From Enquirer wires

SAN FRANCISCO - Barry Bonds took over third place on the all-time home run list Tuesday night with one of his predictably prodigious blasts, a solo shot in the seventh inning that splashed into McCovey Cove.

And now the story changes.

Passing the No. 3 man on the list had a cute, cozy plot line: Bonds taking aim at his godfather, Willie Mays, who cheered him for homer No. 661.

But the next spot on the home run chart promises something of a personal faceoff, a smackdown between legends past and present.

But Bonds isn't ready to look ahead.

"I'm not going to try to figure out what's next," said Bonds. "I'm just trying to stay healthy and win a championship.

"I don't have any personal goals."

Bonds picked an argument with Ruth as recently as July, saying that if he surpassed Mays, the only other number he cared about was the Bambino's 714.

"Because as a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out. That's it," the Giants left fielder said nine months ago. "And in the baseball world, Babe Ruth is everything, right? I got his slugging percentage and I'll take his home runs and that's it. Don't talk about him anymore."

Perhaps it's a shame that Bonds and Ruth are off on the wrong foot, because they have so much in common: a compact left-handed swing, a cartoonish knack for long and/or dramatic home runs and a personality that, for better or worse, commanded as much attention as their play.

They are similar in home runs (Ruth 714 to Bonds' 661), walks (2,062 to 2,079), strikeouts (1,330 to 1,389) and doubles (506 to 540).

They even have about the same size and weight. Each is listed at 6-foot-2, with Ruth at 215 and Bonds at 228, although Ruth's body late in his career looked like a sack of potatoes and Bonds' looks like a steel mill.