September 18, 2007
Bonds Ball
The person who purchased the ball Barry Bonds hit for his 756th, record-breaking home run is letting the public decide the fate of the artifact:
The fate of Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball is now in the public's hands after its buyer announced Monday he was taking votes on whether to give the ball to the Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk or blast it into space.
Fashion designer Marc Ecko revealed himself as Saturday's winning bidder in the online auction for the ball that Bonds hit last month to break Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs. The final selling price for No. 756 was $752,467, well above most predictions.
Ecko had not even taken possession of the ball before setting up a Web site that lets visitors vote on which of the three outcomes they think the ball most deserves. He plans to announce the final tally after voting ends Sept. 25.
"I bought this baseball to democratize the debate over what to do with it," Ecko wrote on the Web site. "The idea that some of the best athletes in the country are forced to decide between being competitive and staying natural is troubling."
This, of couse, from someone who designs clothes modeled by perfectly natural women.
The voting site is here. Please vote to send the ball to the Hall of Fame where it belongs. I don't want to see history destroyed again a la the Bartman ball.
Also, there don't seem to be any safeguards on the site. Unless the auditors go through log files, there's nothing to stop you from voting as much as you like for one choice or another.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:49 AM
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If they aren't limiting the votes for a given IP, you would have to think that MLB would flood the vote to avoid the embarrassment of anything happening to the ball other than going to Cooperstown.
....assuming he hasn't blocked the MLB domain from voting.
After branding it with and asterixk, he'd still send it to Cooperstown, thus preserving the history of the ball.
History is messy. Always has been. The fan frenzy to grab it, the auction, the voting website, and whatever the outcome of the voting is--all of these are integral parts of the history of this baseball. The only option that doesn't clearly preserve that history is the one that sends it into space, though even that one might be recoverable someday.
This guy is just doing this as a means of advertising his name and his product. I had never heard of him before this, so I guess it is working.
I saw him on the Today Show and I would guess that he knows nothing about baseball and probably doesn't care.
A ball that looks exactly like every other ball is not really history. I vote to banish. That IS history.
To Infinity and Beyond!!!
I'm for the asterisk, but, since he's a designer, I'm confident he can produce a much better look than the lame "magic marker" look on the voting site.
Maybe something in the leather.