Barry Bonds' Record Ball Will Be "Tainted" with Asterisk

On August 7th, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, hit his 756th career home run, breaking one of professional sports history's most hallowed records.

Oh yeah, and *.

Huh?

Why an asterisk? Well, if you weren't around when Barry Bonds was close to breaking Hank Aaron's record, then you wouldn't have seen the thousands of white t-shirts with the blaring * in the center at his baseball games. Or you may have missed the * on the picket signs that only came out when Bonds was up to bat. And if you live in southern California, and you missed the things people said whenever Barry Bonds' name came up...well, you might not be too be upset in missing that, unless you enjoy cursing and the creative uses of those fiendish four-letter words we hope our children never learn. But the * was a sign that the record is "tainted," it reminds people of the possibility that Bonds cheated because of the evidence he had used human growth hormones to help him hit the home runs. Bonds, of course, denied knowingly taking any performance-enhancing drugs, and drew constant fire from the steroid investigation of the MLB. However, these *s were all very little things to a pro baseball player like Barry Bonds, who was used to ridicule, booing, and even childish quarrels with Bob Costas.

Unfortunately, the * will soon be a very big part of Barry's life. Every time he will see the ball that broke the record he will see an *, courtesy of Mr. Marc Ecko. Marc Ecko, the fashion designer, and quite possibly better known as the man who spent $752,467 for Barry Bonds' record-setting home run ball, announced Wednesday, September 26, that he will stamp the ball with the * and send it to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Soon after Ecko bought the ball, he set up a website for people to vote on the ball's future. Ecko thinks that the majority of the public believes the record is tainted because the * option beat out the other two: sending it to the Hall of Fame without an * or blasting it into space. When Bonds heard about this stunt, he disagreed with what Ecko was doing and called him, "and idiot." Ecko, I say you stamp that * on there, put it into the spaceship you were going to use, and blast that sucker to the Hall of Fame. There's really no point to that, but it would be fun to watch.

Finally, for any Barry Bonds supporters out there, please let the whole world know why an adult man's shoe size would increase almost three sizes. And why would his cap size grow? Even if he did condition his body and worked out like crazy, these growths are still abnormal. HGH, anyone?

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