The charts and projections in the sports section every morning changed from irresponsible speculation to something approaching science. Barry Bonds turned a summer of numerical extrapolation into the daily actuarial tables of baseball.

He got on a pace and stayed on a pace; one home run roughly every nine plate appearances, game after game, week after week. There were hiccuplike spikes and moderate dips, but for the most part, Mark McGwire's single-season home run record was assaulted with the metronomic precision of a man impersonating a machine.

Even in the era of hypertrophic forearms and living-room power alleys, it's worth remembering that McGwire's 70 seemed swollen, preposterous, science fiction. And to think that it could be matched by someone who had never even hit 50 -- even someone as historically talented as Bonds -- seemed equally imaginative.

How did he go about it? Alone, of course, like always. Apart from a serious challenger, apart from teammates and apart from the adoration bestowed upon McGwire and Sammy Sosa in their inspired summer of '98. Bonds had no Sosa to counter his natural inclination toward dourness, no one to lighten the mood, no teammates interested in shielding him from the glare. Bonds had Bonds, which is really all he's ever requested. The closest thing he had to a diversion was the National League West race -- oh, yeah, the big picture! -- to employ as his own personal Sosa.

"I don't feel the pressure of the home runs," he said after he lashed No. 69 off lefty nemesis (as in 2-for-32 nemesis) Chuck McElroy of the Padres. "I only feel the pressure of the pennant race."

Drop a finger on a list of Bonds' homers, and you're likely to land on a moment of significance. No.69 was representative, giving the Giants a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning of a game they would win 3-1 to stay within two of the Diamondbacks. This was not a season of out-of-context, circus-act homers. Of Bonds' first 69 homers, 30 either tied the game or gave the Giants a lead. Said Giants pitcher Shawn Estes, "He's not only hitting home runs, but big home runs, home runs that keep us in games, home runs that count."

Still, the achievement seems destined to remain muted and unitalicized. There is no one to blame for this; Bonds is a victim of both proximity (to McGwire's record) and tragedy (Sept. 11). More than maybe any other athlete, he is also destined to have his achievements tethered to his unpredictable personality. But through the continuous scrutiny and psychological interpretation that accessorizes the chase, Bonds reached what might be called an angle of repose. He never complained about the media attention. He never said he felt like a caged animal. He never belittled the pitchers who treated him like a coiled snake. He went about his business seemingly unaffected, a party of one to the end.

At some point, though, the personality debate dissipates and the enormity of the achievement takes over. When Bonds signed with the Giants in December 1992, he told whoever would listen: "Judge me by my numbers."

By any measure, regardless of era, his numbers this year are among the greatest single-season numbers in history. He could be the first player since Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams in 1957 to finish with an on-base percentage above .500. He broke McGwire's National League record for walks and entered the final week of the season with a better-than-even shot at breaking Babe Ruth's major league mark of 170. He will finish with a slugging percentage to the north of .800.

Here's a Bonds story, rendered dispassionately and factually:

The story starts with a 2-year-old girl in the stands at Olympic Stadium in Montreal. It's Aug. 23, and the little girl is there with her mother and her grandparents, who are from this city; they are among a limited number who have come to watch her daddy play baseball. But it's late now, nearly 10 p.m., and Daddy hasn't played. Daddy's boss thought it would be a good idea to give him a day off so he would stay strong and avoid tweaking his back on the nasty artificial turf. So, when Daddy gets up and grabs a bat with the score tied in the ninth, the little girl can't help herself. Daddy's going to hit. She wobbles down from her seat to a spot above the dugout where she can hold out her hand and her daddy can touch it. He smiles, and she points out beyond rightfield, like someone pointing at a bird in a faraway tree. She is not laughing; she is serious. She is telling him what to do. Daddy is going to hit, and that's where she wants the ball to go.

And because it is this season, this ridiculous, machine-among-boys season, Barry Bonds obeys Aisha Bonds. Of course he does. He has no other choice. He gets a flabby 3-1 slider from the Expos' Graeme Lloyd and -- just like every flabby slider and high-calorie fastball he's seen this season -- he spins on it, and it goes. Lloyd's head drops and the little girl jumps and her daddy stands there like he always does, his head cocked slightly to one side, admiring his handiwork with a minor bemusement. It was No.55, just one of many along the rutted road to history.

As he always does, Bonds touched the plate and double-pointed to the sky, acknowledging whoever lives up there, and then he directed a smile and a wave to the little girl in the stands.

For a moment, the man was separate from his achievement.

For a moment, he didn't look quite so alone.

This article appears in the October 15 issue of ESPN The Magazine.