The most reviled superstar of our day is about to cross another historic barrier. He apparently won’t get anywhere close to the acclaim this feat deserves. He doesn’t seem to care much whether he does, and if he does care, he probably wouldn’t admit it to us.

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge Barry Bonds’ 700th home run, along with the complexities, conundrums and controversy that come with it. Acknowledge it, that’s all. Make up your own mind how much you want to celebrate it, or if you even want to — and indications are that the average fan doesn’t want to.

But if you don’t acknowledge the simple fact that Bonds is doing something you might not see again in your lifetime, you’re only hurting yourself, as well as disrespecting the feat.

Bonds himself, of course, no longer holds his breath waiting for universal admiration; another few weeks of this as he chases and surpasses 700 won’t make a difference. The last few years of his baseball life have consisted of a daily ritual of booing, walking and trotting. Booing when he comes to bat in an enemy ballpark, booing when he gets his inevitable free pass from a “careful” (or “cowardly”) manager with the bases empty and none out in an 11-0 game, and booing when he launches one into the stratosphere.

His fans in San Francisco adore him, but even that took awhile to take hold. Every now and then you still can catch a good run of sports-talk yammering about how it’s time to cut Barry loose, spend his salary on pitching and find an outfielder who hustles to first on grounders more.

You’d think a guy with 700 home runs would be slightly more appreciated. You’d be wrong.

Wait a second, let’s go back to that. SEVEN HUNDRED HOME RUNS. Bonds will be the third player in a century and a half of big-league ball to reach that number. No one could wear enough body armor or play in enough small parks or rub enough “cream” into his skin to diminish that.

Or so you’d think.

It’s even questionable whether the baseball gods want to give Bonds a break. A rarer-than-rare milestone, another step toward the sexiest record in sports, in the middle of a pennant race, and with the commissioner on hand to add to a golden promotional opportunity for the game — and some knucklehead Texas Rangers reliever picks this moment to heave a chair into the stands.

San Francisco's Barry bonds hits an RBI double against Milwaukee. Catching for the Brewers is Gary Bennett. Bonds remained at 699 career home runs, but he went 3-for-3 with a walk and helped the Giants defeat the Brewers, 4-0, Thursday in Milwaukee.

Want to ask Bud Selig about Barry Bonds? Wait until he makes a statement about Frank Francisco.

An achievement like this should be accompanied by a little more fun, more warmth, more admiration. But this is part of the package when Bonds is involved. It’s also part of the deal, historically, when a certain Sultan of Swat is involved, even peripherally, as he is in this case.

It’s been a while since anyone has discussed asterisks, but you know it’s coming eventually.

In both cases, Bonds has said: Judge me by what I do on the field. In that context, we should be figuratively chiseling him on baseball’s Mount Rushmore, because he’s joining the most select of groups of the greatest players anyone will ever see.

Yet he long ago joined another select group, that of stars hated by fans in their time. They weren’t exactly lining up to embrace Ted Williams and, before that, Ty Cobb.

Joe DiMaggio would be in the group if we’d known then what we know now — but we didn’t, and that makes for an even better lesson. Never underestimate good PR.