What would possible make Bud Selig believe that?
Posted on 11/02/2007 8:04:47 AM PDT by dead
NEW YORK - Barry Bonds would boycott Cooperstown if the Hall of Fame displays his record-breaking home run ball with an asterisk. That includes skipping his potential induction ceremony.
"I won't go. I won't be part of it," Bonds said in an interview with MSNBC that aired Thursday night. "You can call me, but I won't be there."
The ball Bonds hit for home run No. 756 this season will be branded with an asterisk and sent to the Hall. Fashion designer Marc Ecko bought the ball in an online auction and set up a Web site for fans to vote on its fate. In late September, he announced fans voted to send the ball to Cooperstown with an asterisk.
Of course, the asterisk suggests Bonds' record is tainted by alleged steroid use. The slugger has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. Fans brought signs with asterisks to ballparks this season as he neared Hank Aaron's career home run mark.
Bonds has called Ecko "an idiot."
"I don't think you can put an asterisk in the game of baseball, and I don't think that the Hall of Fame can accept an asterisk," Bonds said. "You cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history. You can't do it. There's no such thing as an asterisk in baseball."
Hall of Fame vice president Jeff Idelson declined to comment Thursday night.
Hall president Dale Petroskey has said accepting the ball doesn't mean the museum endorses the viewpoint that Bonds used illegal substances. He said the museum would be "delighted" to have the ball.
"It's a historic piece of baseball history," Petroskey said in September.
So, if the Hall goes through with the asterisk display?
"I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never," Bonds said. "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," he added. "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."
Giants general manager Brian Sabean reiterated Thursday that the team won't bring back Bonds next season. The seven-time NL MVP, who has spent 15 of his 22 major league seasons in San Francisco, was asked whether he will retire as a Giant.
"Yeah, it's my house. No matter what that's my house, no one's going to take that away, no one ever," Bonds answered. "No one's going to take the love of that city of me away, ever."
Bonds, who has 762 homers, broke Aaron's record with a shot into the right-center seats off Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik at San Francisco on Aug. 7.
Matt Murphy, a 21-year-old student and construction supervisor from New York, emerged from a scuffle holding the ball. He said he decided to sell it because he couldn't afford to pay the taxes required to keep it.
Bonds told MSNBC he hoped to reach 764 homers because he was born in July 1964. He said he's been working out and still is considering whether to play next season.
"I may hit two home runs so I can go home. I just think that I have a lot of game left. I think that I can help a team with a championship," Bonds said. "I'm a hell of a part-time player, too."
Bonds said he won't talk to George Mitchell's staff looking into steroids use in baseball while he is under investigation in the BALCO case. A grand jury has been investigating whether Bonds committed perjury when he testified he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs.
"I know it ends in January, so a couple more months. But I haven't been keeping up with it. Not at all," Bonds said. "I have nothing to hide. I have said that before and I will say it now and I will look you in the face. I have nothing to hide, nothing. So look all you want to."
That's the biggest crime in the story. Murphy had to sell a priceless baseball because it would have impoverished him to keep it.
have a great weekend
That's the biggest crime in the story. Murphy had to sell a priceless baseball because it would have impoverished him to keep it.
Why would he have to pay taxes on anything more than the $5.00 a baseball is worth? I can (almost) understand having to pay taxes on it when he sold it, but until it's sold there is almost no monetary value at all.
Sending his baseball to the Hall of Fame and having them display it with an asterisk and not having to have the cheater present: PRICELESS
Is there one sportswriter on the planet that Bond's didn't make a complete @$$ out of himself to anyway?
I think sportswriters are idiots like the rest of the journalists, but I don't depend on them to get into the hall of fame either.
He’s the only guy in baseball who’s bobblehead doll is done to scale.
But I'm not a CPA, nor did I stay at Holiday Inn Express last night. Of course, I am likely to never stay at a Holiday Inn Express, because they're all no-smoking.
You, too.
I'd love to hear the thinking behind that - maybe Monday?
maybe...thx for being nice
The thing that gets me is how fans and sportswriters fawn over guys like Bonds. He played in Pittsburgh for some years early in his career and he was miserable even back then. He didn’t get along with fans, managers, teammates, writers, anyone. But people cried and carried on when he left. Even today, people here still want him back. At one of the home games in Pittsburgh this year, there was some promotion on the Jumbotron about him...this was right after he hit his last homer. I was at that game, but when that came on, I went to the ladies room. It was enough to make me hurl.
Something I should mention — some people contend he is one of the greatest hitters of all time. Ok, so he has 762 home runs. But sometime take a look at his batting averages and compare them to some of the past greats in this game. His stats are awful. Most years, Bonds averages somewhere in the 200’s. By comparsion, Lou Gehrig (just using one example) was hitting in the 300’s, 400’s...even 500 one year. The only years he did poorly were his last two when I believe he was sick or getting sick. These days, the bar has been lowered so anyone who bats 150 is considered a major star. Ridiculous.
The guy is an idiot, a jerk, mean and miserable and not even all that good of a player or a batter, despite his home runs. I don’t wish evil on him, but don’t put me in the same room with him.
I hate Barry Bonds, but I also think the idea of branding an asterisk on the ball is stupid, and I think MLB should stop the practice of permitting “fans” to leave the ballpark with important “milestone” balls. These balls are marked with the MLB logo and belong to the sport. Fans merely rent a seat. Are they permitted to leave with the seat? Ridiculous. The Mark Ecko fiasco was a real turning point. Milestone balls belong to the Hall of Fame, not stupid fans and self-promoting idiots.
.340 lifetime batting average! That's an astonishing figure in any era of baseball
Baseball is a joke, the cheating is rampant. They ought to asterisk Mark McQuire’s balls too...uh, I mean ball. For the most statistic heavy sport there is, there is not a sport in which statistics are more meaningless. Every ballpark is a different size so statistics mean nothing. Ok, ok, I admit, I’m not a baseball fan...they ruined it a long time ago.
Thanks I was only using yearly averages. :)
What would possible make Bud Selig believe that?
I’m still a baseball fan, but screw the greedy owners and players who caused that stupid strike.
As a greedy capitalist myself, I have a problem with the fans who whine that “the players make too much money” and “I would play for free”.
The players will stop making all that money when the millions of fans stop paying $100/ticket and $20 for parking and $90 for hats, beer, hot dogs. When nobody watches the TV networks won’t pay to televise the games.
As long as there IS a market demand and the leagues make billions, the players will get paid millions.
I haven’t been to a game since 2001 since I can’t afford it. I agree that the prices are obscene. Maybe all the steroids gave them swelled heads.
Apparently there are millions of people out there who can afford it. The Yankees drew 4 million fans this year. They don’t see a problem, so why should they lower prices if people are willing to pay it.
I don’t go to the games anymore by choice. I can list at least 25 reasons why you are better off watching the game at home rather than going to the ballpark.
I'm fine with that.
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