Let me repeat that: The league batting average was .303, which meant a .290 hitter wasn’t pulling his weight. The league slugging average was .448.

Neither number has been equaled in the 77 years since.

And let’s not forget to footnote those .400-plus batting averages that look so incredible today. Readers of the record book should know that 70 years ago gloves were just slightly larger than a man’s hand and rough infields produced more odd bounces and outfielders weren’t all fast enough to run down every ball in every gap. If Tony Gwynn or George Brett or Rod Carew had played in 1920, they’d have hit .400, too. Don’t we need an explanatory note for that?

As far as footnotes go, there should be one next to Ruth’s totals, too. It would explain that until he came around, no one had ever hit like him, so no one knew how to pitch to him. He broke all the rules and changed the game — Ty Cobb had nothing but scorn for Ruth and his home runs; it wasn’t baseball, Cobb and many others said.

When Roger Maris broke Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season, there was a move to put an asterisk next to the record because Maris had eight more games in his season that Ruth had. There never was an asterisk in the official records, although there were two entries, one for 154 games and one for 162 games, and even that was petty and stupid.

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Don Sutton won more than 300 games by cheating against the rules of the game, as did Gaylord Perry. Sutton was the king of the scuffball; Perry went with the wet one. Where are the asterisks?

I’m not going to pretend Bonds never did steroids or HGH. He admitted that he used something provided by his trainer, but thought it was Lemon Pledge or some such nonsense. But again, folks, the game had no rules against it, so how can you condemn him, yet praise the guys like Perry and Sutton and scores of other pitchers who flouted the rules of the game?

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To baseball fans, 755 may be sacred, but it’s still just a number, the same as 714 was 33 years ago when Hank Aaron beat it.

By the way, in 1897, Roger Connor retired with 138 career home runs. That lofty record — thought unassailable at the time, I’m sure — stood for 34 years until that Ruth fellow blew past it in 1921. Ruth’s final record, set in 1935, stood for 39 years. It is now 31 years since Aaron hit his 755th, so in the progression of things, Bonds is right about on schedule to break it.

And keep in mind that, barring injury, Alex Rodriguez could blow past the 800 barrier in as few as six years. Should we put an asterisk next to that number, too?