I recently took in a viewing of HBO's "61*," the wildly underrated movie chronicling the battle to 61 home runs between New York Yankees' sluggers Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle during the 1961 season.

Of course, we all know that Roger Maris, on his way to breaking the record, battled the media, the "Ghost of Ruth," and the Yankees fans who backed Mickey from the beginning, along with all of the other fans in baseball who wanted to see Ruth's record stand. Maris notoriously lost clumps of hair, among other things, before finally hitting his 61st home run, breaking Babe Ruth's record. However, for the remainder of Maris' life (he died in 1985), Maris did not own the home run record by himself, rather, owning the 162 game home run record, while Ruth held the 154 game home run record, as his 61 homers were followed by an asterisk.

It wasn't until 6 years after Maris' death that his record was recognized as the only home run record, and the asterisk was dropped.

The point of all this? I believe we are witnessing the second act of this, with the star of the show none other than Mr. Barry Bonds.

Bonds is today's most hated ballplayer, with millions of fans peppering him with verbal attacks and signs about his supposed steroid use all across the country. There are people out there hoping that, by some chance, Bonds knees will give out just short of the record, thereby keeping Hammerin' Hank's name atop the leader board.

It is a stark contrast from 9 years ago, when pumped up sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa led us across the magical summer of 1998, "saving baseball" and shattering the home run record in the process. But ever since their monumental collapse before Congress in '05, the nation has frowned upon these two former "heroes."

Did they use steroids? Like Bonds, they never tested positive, but the majority of baseball fans believe they did.

And that leads us to Bonds. If this had happened 10 years ago, the country would be like the folks in the "Truman Show." They would stay up day and night, watching, reading, anticipating what would be a colossal event. But instead, no one outside of San Francisco and Bonds fans care. Fans who have waited their entire lives to see Hank's record broken, feel robbed and cheated by an unfriendly player, who has grown immensely in size and ego in the last 10 years.

The funny thing is, the lack of interest in this "home run chase" is actually making headlines just about as often as the "chase" itself. If someone would have told you that in the middle of 1998, would you have believed them? I sure wouldn't.

As I thought about all of this the other night, I wondered if forty years down the road, a filmmaker enamored with Bonds and the Giants decided to make a movie about how the public had the audacity to cheer against Bonds during that summer of '07, just as Billy Crystal did in "61*." I realized that the most likely scenario is that our generation of fans would be looked upon as crazy people who didn't respect the game. After all, the most hallowed record in sports was being broken, and we just don't appreciate it!

I visualize my future grand kids, Cardinals fans like myself, asking me why Bonds was so hated. All they would see are the numbers and the facts, not knowing the pot-shots he took at fans and reporters. Or the way he "disgraced" the game.

But it won't matter in the future. Just like Maris, who was accused of not "being a true Yankee," and who was not really a people person, Bonds will be sympathized with as a player who performed at the highest level, under the most strenuous pressure. And all of the fans will be frowned upon as folks who didn't respect Bonds the way he should have been, regardless of circumstance.

We have seen it all before. It's happened in tons of sports. And it just might happen with Bonds. Sure, I don't like Barry Bonds, but I'm not "crazy," either.

If he breaks the record, then so be it. Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols, among others will be right behind him. But if you are an anti-Bonds fan, like I am, you may want to prepare yourself for future questions about why we opposed Bonds so damn much. There's a very good chance it could happen.

If you don't believe so, just watch "61*" for proof.