BOSTON (AP) - Barry Bonds added baseball’s oldest ballpark to his longball list and was back on his way to the sport’s most hallowed record.

The San Francisco slugger hit his 748th career homer in Boston’s 9-5 victory over the Giants yesterday, adding Fenway Park, the Red Sox and knuckleballer Tim Wakefield to his totals and moving within seven of Hank Aaron’s mark.

The last time Bonds homered off a knuckleballer was when he hit No. 73 of 2001 off Los Angeles Dodger Dennis Springer to establish the season record. Bonds had been hitless in eight at-bats against Wakefield, even joking that the pitches were too slow to hit hard.

"I think my age got me slower so I’m more able to time it a bit better," Bonds said with a smile after going 2 for 3 yesterday. "I tip my cap to him, he came after me in every at-bat. He gave me something to hit."

But his sixth-inning solo shot merely cut Boston’s lead to 8-4, and Manny Ramirez padded the lead with his second homer in as many games. Ramirez was 2 for 4 with three RBI, David Ortiz had a pair of doubles and Wakefield (7-7) pitched well before faltering in the sixth to help the Red Sox complete the three-game sweep.

Wakefield allowed five runs and eight hits with a walk, striking out three in 52/3 innings. He allowed a solo homer to Pedro Feliz - his ninth of the season and the 98th of his career - while becoming the 441st pitcher to feed Bonds’ home run habit.

Bonds has now homered in 36 ballparks, adding Fenway to the list in his third game at the ballpark that was the first home of the first man to top 700 homers. Bonds passed Babe Ruth and his 714 total last year and resumed his pursuit of Aaron’s 755 with 11 homers in his first 76 at-bats this year. He has just three in 91 at-bats since.

"It was never gone," Bonds said of his home run stroke. "It’s the person. It’s me. Sometimes you just don’t have it. Sometimes you do."

Bonds singled in the second off Wakefield, an ex-teammate from their Pirates days, and hit a long - but not threatening - fly ball to center in the third.

"When we were in Pittsburgh, we loved him," Bonds said, lamenting that Wakefield didn’t pitch the finale of the 1992 National League Championship Series against Atlanta, when the Braves scored three in the ninth to advance to the World Series. "We’re both in our 40s now, and he’s still good."

Bonds came up again to lead off the sixth, posing for some pictures while on deck for both Giants and Red Sox fans.

After a mixed response, he watched a ball go by and then sent the next knuckler to right, on a line toward the red seat that marks Ted Williams’ longest home run. Right fielder J.D. Drew chased after the ball and reached out for it, but it went into the Giants bullpen.

"I believe I had two, but we’ll leave it at one," Bonds said, still smarting over a high fly ball that was ruled foul Friday night, postponing his first Fenway homer for two more days.

The crowd, with a fair amount of Giants orange scattered throughout, offered some brief applause before the clapping was overwhelmed by the hometown jeering. One fan behind the Giants on-deck circle held up a T-shirt that said "Huge Giant Head."

But overall there was less derision than Bonds received for his first-ever visit to Fenway on Friday, when Boston fans greeted him with more emphatic booing, along with the requisite asterisk banners and some chants reminding him of the steroid investigation surrounding him.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Advertisement