Branding Barry's Balls

Is everybody out there familiar with the stories in the news about Barry’s balls? And that designer fella, Mark Ecko’s, plans to brand them. Have you ever heard such foolishness?

Just to refresh your memory, San Francisco Giants leftfielder Barry Bonds recently tied and broke the all-time home run record of Hank Aaron (755 career home runs). The fan who caught the ball Barry Bonds hit out of the park for his 756th career home run, auctioned off the baseball. The ball was purchased by a fashion designer named Mark Ecko, who paid the princely sum of just over $750,000.00 for the privilege of owning the baseball, if only for a brief moment in time.

He bought the ball to deliver a long distance slap in the face to Bonds. He plans to permanently mark (by branding or otherwise defacing the baseball) with an asterisk, and then send this particular piece of memorabilia to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown to be put on display.

Ecko, like many other baseball fans, is upset with Bonds because he has been implicated in a drug scandal involving steroid use by both professional and olympic athletes.

Bonds denies all allegations of steroid use. He has never tested positive for any banned drug or otherwise been proven to have participated in any illegal steroid use. From what I can tell, he has been tried by Ecko, and many fans, in the court of public opinion and been found guilty by association.

Hank Aaron averaged just over 32 home runs a year in 23 seasons with the Braves. Barry Bonds averaged just over 34 home runs a year over 22 seasons with first Pittsburg, then the Giants. But, Bonds exceptional 2001 season where he hit 73 home runs, toppling Mark McGuire’s record, to many pundits and fans alike, is seen as proof that he must have been on steroids.

The immortal Babe Ruth averaged 32 home runs a year over 22 seasons, including a phenomenal year in 1927 when he hit 60 in 151 games. There were no calls for an investigation into steroid use.

Why is it so difficult to believe that, with the training regimens, nutritional supplements, etc. available to the modern elite athletes of the 21st century, that Bonds couldn’t set the records he has without the use of steroids? Can you imagine the records the Babe could have set if he had laid off the booze, watched his weight and done a little weight training back in 1927?

Raw deal for Bonds. If he’s ever proven to have used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs, you may feel free to do all the Barry-bashing that you want. But, until then, he’s innocent until proven guilty; not the other way around.

And, as for this Ecko guy . . . let’s just say his sanity is questionable to say the least. Any man that pays three-quarters of a million dollars for a damn baseball that you can pick up in a hardware store for under $10.00 is a candidate for the looney bin. Of course, he’ll find his way into history on the back of the man to whom he has chosen to shower with such scorn, his name forever associated with Barry Bonds’ 756th home run.

But, I suspect Mark Ecko’s name will be followed by an asterisk.