As I’m sure everyone has seen by now, Ecko owner Marc Ecko, has bought Barry Bond’s 756 home run ball. He’s created a website to let the public decide the fate of the ball. The 3 options are give the ball to the Hall of Fame, brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall, or send it into space.
I’ve decided to sway everyone’s vote into getting the ball into the Hall.
Everyone has their opinion on baseball and steroids; they are free to feel as they do. Me personally, I feel MLB needs to do everything possible to get them out of the game. At the same time, we can’t change the past. They were part of the game and we don’t (and probably won’t) know who did them. We can’t put an asterisk on stats, because we don’t know what is tainted and what isn’t.
While testimony came out that Bonds took steroids, we don’t know when he started doing it. He could have a couple months before the Balco case broke open, or he could have been on them for years. You can’t say 147 of his home runs are tarnished, so he should be at 615.
This ball is part of baseball history, like it or not. There are only 2 places this ball should go; since Bonds already said he didn’t want it, the HOF only other place the ball deserves to go.
For anyone who doesn’t want to “discredit†the HOF with this ball, do remember that many of the people and memorabilia enshrined there did much worse than use steroids. Ty Cobb, while one of the greatest players in the history of the game, was a racist (going as far as stabbing a black man trying to break up a fight) and fixed games. Pete Rose has the bat from his 3000th hit there. Mark McGwire and Bonds already have home run balls in the Hall from their single season records.
So, I’m asking everyone who reads this to go out and vote for the unaltered ball to be sent to the Hall of Fame, where it needs to be.
