Breaking Bonds

So the ball Barry Bonds hit for his 756th home run last year, tainting the biggest record in North American professional sports, is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Fashion designer Mark Ecko paid three-quarters of a million dollars for the right to put an asterisk on the ball and donate it to the Hall.

I don't believe in asterisks in the books, because what happened in games must be accurately reflected in the historical record. But this is not a record book, it's a ball. And if ever a ball deserved to be marked with an asterisk, it's this one.

In the unlikely event that anyone cares what Bonds thinks of the situation, he has said he will boycott the Hall, were it to accept the defaced ball. Of course, the Hall might boycott him too, in a way, if enough voters think his juicing is sufficient reason not to vote him in.