The passing of Ted Williams was a story of national weight, on the basis of an interesting life aggressively lived. It was a Page One story in every important newspaper in the United States, because Williams was a grandiose figure, capable of baffling contradiction and A-plus-B-equals-C simplicity, all in the same five-minute span.

	Barry Bonds Left Field San Francisco Giants Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM HR RBI R SB AVG 82 27 57 68 3 .345

There will be no other, everyone wants to agree.

But perhaps there is. In his own ways, Barry Lamar Bonds is the most direct comparison point to Williams, save the war record and the enthusiasm for fishing. Bonds will fly no fighter planes, split his time between two cities rather than one, and to the best of anyone's knowledge has never dipped a line into the water.

Still, he is many ways the logical extension of Williams, from his uncompromising strike zone to his flinty relations with the media to his touch-and-go attitude toward fans to his accomplishments at bat and lack of same in the postseason. Indeed, an argument can be made that Bonds may not only be Williams' equal as a player, but might be even better.

We will now wait patiently while the people of the Greater New England area hurl their laptops through their windows.

Still, facts are facts, and Bonds' similarities to Williams outweigh his differences, leaving a reasonable person to wonder what will be said of Bonds when his time comes.

His baseball credentials cannot reasonably be assailed, except, as in Williams' case that he failed to make a mark in October. Williams will be remembered for hitting .406, while Bonds' lasting number will be his eventual home run total, whether it be 600, 661 or beyond. He will be remembered as a better defensive player in his prime, although he will also be marked down for the occasional lapses in attention and the average throwing arm.

But because Bonds will have spent nearly a decade in Pittsburgh and then a full decade in San Francisco, he will not have defined a single team as Williams did the Red Sox. Indeed, because the Red Sox are to New England as the Catholic are to the Vatican, Williams became bigger than life while Bonds toiled in two football-first cities. Better that he'd been a Steeler and then a 49er for this sort of adulation.

He will be remembered fondly by some of his contemporaries, as Williams was, because those who didn't like him (see Kent, Jeff) will say nothing and those who did (see Gwynn, Tony) will be available for sound bites. Besides, even in these callous times, it remains unpopular to speak ill of the recently passed.

And the other interesting thing is how the media, which Williams spent much of his life dismissing as ignorant, nosy slobs, overcame its own disdain for his disdain and recognized him, in the end, for the fascinating and accomplished character he was.

Indeed, most of his famous wars with the Boston media were dismissed in a paragraph in all but the most exhaustive obituaries, which can provide a valuable lesson for Bonds (if he hasn't already absorbed it), namely:

That stylistic criticisms rarely last, and even the substantive ones endure only as sidelight in any well-told biography.

Williams was not a fan-friendly hero in his day. He wasn't the first anti-hero baseball ever had; Ty Cobb predated him, and there were those who predated Cobb. Nor is Bonds; he has never made an exhaustive effort to expand his personality to meet the demands of stardom, although he has wondered in his more expansive moods why the perks of that stardom have been denied him.

Therein lies the next lesson -- that mere stardom is a most fungible commodity. Any fashionable lout can be a star. Even the best players of their age in any sport lose their impact with time. Who, for example, talks about Rogers Hornsby any more, or Honus Wagner? Williams was spoken of in death as few in the history of the game ... Ruth, DiMaggio, perhaps Gehrig.

Bonds? It's hard to know what awaits anyone in the sporting biz, given that their careers end about halfway through their lives. Bonds may find ways to turn mere fame and fortune into true greatness on the Williams scale, but while his similarities outnumber his differences, the differences are why Ted Williams is an iconic figure, and Barry Bonds a great baseball player.

There is, of course, always time to change all of this, but therein lies the last lesson of all. What seems true today almost never is tomorrow, so even the great need to stay loose, and true, whatever that truth may be. Ted Williams did it, which is why he will be remembered as more than merely "The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived.''

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com