Eric, I think you know what my answer would be — 756. He played as an officially sanctioned player in officially sanctioned league games. Through most of the period in question the things he is accused of doing were not even against the rules, “baseball” (the MLB) knew darn well that large numbers of players were on the juice and did NOTHING about it until Congress turned on the heat. Bonds has the record. Period.

The fact of the matter is, though, that I have a lower opinion of Bonds, as a hitter and as a person, because I strongly suspect that he did, in fact, use steroids to pump up his body and his numbers. regardless of my personal opinion of Bonds, he is the Home Run Record Holder, for whatever that is worth. To try to compute the number of home runs to “subtract” from his total as a result of alleged steroid use is just silliness. How many home runs should we subtract from Aaron’s totals because he played most of the waning years of his career in home run friendly Atlanta (the highest altitude major League park until Colorado came into the league)?

Every player has to be considered in the context of his era. Ruth was the home run king of the transformation of the deadball era into the modern game. In fact, he was a major force in causing that transition. Aaron was the home run king of the mid-20th Century dawn of the offensive era initiated by the lowering of the pitcher’s mound and expansion in 1969. Bonds is the home run king of the steroid era. Bonds holds the record; that doesn’t mean that anyone has to acknowledge him as the greatest home run hitter ever. In my mind, that would still be Ruth, and I suspect that within ten years there will be a few more that will pass his 714 total.