If you base Barry's chances to catch or beat McGwire based on what he has done all year, he will hit 71. If you base your guess on what he has done over the last 18 Giants' games, he will hit 73.

But what is so tough to figure is how teams will pitch to Bonds. There are quite a few managers out there - including most of those the Giants still have to play - who prefer to walk Barry 3 times per game. That terribly limits his at-bats.

Bonds has hit one home run for every 6.78 at-bats this season. I think it's quite likely he will finish the season hitting home runs at that pace or better.

So the question remains, how many at-bats will Barry get? Bonds has gotten 3.16 AB's for every game he has played, this season. But with only games left against Houston and NL West foes, I think Bonds will average onl6 2.5 AB's per game for the Giants' last 18 contests. That translates to 45 more at-bats for Barry.

If he homers once every 6.78 at-bats, that means that Bonds will hit 6.637 more home runs. That is, he finishes with either 69 or 70. My guess is he ends with 70 home runs, tying Mark McGwire.

So what? McGwire didn't hit his 70th til game 163. There was a tie game past five innings which was rained out and replayed. This was cited in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend.

I'm rooting for Barry Bonds to break the record. But my recollection is that Mark McGwire actually hit 71*. About a week before the close of the 1998 campaign, McGwire hit a home run in County Stadium in Milwaukee that a fan caught. The 2nd base umpire - not Eric Gregg - huffed and puffed and ran out into left-center field to determine if the ball cleared the fence. The mistaken umpire ruled that the fan reached into the field of play, and so he gave McGwire a ground-rule double. Television replays, however, clearly showed that the umpire was wrong, that the ball cleared the fence before the fan caught the ball.

I was at that game in Milwaukee (I won't ever forget the fans taunting Mark Little in RF with "You bat last.") The more interesting thing about the called back home run was that it prevented McGwire from getting the NL record for slugging percentage in a season. I believe Hornsby still has that for now.