Hall to get Bonds' record-breaker with asterisk
By P.J. Harmer
Staff Writer
An asterisk is headed to The National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run ball will wind up in Cooperstown. The San Francisco Giants star broke Hank Aaron's record on Aug. 7 with a drive off Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik.
And thanks to an online vote, the ball will have a slight alteration _ it will be eternally branded with an asterisk.
Fashion designer Mark Ecko, who bought the ball in an online auction for $752,467 on Sept. 15, let the fans determine the ball's fate. The three options for online voters included sending the ball to Cooperstown unharmed, give it to the Hall with an asterisk, or launch it into space forever.
More than 10 million people voted at
http://www.vote756.com and 47 percent wanted to have an asterisk branded. Thirty-four percent voted to send it unmarked to Cooperstown and 19 percent went with sending it into space.
"As an American history museum, this is an integral part of baseball history," Hall of Fame Vice President For Communications and Education Jeff Idelson said. "It's equivalent to landing a one-of-a-kind painting. It's unfortunate it's marked, but on the same token, we understand why it is and we'll have to explain the reason to every visitor that comes through. ... We were hopeful the ball would come in unmarked. We don't believe in the decimation of artifacts. In this case we had to look beyond that a little bit because of the historical perspective."
Ecko told The Associated Press the vote to brand the ball showed people thought "this was shrouded in a chapter of baseball history that wasn't necessarily the clearest it could be."
remainder of story:
http://www.thedailystar.com/localsports/local_story_270040032.html?keyword=topstory
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