752! 753!

Just days before his 43rd birthday, Barry Bonds showed his powerful wrists and fighter-pilot eyes are still a match for anything baseball can throw at him, including a wind blowing in off Lake Michigan.

Stuck in an 0-for-21 slump and battling sore legs, Bonds had been reduced to a pinch-hitting role for the first three games of San Francisco’s four-game series against the Chicago Cubs. He got back in the lineup Thursday and gave a jeering crowd of 40,198 something to remember him by, hitting his 752nd and 753rd career home runs off left-handers Ted Lilly and Will Ohman in a 9-8 loss to the Cubs.

That leaves Bonds needing only two homers to match Hank Aaron’s career record. He could get there this weekend at Miller Park in Milwaukee, which was erected just beyond the outfield fence at County Stadium, where Aaron played for 14 seasons, 12 with the Braves and his last two as a designated hitter for the Brewers.

Commissioner Bud Selig, who runs Major League Baseball from an office in downtown Milwaukee, is not expected to attend the series.

Selig has been wrestling with the decision of whether to lend his presence to a celebration of Bonds’ pursuit of the home run record, which is being conducted in the wake of reports that tie Bonds to steroid use.

While Bonds has said he has great admiration for Aaron, he sees no particular significance in gunning for the record in Aaron’s old neighborhood.

“It doesn’t mean anything different than anywhere else,” Bonds said late Thursday afternoon, sitting amid a pack of reporters in the visitors’ dugout. “I feel good. My body feels great. ... Wherever it happens, it happens.”

Cubs Manager Lou Piniella and others refer to Aaron’s 755 homers as “the most hallowed record in sports,” but Bonds has tried to downplay the magnitude of his climb up a mountain where only the Hammer had gone before him. He has tried to keep his production tied mainly to the context of helping the Giants win, but they have lost seven of the last eight times he has hit a homer. So now this has become the Barry Bonds Show, and will be until he hits his next three homers.

“Yeah, it’s real,” Bonds said. “I had to get over them switching the baseballs [to authenticate home run balls]. Any time that happens, I go into a slump. ... They’re switching the baseballs, so you know something is happening.”

Bonds was three for three with a walk and six RBIs Thursday, yet the Giants never could recover from a series of fielding mistakes that allowed the Cubs to take a 4-0 lead in the first inning and keep scoring.

“It’s hard to play as badly as we played today,” said Giants Manager Bruce Bochy, whose team has lost seven of its last eight. “That first inning, the ball was going everywhere. You hate to see that happen on a major league field, but it did happen.”

Bonds retaliated with a leadoff homer on a Lilly fastball in the second inning, driving the ball over the right-field bleachers and onto Sheffield Avenue. He delivered a two-run single to left-center in the third inning, took a six-pitch walk from rookie Billy Petrick in the sixth and gained a serious bit of revenge on Ohman in the seventh.

The Cubs’ left-handed reliever got Bonds to line out on a 3-and-2 fastball Tuesday night, when Bochy used him as a pinch-hitter, but this time threw a 3-and-2 fastball that Bonds obliterated. The ball knifed through the wind (14 mph at game time) and dropped into the basket to the left-field side of the scoreboard.

“I was shocked at the second one,” Bonds said. “I didn’t think that one was going to go out.”

With aches in his legs and elsewhere after playing 30 innings in three games against the Dodgers last weekend, Bonds was a mess when the Giants arrived at Wrigley on Monday. He said he felt like a different man after making only one appearance in three games and spending time with his wife and children away from the ballpark.

How much did the break help?

“A lot, it did,” Bonds said. “I felt real good. I felt strong, rejuvenated a little bit. ... Those three days helped a lot.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

On deck

A look at upcoming series for the San Francisco Giants:

*--* Teams Series Days San Francisco at Milwaukee Three games Today-Sunday Atlanta at San Francisco Four games Monday-Thursday Florida at San Francisco Three games July 27-July 29 San Francisco at Dodgers Three games July 31-Aug. 2

*--*

Los Angeles Times

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CHASING AARON

Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth’s home run record of 714 in 1974, and finished with 755. Barry Bonds is closing in on Aaron’s record:

* Home runs: 753.

* Thursday: 3 for 3, 2 homers.

* Projected date to break record: Aug. 4, at San Diego.

* Next for Giants: vs. Brewers today (Jeff Suppan).

* Bonds vs. Suppan: .167 (2 for 12), 1 home run.