PHILADELPHIA - The night starts off awful, just like the rest of the road trip. Barry Bonds is slumping, the crowd isn’t letting up, and his mother is in the stands to witness it all.

The boos and chants of “Balco Barry” are bad enough. Now Bonds lumbers out to left field only to be greeted by a huge sign stretching across the front row of the stands.

“Babe Ruth did it on hot dogs and beer. Hank Aaron did it with class. How did you do it?”

On this night, with a bang.

A home run of Ruthian proportions helps to wipe away a season worth of frustration Sunday night, bringing Bonds to within one home run of the Babe before a crowd that isn’t quite sure how it should feel.

The blast is so mammoth even the guys dressed in inflatable Bonds muscle suits watch with jaws open. Some stand and cheer, others simply stand mute as the ball bounces off a fast food sign hanging off the upper deck at Citizens Bank Park.

Before the sixth inning of the final game on the road, the trip had been a disaster. Now Bonds is at No. 713 with a bullet and headed home.

Philadelphia fans quickly recover. They boo Bonds lustily when he comes up one last time, erupt in a standing ovation when he strikes out, and a few even beat it for the exits when he’s replaced in the eighth inning.

The Phillies win 9-5, sending the Giants to their fourth straight loss.

Afterward, Bonds opens up. Not about steroids, but about baseball.

For the first time, he acknowledges that chasing a legend is a tough thing to do.

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“It’s overwhelming right now,” Bonds says. “It’s a little bit larger than a single-season home run record. It’s big. It’s really, really big.”

He’s soft-spoken, almost humble. He talks about his mother, his teammates and how it would be a lot more gratifying if the Giants had won.

He acknowledges the greatness of Babe Ruth, but makes it clear that his name deserves to be listed among the all-time greats.

Asked if he is better than the Babe, Bonds says: “I don’t know yet, but the numbers speak for themselves.”

It will be a long, quiet flight home. Bonds will be able to sleep before resuming his march into baseball history.

Teammates don't mess with Bonds
Sleeping is something Bonds does well, perhaps because he dreams of a day when he won’t be asked about steroids. In Milwaukee, where the Giants started this road trip, the feared slugger has been sacked out on a green leather couch in the visitors clubhouse at Miller Park for more than an hour.

Another player might have gotten a shaving cream pie in the face or his hand dipped in water from playful teammates. No one messes with Bonds, though.

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The night before, Bonds took a foul ball on his head while leaning against the batting cage and then went 0-for-4, with his last out punctuated by a giant whiff on a fastball. Afterward, he’s not in a good mood, a trend that will continue on this five-game trip as he chases Ruth’s mark of 714 home runs.

A group of reporters wants to know how he feels.

Apparently not well.

“No, not today,” he says. “Get ... out.”

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The trip started with Bonds coming off home run No. 712, a blast over the center field wall in San Francisco on a 96 mph fastball from San Diego’s Scott Linebrink. That sparks hope on the Giants that he is working out the kinks in his swing and blocking out the controversy that swirls around him.

In the locker room before the first game against the Brewers, Bonds talks to a woman while his personal videographer from “Bonds on Bonds” films away. He tapes his bat and tries to ignore a crowd of reporters, but there are too many of them.

“You don’t want to talk to me. No you don’t,” he says. “Just say ‘Barry sucks, he’s a (jerk), he’s this, he’s that,’ and just put it in the paper. It’s freehand. That’s freehand. You don’t even need me to talk for that. And yet you still keep coming over here. Why?”

Actually, Barry, it has something to do with you approaching the Babe’s mark. Oh, yeah, and that steroids thing.

By the way, what do you think about Major League Baseball not celebrating the mark, and Bud Selig not bothering to drive 10 minutes to the ballpark to watch?

“That’s just a slap in my face, that’s all this is with you guys,” he says. “That’s not fair to M.L.B. or Bud. This is slapping me down again.”

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The lecture over, Bonds shifts to charm with the ink-stained wretches.

“I respect you anyway. I forgive you every day. I forgive all of y’all that write nasty things about me,” he says. “And I pray for all of y’all. I hope nothing ever happens to you.

“That’s the truth, that’s from the bottom of my heart. One day you’ll believe.”

Alou, meanwhile, is in his small office in Milwaukee talking about whether he thinks Bonds is the greatest player he’s seen.

Alou played with both Willie Mays and Henry Aaron in their primes. To him, the call is easy.

“I don’t believe there was a better player than Willie,” he said. “He’s the best player I ever played with, without a doubt.”

Brewers fans booed Bonds from the time his name was announced in the lineup until he disappeared down the dugout steps and back into the clubhouse.

They do the same the night the Giants arrive in Philadelphia, but are a little more vocal — and a little more creative. They hold signs with a simple asterisk or syringe on them, chanting “Just retire” and “Just inject me.”

Home runs fly out of the park all night, seven of them in all. None belong to Bonds, who goes hitless and strikes out lunging at a curveball in his final at bat.

Bonds leaves the game in the eighth inning, and the park soon after. While his teammates shower and dress to get on the bus, he is long gone.

The only sign that Bonds had even been there is his uniforms hanging in the locker above four pairs of cleats. A cameraman takes video of the vacant locker.

“Elvis has left the building,” a Giants public relations sort says. “When everybody came in the front, he went out the back.”