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barry to boycott hall?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by HoopsMcCann, Nov 2, 2007.

  1. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    If Bonds thought the ball was at all important, he should have bought it.
     
  2. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    That's like me announcing I won't at the next moveon.org party.
     
  3. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member

    I believe some guy bought the ball at auction and he made a website, asking what he should do with it.

    The winning choice came in that the ball should have a big asterisk on it.

    No one from baseball or the Hall of Fame has suggested there be an asterisk on it.
     
  4. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Yeah, Barry, that'll show 'em!
     
  5. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member


    The ball was purchased by an independently wealthy individual. That individual decided to mark the ball with an asterisk. Then he will donate it to the Hall of Fame. Either they will show it or they won’t.

    Barry could have purchased the ball himself and prevented the whole thing from occurring.
     
  6. jakewriter82

    jakewriter82 Active Member

    From the pictures I've seen of the ball, the asterisk is on one side of it. The Hall of Fame could display the other side and people wouldn't notice the asterisk. It's not like it'd be in a 3-D case. I don't give a rat's ass what Bonds does, though.
     
  7. Claws for Concern

    Claws for Concern Active Member

    I saw he mentioned a desire to reach 764 career home runs because he was born in July 1964. Yeah, let's bring Bonds back for two home runs (and he'd probably ask for $5 million for each home run) and then see him hang around longer. ::)
     
  8. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member



    Hmm. I missed that since I stopped reading about Bonds about two seconds after he broke the record.

    I hate that the asterisk was added. Defamation of a historic piece is a shame. The Bartman ball detonation is another idiotic example.
     
  9. Pastor

    Pastor Active Member



    One could argue that the adding of the asterisk added to the historical nature and gave it a certain perspective. It didn't alter history. It only altered a representation of one historical event.

    Blowing a ball up, for whatever reason, is just dumb.
     
  10. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Ahh, but you're going down a slippery slope, Alley.

    Distasteful as it is, the Negro League is a defined event. There is no debating who was in or out of it or when it took place. Same with women's baseball.

    Steroids is another matter. When an institution such as the Hall starts wading into which accomplishments were influenced by steroids, there's no way you can define what was done under what influence of what drug.

    Personally, I think Bonds was a 'roid user for the last decade of his career, I think it helped him get the HR record, but could I define my opinion based on any kind of historic standard of proof? A standard of proof that would hold up in a historical journal or for an institution like the Hall? Admittedly, I'd have to say I couldn't.

    And where does it end? Do you then revisit history and start tainting existing HoFers by vetting their records through some retro-microscope and admonish some of them for being under the influence of greenies or something along those lines? If so, which ones? Where does it start? Where does it end?

    And that's the problem with steroids within the historic record. Until there's some smoking gun that proves otherwise, and there never will be, it's too nebulous to quantify with any kind of historical certainty.
     
  11. Oz

    Oz Well-Known Member

    Bubbler, I'm with you. Unless there's a smoking gun, unless there's some definite indictment that Bonds did it and it sticks, then there shouldn't be anything to denote it in the HOF. The ball should not be branded, and a branded ball should not be proudly displayed in the HOF. I would simply take whatever items Bonds gave and build the display around that.

    I don't blame Bonds for what he said, I agree with it.
     
  12. alleyallen

    alleyallen Guest

    Whether it was definitely proven that Barry did it or not, he and his record were in an era of doubt. It doesn't change him breaking the record, any more than an asterisk would. It's purely symbolic. And it certainly isn't defacing history. It's part of it.
     
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