NEW YORK -- Those who believe baseball takes a day off after the All-Star Game would have been convinced otherwise Wednesday, when Henry Aaron and Willie Mays stole the show on HBO's "CostasNow" interview program.

Introduced as the two greatest living players, Aaron and Mays touched upon a variety of topics in their exchange with host Bob Costas, aired live.

Mays, the godfather of Barry Bonds, said that though it does not appear a Major League team will sign the embattled home run king, Bonds still has something left to offer on the playing field.

"I think he's ready to play right now," Mays said. "I haven't talked to him in five or six months. He's been going, I was told, to Africa big-game hunting. I don't know what that's all about. I think he's still got a couple of years left, but that's not for me to say."

After passing Babe Ruth's legendary mark of 714 home runs in 1974, Aaron held the title as baseball's home run king until Aug. 7, 2007, when Bonds surpassed Aaron's total of 755.

Bonds' mark on the game has been clouded by performance-enhancing drug allegations and a federal indictment on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but Aaron said that he today considers Bonds the home run king.

"Records are made to be broken," Aaron said. "Barry Bonds broke the record and, to me, I watched all the players in the years that I played, and watched pictures of Babe Ruth. There is absolutely no one who could intimidate as much as Barry Bonds has. It's just too bad that all of these things are part of his career.

"... I have a lot of appreciation for the record, and I carried the record for 33 years. I carried it on my shoulders and I carried it with a lot of dignity. I'm giving it to him, and I hope that he carries it the same way."

Aaron set his record under a different culture. Part of the legend of Aaron's chase of Ruth's mark revolves around the racially charged death threats the Braves slugger received at the time.

Aaron recalled Wednesday that he felt like a 10-year-old running to his mother for safety after the historic April 8, 1974, home run off the Dodgers' Al Downing, but said that he did not fear the two young Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium fans that joined him between second and third base -- Aaron said he later learned both became doctors. He said that his legacy has taken on more meaning over time.

"I sense the appreciation," Aaron said. "It was a hard time. There are things that I don't talk about that much; I had a daughter in college and she was not allowed to leave campus for a year and a half. I had two kids in high school and they were not allowed to leave. There are things that I don't try to think of because it's hard for me to rehash. It should have been a glorious moment for me."

Mays wondered what his career totals -- he finished with 660 home runs, all but 14 of them in a Giants uniform -- might have looked like had he not lost two years of his career to military service. It is entirely possible that Mays, given full 1952 and '53 seasons, might have actually passed Ruth's mark first.

"It wasn't about home runs with me," Mays said. "It was about winning. I would rather see 24 happy faces when I went into the clubhouse than hit a couple of home runs. I felt that I could do that most anytime."

Mays was part of a great and storied trifecta of New York outfielders in the 1950s, fueling the city-wide debate over who was best. Was it Mays with the Giants of the Polo Grounds, young Mickey Mantle across the Harlem River at Yankee Stadium or Duke Snider reigning at Ebbets Field on Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue?

Aaron, then playing for the Milwaukee Braves, was rarely included in that debate, but he felt that his mark had been made as a significant figure of the baseball decade -- despite the lack of national media attention. Aaron eventually did make it back to Milwaukee, playing the 1975 and '76 seasons as a designated hitter and gate attraction for the struggling Brewers, but his Braves days remain iconic.

"I felt like playing in Milwaukee gave me more desire and more incentive to play well," Aaron said. "You'd read about these guys like Mays, Mickey and the Duke, and they were all great ballplayers. But it didn't bother me. We only had one newspaper, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and very few people in attendance. Every single day I went to the ballpark doing the same things they were doing in New York."

An additional segment originally intended for Internet publication ran nearly 30 minutes, as Mays took control of the show from Costas with a variety of entertaining vignettes. The resulting exchange will instead be repurposed for future broadcast on HBO.

Mays recalled one example displaying why so many wax poetic about how effortless he made the game appear: "I would go home at night and think, 'What am I going to do tomorrow?'I remember one time I was playing and I said to myself, 'I'm going to fall down tomorrow.' ... I knew what they were going to say, so I fell down at Candlestick as the ball was coming down. Then I got up and made the basket catch."

Aaron, now a senior vice president with the Braves, said that he does not believe Atlanta's Chipper Jones will become the first Major League player to bat .400 in a full season since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Now hitting .376, Jones admitted as much during the All-Star ceremonies in New York, saying that the chase had been fun to talk about but not realistic.

"I don't think anyone is going to hit .400, and that's not taking anything away from Chipper Jones because he's having a fantastic year," Aaron said. "But to hit .400, you've got to be able to do two things -- you've got to be able to get a lot of infield hits and bunt, or you've got to do what Ted Williams did and walk."

Both Aaron and Mays remained in New York after participating in the All-Star Game festivities Tuesday, when 49 Hall of Famers were introduced on the field at Yankee Stadium in a memorable pregame ceremony.

Mays engaged Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins in an exchange at the studio, and said that he often tries to teach young players the nuances of the game, though sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't. He said that his glory days were wonderful, but that it was "time to move on to the other guys."

"I had a magnificent playing career in my life," Mays said. "I enjoyed every [year] from the age of 16 up until I'm 77 now. I still love baseball. I still go to the ballpark every day and I enjoy what these guys have done. But they all look so young. They look like they're babies. I'm thinking to myself, 'How can they play?'"

The town hall format also included appearances by Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer and Dave Winfield, Tigers closer Todd Jones, former Pirate Andy Van Slyke, as well as All-Stars Evan Longoria and Rollins.