a person, you have to respect him (actually, be in awe of him) as a ballplayer. And since you probably don't ever have to have lunch with the guy, it seems best to reserve your judgment of him to what he does on the field. So in case you aren't a big seamhead, SFist wants to point out that Bonds hit the 699th home run of his career in last night's win over the Snakes in Arizona, putting him on the brink of being only the third player in the history of the game — out of the 16,000 people who've had the privilege of swinging a bat in the big leagues — to reach the 700 mark. As of now, he's only fifteen homers shy of Babe Ruth's career total and fifty-six short of Hank Aaron's mark. With the Giants playing their next three games against the awful Brewers in their Milwaukee homer dome, Miller Park, expect Bonds to knock out number seven hundred in the next couple of days. 715 should come a month or two into next season and, barring injuries or huge season next year, he should get to 756 sometime in 2006.

In other baseball news, the Giants are now in sole possession of the NL Wild Card lead and the A's are hanging on as the frontrunners in the AL West. The Giants will be home this weekend to face the Padres, who are also vying for the Wild Card spot. (And don't forget that Sunday is Strike Out Violence Day at the ball park, when the Giants help out San Francisco domestic violence shelter La Casa De Las Madres with La Casa's largest annual fundraising event, the "Jerseys off our Giants" raffle, as well as several other local anti-violence agencies.) The A's will be hosting the Texas Rangers for the next four days before heading up to Seattle for a weekend series against the woeful Mariners. (Sorry, Jackson, they suck.)