While we endure another week of ESPN's breathless "live bat-by-bat" coverage of Barry Bonds' attempts to pass Babe Ruth, at least we now know what Bonds' legacy is shaping up to be.

Thanks to the travails of Cardinals' first baseman Albert Pujols, that much is clear.

With every ball Pujols, the major league leader in home runs, takes deep, come the questions and suspicion. Did he? Is he?

Sadly, this is the way it has been for Pujols ever since he began setting the Major League home run record for April (14). Recently it reached the point where the National League MVP felt compelled to declare to the St. Louis media: "You're not going to find anything out about me. They can test me every day if they want. I don't care. I don't need any type of things like (steroids) to help me out with my game."

More and more that long shadow of taint and distrust cast over the game is Bonds' emerging legacy, not how many more home runs he might hit than Ruth or how close he gets to Hank Aaron.

Just think, until recently the biggest questions surrounding Pujols had been about his age. For the time being, thanks to Bonds and all the allegations that surround him, few power hitters will be above suspicion. Not many will be taken at their word in denying it, either.

Despite baseball's new steroid testing and toughened rules, as the home runs rise, inevitably so will the eyebrows of spectators, media and opponents. How many more Supermen, we have to wonder, are getting their strength from a bottle or tube? For that is the climate that prevails.

For now in a season where he has been out in front, clobbering 22 home runs with 54 runs batted in, this is mostly Pujols' burden, but be assured others will be shouldering it, too. Now everybody who goes on a home-run binge, exceeds previous totals or just has a great game will have their medicine cabinet called into question. And not just by over-lubricated fans in the bleachers, either.

Bonds, of course, is not the only pumpkin-sized face of the steroid era, just far and away the most visible and notorious. His is the name, more than Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro or dozens of others, that represents the whole sordid chapter. Major League Baseball and the players' association are not without blame.

While The Babe delivered baseball from one crisis, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, with mighty home runs Bonds, even as he prepares to pass The Bambino, is the poster player for another. The term "Ruthian" was coined to describe prodigious homers. Bonds will merely be the name invoked for years to come to question their legitimacy.

That's a stain on the game 715 home runs — or even 755 — won't soon wash away.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.