I don't want Barry Bonds to hit two more home runs.

I want him to hit seven more.

I want him to obliterate the home run record the way Mark McGwire did Roger Maris'.

I want him to provide newspapers with Spirit of 76 headlines. I want him to smack awake all those fools in the media who have greeted his home run chase with a yawn as big as McCovey Cove. And I want his last one to put the Giants into the postseason -- not so much because it'll give him a chance to atone for his past sins, but so that he can get a week or two of curtain calls.

I want to knock on the door of every writer who votes for Luis Gonzalez or Albert Pujols or Randy Johnson as the National League MVP and shout, "Hello, anybody home?" I want to ask everybody who criticizes Bonds for not running out routine ground balls why that's such a big failing for him, even though every slugger from the Babe to Big Mac has been known to conserve a little energy on the old 4-3-and lessen the risk of a pulled quad. I want all the commentators who criticize Bonds for his teammating skills to read the letter ex-Giant Todd Benzinger wrote in the Oct. 1 Sports Illustrated, praising his toughness, his generosity and his soft side.

I want him to be on the covers of magazines other than ours. I want him to be invited to the White House. I want his name and his number to be on the backs of kids everywhere.

I want HBO to do a movie about him in 40 years and call it 01*.

Mostly, I just want America to see that this one, incredible season is just the crown on one, incredible career. What's wrong with us? Yes, we're in the middle of a national crisis, but we weren't for most of the baseball season, when Barry was ahead of Big Mac's pace. So what if Bonds isn't Mr. Nice Guy? Joe DiMaggio, ever hear of him?

The only argument I will buy for the deafening silence surrounding his epic achievement is that we just went through this a few years ago. But as Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau writes in his Do The Math column in the Oct. 15 ESPN The Magazine -- you didn't think I was gonna plug them without plugging us, did you? -- McGwire only had to hit 62, one more than Maris, to win our undying affection. Barry has to hit 71, 10 more than Maris, to even get us to turn our heads his way.

At the risk of belittling Big Mac, Hirdt also points out that Bonds's feat has been done while playing for a postseason bid, a style-of-play burden not faced by McGwire. Dusty Baker has not played footsie with his lineup, the way Tony La Russa did in '98, when he batted pitchers eighth so that Mac could bat "cleanup" in the third spot. Nor has Baker complained about opposing teams pitching around Bonds, as La Russa did. Yet Bonds will have more walks than McGwire did, in fewer plate appearances. And Bonds may end up with the highest single-season slugging percentage in history (.845 as of today, as compared to Ruth's .847 in 1927).

I don't want to be in McCovey Cove when Bonds hits his last one this season -- too crowded there.

But I do want to be with people who truly appreciate what he's done. I hope I'm not alone.

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com.