Barry Bonds:”Don’t Take My Ball, I Don’t Want Your Hall”
Posted November 2, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The long strange saga of the historic home run baseball that slugger Barry Bonds hit on August 7th to break Hank Aaron’s all time record has taken another bizarre twist.
The New York man who caught homer number 756 sold it to an eccentric fashion designer named Marc Ecko during an auction and the winner promptly launched a website to gauge public reaction about what he should do with it. After weeks of weighing the options he offered (including blasting it into space), Ecko chose to submit the historic item to the Baseball Hall of Fame with a huge asterisk attached.
That “star” signifies the suspicion that Bonds reached his amazing milestone with the help of steroids, tainting the record. For a while, the ex-San Francisco Giants superstar ignored the controversy, calling Ecko an “idiot”. But now the batman insists if the ball goes into the hall marked with any kind of extra note attached to it, he’ll refuse to ever be inducted when his career ends.
“I won’t go. I won’t be part of it,” Bonds told a U.S. cable network. “You can call me, but I won’t be there.”
A spokesman for the museum insists they’d be willing to take the iconic orb, and it wouldn’t mean they endorse the stories of Bonds’ alleged steroid use. But the player to be named later claims that would be enough to disqualify him from ever entering that hallowed hall.
“I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never,” Bonds declares. “Barry Bonds will not be there.
“That’s my emotions now. That’s how I feel now. When I decide to retire five years from now, we’ll see where they are at that moment. We’ll see where they are at that time, and maybe I’ll reconsider. But it’s their position and where their position will be will be the determination of what my decision will be at that time.”
As for that future, Bonds – who’s sitting on a record 762 home runs – won’t say where or if he’ll be playing next year. But he still has a goal in mind. He was born in 1964 and wants to hit 764 homers to match the last two numbers of his birth date. Does that mean he might re-sign with a team, smash two dingers and then retire for good?
It’s possible. “I may hit two home runs so I can go home,” he concludes. “I just think that I have a lot of game left. I think that I can help a team with a championship. I’m a hell of a part-time player, too.”
Despite the controversy and the apparent signs, Bonds has never admitted to using performance enhancing steroids and has refused to talk to Major League Baseball’s official commttee looking into the problem.
Photo credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images Sport
