Barry Bonds' No. 756 Soon to Be in Hall

Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball generated controversy for, like, four days over the summer when FASHION ICON Marc Ecko decided to buy it. Ecko made a deal with fans: If you visited marcecko.com, you could choose to vote for Marc to send the ball to space, brand it with an asterisk, or blowing it up, which is not a very fair set of choices to Bonds. Anyway, fans chose the asterisk, and unbelievably, the Hall of Fame is going to accept it as such:

Jeff Idelson, vice president of communication and education for baseball's Hall of Fame and Museum, expressed confidence that the shrine eventually will receive the ball Barry Bonds hit for his record-setting 756th home run, perhaps by Opening Day.

"The asterisk doesn't implicate Barry," Idelson said. "It's purely a part of the story of how it ended up in Cooperstown. You let the visitor determine how they feel and make their own value judgment. We would never suggest how they value or judge things."

Idelson's view would be plausible -- that it's up to the HoF consumer to decide -- except that people could probably decide for themselves better if there wasn't a big fat red asterisk staring back at them. Barry Bonds may have done lots and lots of cattle steroids (mmm ... cattle steroids), but don't people know that already? As much as the Hall might try to deny it, showing the ball with an asterisk forces a value judgment on Bonds, rather than simply allows it, and that's no way to have a productive conversation about steroids. Not to mention it validates Marc Ecko, which is just ... ew.