BOSTON — Ever since he set the single-season home run record, Barry Bonds has been the face of baseball’s steroid era, the personification of a game in which everybody — or so it seemed at times — broke the rules.

After yesterday, however, Bonds now has company. There’s another star for whom Cooperstown wasn’t enough, another player done in by his own greed and hubris.

Barry, meet Roger Clemens. Roger, say hello to Barry Bonds.

They belong together now, linked together, right down to their haughty denials. They were never teammates and, in fact, only played in the same league for four years. But when the Steroid Era is recalled, they will be remembered together as much for their sheer arrogance as their alleged transgressions.

When Clemens left Boston after 1996, he could already lay claim to a Hall of Fame career. He had won three Cy Young Awards, recorded two 20-striekout games and 191 career wins.

But perhaps haunted by the suggestion that he was now, in the infamous words of Dan Duquette, “in the twilight” of his great career, Clemens was motivated to show otherwise. So he won another 162 games and four more Cy Young Awards, and according to the Mitchell Report yesterday, he had some help.

Like Bonds, Clemens had a personal trainer who also happened to be his personal pharmacist, providing him with the latest in performance-enhancing drugs. And so his late-career resurgence began, from Toronto to New York to Houston, and finally, back to New York again.

Clemens got his long-awaited championship — two, in fact — and piled up the victories and the strikeouts and the awards. But there was a price to be paid and yesterday, with the release of the Mitchell Report, Clemens paid it.

His name is now linked to other greats of the game who weren’t satisfied with hard-won greatness. He wanted more.

Sound familiar? Bonds, too, wanted more, especially after he watched Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire captivate the nation with their epic home run battle in 1998. By then, Bonds had already won three National League Most Valuable Player awards, had already hit 384 homers, had already stolen 444 bases, had already won seven Gold Gloves. He had knocked in 100 or more runs seven times and had hit .300 or better.

But Bonds didn’t have the recognition, the love, the status that McGwire or Sosa enjoyed. He wanted that and more. It wasn’t enough to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated; he wanted to be on the cover of Time, too, like the home run champs. So, as countless documents show, he began using illegal enhancements that winter, determined to a bigger star, striving for a better legacy.

Clemens was no different. After winning 40 games in his last four seasons in Boston, he topped that figure in just two years — his only seasons in Toronto. Each time, he won the pitching Triple Crown, leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts.

It was quite a late-career turnaround and most just chalked it up to a more dedicated Clemens. Now, we know that it was more than that. There were syringes and injections, better performance through chemistry.

Bonds wanted the love and adoration. Clemens already had experienced that. Who knows what drove him, beyond the obvious — greed and ego.

Clemens used to love talking about how hard he worked, about his exhausting workout regimen, his long, lonely hours in the gym. Yesterday we found out that it wasn’t all blood, sweat and tears. He could keep up that regimen thanks to the steroids, which enable users to rebound quicker, refresh easier.

The same guy who years earlier had upbraided a young Curt Schilling for not working hard enough had himself decided to take some shortcuts on the road to success.

And all those bothersome muscle pulls he suffered in Houston and New York? Those make more sense now, too.

His personal attorney screamed foul yesterday and took great pains to point out that Roger never flunked a test — as if that somehow proved his innocence — and how was being slandered and unfairly tried in the court of public opinion.

But George Mitchell is neither careless nor foolish. As a former U.S. Attorney and federal judge, he presumably knows compelling evidence when he sees it. Clemens and his handlers can complain all they want about due process and the credibility — or lack thereof — of his accusers, but Clemens has only himself to blame.

Presumably, there will be no more talk of comebacks now, no more disingenuous speeches about wanting to retire but being unable to do so. Clemens will fade away and play lots of golf, which is a far better retirement option than the one facing Bonds.

For years, Clemens vowed he would block any attempt to have him enter Cooperstown as a member of the Red Sox. Yesterday afternoon, that may have become one battle that Clemens won’t have to fight.

smcadam@projo.com