History, With Warts…
Right or wrong, Barry Bonds’ home run 756 belongs in the hall of fame. And how the fans choose to respect it is no different than any other moment in history.

Sonny Fulks/1570wptw.com

For the sake of the over-reported…for the sake of historical hysteria…consider the following: Barry Bonds…home run number 756…steroids…an asterisk on the ball…its place in baseball’s hall of fame…how you display it…and the list goes on and on.

The question used to be…would Bonds’ record-breaking baseball ever find its way into Cooperstown? But since owner Marc Ecko rolled up to the front door this week and delivered it with no conditions about its permanent status as a piece of baseball history represented in the hall, the issue now has become…”What do we do with it?”

Personally, I have no particular interest in the Bonds baseball. I wouldn’t pay to see it.  But it is what it is.  It's a piece of baseball history, and thereby, it belongs with the rest of the game's history for the fans' sake.

But, I also believe that its historical significance cannot be judged in terms of good baseball or bad baseball.  It's all baseball!

Now what you think of the ball relative to rest of the game's history is another thing.  It is an individual thing, and any issue with history and credibility should be a matter of personal opinion.  The facts (truth) about history (any history) can be a little vague, anyway.

Here's another fact…history's not always happy.  History is not always good. I guess for my part I would view the Bonds baseball with the same respect that I hold for the gun John Wilkes Booth used to shoot Lincoln. I was a Lincoln fan. And, I’m a Hank Aaron fan.

When Aaron bested Babe Ruth’s career mark of 714 home runs in 1974 no one ever dreamed that they’d see the day when someone would elcipse his mark.  And no one saw this coming…that when it happened it would be questioned for the fact of steroids, human growth hormones, and just sheer putrid personality.

Like it or not, history has a lot warts…they’re not pretty, but they’re there. You can argue about 'em, you can dispute their relevance, you can dispute the facts.  But you can’t dispute the fact that it happened. The “wart” in this case is the question relative to Bonds having used steroids.

It’s generally held that Aaron did the right way. Bonds…probably did not!

Do I think that Bonds was “juiced” when he hit a lot of those home runs? Absolutely! But I’m also convinced that a lot of pitchers that he hit against were “juiced”, too. So if they’re throwing harder as a result of taking an illegal substance, and he’s hitting it farther by using the same thing, it’s kind of a wash.

Here’s another belief I hold. There’s a lot of other warts in Cooperstown, like there is in every walk of history.

What do you want to think about Gaylord Perry? Did he cheat by throwing an illegal spitball?

What do you want to think about those enshrined who were known alcoholics…Grover Cleveland Alexander, for example?

And trust me, Pete Rose is not the only player outside or inside the hall with a gambling history.

As for the asterisk on the Bonds’ baseball, Barry said he would boycott the hall if it accepted it with the mark impressed on its cover. What a loss!

But mark or no mark, it’s still the baseball that Bonds hit out of the park to surpass Hank Aaron’s record. It doesn’t matter to me…and it shouldn’t to anyone else…if it’s displayed with the asterisk, visible or not.

Look, the baseball hall of fame has enough variety of artifacts for everyone to see that which interests them, that which they like, and that which they want to see. When I went through the George Bush Library in Texas recently, there were things I sought out…there were things I had no interest in at all.

Personally, I would be drawn to that which symbolized those players in major league baseball that appealed to me most…Koufax, Gibson, Mantle, Clemente and those like Harmon Killebrew, Aaron and Ernie Banks that I’ve had the occasion to meet and get to know.

And here’s a fact. There’s so much stuff in Cooperstown that you’d have to make multiple trips to see it all anyway. The Barry Bonds baseball is no more significant than one’s personal priority on what to see first.

Which raises one last question. If it’s the fans’ game, and the fans’ hall of fame, why do we make such a deal out of the ball, the asterisk, how it’s displayed, and should it be there in the first place?

I’m thinking…it was a slow news day.