Do you think the commissioner of baseball should attend the game(s) when Bond is one HR away from Aarons record? What is the reasoning for your answer?

Yes, out of respect for baseball, both the Commissioner and Hank Aaron should be present. Records are made to be broken and celebrated. No matter what they think of Barry Bonds, the game is bigger than all of them! Let's not taint the game by acting like a bunch of babies, crying in our Wheaties over so far unproven allegations. Celebrate the Record! Celebrate the Game! JHCain

You didn't elaborate on any of the points made or attempt to answer any questions posed. Nice try on rewriting my opinion though. People can see what I wrote for myself and probably don't need a second interpretation. Thanks.

Of course the commissioner should attend the games. As should Aaron. It's the most coveted record in the game. Some history, the former commissioner, Kuhn, boycotted attending the games when Hank Aaron was about to break Ruth's record. Baseball and America was racist then (as it is demonstrating to still be by virtue of us even having to debate this). If Bonds was white, roid suspicion or not, there would be no question as to whether the commissioner would go to the game. Gimme a break. This is about race, but cloaked under steroid/purity of the game rhetoric.

The sport isn't riddled with individual steroid users. It's the entire league. The teams and the management, the very league, promotes steroid use. And then they get the media to convince the fans that they should be angry at individual players. And, as indicated by this thread and thousand others, us fans have fallen for this trick.

But back to the homerun record. This is all about Barry Bonds supposed legitimacy as the homerun king.

Question: Since Babe Ruth set the record in an apartheid league which banned competition from non-white players shouldn't his record have a very big asterisk beside it?

I think Bud Selig should attend with a bag of tomatoes and boo and hurl them with the rest of the crowd. To be honest though, the whole steroid controversy is largely Selig's fault... the powers-that-be just ignored clear breaches of the rules, and in many ways still do (I believe a positive steroid test gets something like a 10 game ban now under the "tougher stance"), and then they act surprised when they find players have taken advantage of this... it's like leaving your jeweller's shop unlocked and acting surprised when the diamonds are gone in the morning. Hell, I'd pop in and grab a necklace or too, that's why I blame Bud Selig more for the way the game has been tainted than I do Barry Bonds. In hindsight, maybe he and Bonds should throw tomatoes at each other on home plate to celebrate the new home run record. Seriously though, he has to be there, to commemorate what is still a great achievement, drugs or no drugs, and possibly if it is a road game and the crowd reacts badly, he should be there to see what shame his own policies and selective blindness to the problem of steroids in baseball in the 90s has brought upon the game and have it brought home to him just how much he should hang his head in shame.

does it matter? All these steroid taking record breakers are ruiing the sport the claim to love, it is NOT natural for guys as old as Barry Bonds or Mark Mcguire to be getting better instead of worse. IF they truly loved the sport they would come clean...

Yes. This is a milestone in Baseball History, he should be present.
That aside I won't go too much into the whole steroids thing. I am (was?) a huge fan of Barry Bonds since his days with the Pirates. For me it is disappointing that one of the greatest baseball players ever will forever be tainted with (solid) suspicion of wrong-doing.