By the end of the 1998 season, before Bond's training regimen had "gone to his head"...
By "gone to his head" I suppose you mean "first commited a major federal drug felony and first cheated against all of his fellow players and the memory and records of all that came before him". You know that to be a fact in 1998? Since Bonds still denies that it EVER happened and demands that you recognize him as the non-cheating champion, how can you know when he first cheated?
I am giving the memory of RM, BR and everyone else he cheated the benfit of the doubt and starting his cheating days at day one. If that is wrong, let Bonds inform us of the day we should start to disbelieve him.
Oh, and since we are discussing records before a certain event:
Peter Edward Rose.