Eric Risberg / AP

San Francisco's Barry Bonds connects on a first-inning home run against San Diego on Wedneday. The blast was Bonds' first of the season and 735th of his career.

Gary Peterson

The notion that Barry Bonds might have lost a certain something — be it bat speed, leg drive or a few shades of crimson off his passion for the game — wasn’t a foolish one. It just wasn’t very durable, is all.

Oh sure, Bonds rounded into a reasonable facsimile of himself late last season, in his summer of (turning) 42. After hitting 14 home runs from April through July, he cranked 12 in August and September while hitting .319.

And true, he launched seven home runs in 18 exhibition games this spring. He hit spring training running — OK, trundling — as we’ve seen him do a dozen times before. He told USA Today, “I haven't felt like this in three years. I couldn't run at all last year. I've been basically playing on a rehabbed knee. When I'm healthy, I can do some things."

Still, it was reasonable to wonder what kinds of things he could do and how often he could do them as the 2007 season opened. After all, he hadn’t opened a season as himself since 2004, when we all were a great deal younger.

You remember 2005, when, his right knee in tatters, Bonds didn’t open the season at all. He shouldn’t have started last season on the active roster, but he did. If you count spring training, he spent five months willing his body back into fighting trim. Knowing the Giants’ corporate fondness for commissioning artwork for their boutique ballpark by the bay, you may one day see there a mural of the night in early 2006 when Bonds homered, then grimaced as he shuffled gingerly around the bases.

What 2007 would bring, given Bonds’ bone-on-bone right knee, his oft-balky back, his chippy elbow that required surgery last offseason and the various take-down investigations (official and otherwise) thrumming in the background, was wholly debatable. Forecasts covered the spectrum, from “He’ll break Aaron’s record by Memorial Day” to “Not only will he blow out a knee, he’ll do it in the Big House.”

The Giants’ opener revealed little in the way of clues. Bonds fought off a tough pitch for a shift-beating single to left field his first time up against the Padres on Tuesday. He also flied to the warning track in left field, grounded to first and walked. Five swings of the bat, no insight whatsoever.

In his first at-bat Wednesday night, Bonds fouled off two pitches in running the count to 2-2 against San Diego’s towering starter, Chris Young.

And then, on swing eight of the new year: clarity.

Young grooved one belt high. Bonds, even as his hindquarters sought safe haven outside the batters box, flipped his hands through the strike zone and steered the pitch just over the fence in left-center field. It was his 735th career home run, leaving him 20 behind Henry Aaron’s major league record.

More than that, it was a home run-hitter’s home run, a functional hands-and-arms swing producing a special result. So we know that much hasn’t changed.