Remember Barry Bonds' home run chase this season? I know, you may not want to remember it, but drudge up those old nightmares for just a second here. Bear with me.
Remember when Barry seemed so nice all the time, so unflappable, so totally unwilling to allow a reporter to goad him into anything resembling a negative quote? Oh what halcyon days they were:
Barry Bonds thinks he has been unfairly targeted for whatever problems baseball has had with the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
"I truly believe I have been singled out. Definitely," he said during an interview aired Friday by MSNBC.
Bonds would have preferred to remain with the Giants.
"I was disappointed in the way it was handled," Bonds said. "And what I mean by that is that San Francisco are not my fans. San Francisco is my family and I felt that ... they took away our time to enjoy. ... I think we deserved more than that."
This follows, of course, Barry's pronouncement that he won't visit the Hall of Fame if the Hall accepts Marc Ecko's asterisked ball. Besides Barry's sudden loquaciousness, which is interesting on its own, he has to at least understand why he was singled out. It's because there are widely reported suspicions of his steroid use coupled with his pursuit of the most hallowed record in sports. Even if he doesn't agree with it, he has to understand it, right?
You don't have the money to toss, like, $800,000 at Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball. Very few of us do. But that doesn't mean we won't have a say in just what happens to the ball now that it's been purchased.
Why? Because the newly minted owner, Marc Ecko (yes, the designer of the Ecko clothing line you can lesuirely peruse at any local T.J. Maxx), is offering fans the chance to decide the ball's fate through our most egalitarian of processes: the vote!
Ecko is offering three choices: Donate it as is to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.; brand it with an asterisk and donate it to the Hall of Fame; or put it on a rocket and blast it into space.
"I wanted the ball to democratize the ball and to give the ball to the people, to give the ball to America," Ecko told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer during an exclusive interview Monday.
You can vote at Vote756.com until Tuesday, September 25. Send the ball to the moon? Put it in the Hall of Fame? Throw an asterisk on that bad boy? What would you do to it?
Choose wisely, reader. For you are making baseball history. Doesn't that feel good?
It looked like Murphy made a horrible mistake to turn down a sure-fire $500,000 up until the last day of the auction, when the ball rose in value from about $200,000 to its final price. Instead of becoming an item of total disinterest from buyers and fans, the better-than-expected price indicates that someone, anyone, still cares about Barry Bonds' record enough to pay a considerable sum of money to possess its worldly dimension.
Of course, this isn't exactly a crowning auction achievement either: Mark McGwire's single-season ball sold for about $3 million in 1998, back before everyone had more than a slight inkling the records were being achieved with the help of performance-enhancing drugs. And Murphy? After taxes, he gets about $90,000 -- nothing to sniff at, sure, but a paltry sum compared to lucky ballhawks in the past.
Ah, steroids. They make everything so fun, don't they?
I told you last week that not too many people saw Barry's 755th home run live on TV. Now comes the word, via Ben Maller, that more people watched the Cowboys/Colts game on FOX Thursday night than Barry's record breaking 756th home run Tuesday on ESPN. From Ad Age:
The game on Fox last night delivered a 2.7/8 rating and share from 8-11 p.m. in last night's Nielsen "Fast Affiliate Ratings" in the ad-centric adult 18-49 demographic, which if it holds would tie for the eighth-rated program of the week. ... But the 1.1 ESPN household rating for Bonds' blast -- compared to NBC's 22.3 rating for when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record (adult 18-49 figures aren't available) -- underscores just how much baseball, and especially media, have changed over the last 30 years.
Well, it does show how much the media has changed recently, and how much football now dominates. The low ratings also confirm my suspicion -- that not too many people were sitting around, excited to see Bonds break the record. Or maybe everyone just wanted to see Pam Oliver go toe-to-toe with her producer. Now that could account for the difference.
The Giants were surprised they had to defend themselves against rumors, repeated on talk shows Wednesday, that they had to compensate a reluctant Aaron for his 51-second message. Executive vice president Larry Baer said there was no compensation and no reluctance from Aaron.
The genesis of Aaron's message was a phone call from Baer in mid-May. The Giants had heard Aaron wanted nothing to do with Bonds' pursuit of the record, Baer said, but he decided he wanted to hear it from Aaron.
"When I spoke to Hank, I said I understood he didn't want to come to San Francisco and follow Barry around, that it would be burdensome, and he didn't want to answer questions about 756 and dredge up 1974," Baer said. "I said, 'If that's the case, how about sending a message to Barry and for baseball,' and he said, 'Absolutely, I'd be willing to do that.' "
You know what, I can buy that. Hank says he's as happy for Barry as anybody, and it is understandable that he couldn't travel around the country waiting for Bonds to hit home runs. Recording a video message seems like a reasonable solution, and I can buy that he wasn't bribed into doing it.
It's been a long time coming, and rightfully so, I was prepared for the moment. The moment when Barry Bonds would push all legitimacy aside, and prove to the country that it doesn't matter what rules and laws you violate on your way to the top. Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run, and did so with no doubt in my mind that several of his home runs were hit thanks in large part to the consumption of performance-enhancing substances. Tuesday night was not a good moment for baseball. Nor was it a good moment for the country.
Tuesday night was a bad night for the youth of America. It was a terrible moment for kids and parents to experience. To watch and see all the glory that Barry received -- the praise and undying adulation of thousands of fans blinded by the power of the almighty home run -- only sends one message. It tells people that the way to ascend to the mountaintop of sports is by throwing all ethics aside in exchange for an "arthritic balm and flaxseed oil" that will augment your career.
Barry Bonds went from being an outstanding player to being a superhuman being on the diamond. He went from being one the greatest 20 players of all-time, to being considered one of the top five, if not top three, in the game's history. He went from averaging 33 home runs in his first 13 seasons in the bigs -- years that included most athlete's natural primes -- to averaging 52 home runs in his next five seasons at a time when most athletes are winding down their careers. All the while, his power was bolstered, his walk totals went up, his strikeouts decreased, and he became quite possibly the most feared hitter the game had ever seen.
I didn't think I had anything emotionally invested in Barry Bonds' quest to break Hank Aaron's record, but I found myself surprisingly happy to see that he did it at home -- I guess no matter how I might feel about the man himself, I know what it feels like to be a fan, and all of the fans with their head in the sand who have stuck with him for so many years really deserved to be a part of last night.
And, fortunately for you and I, some of those fans brought their camera to the game and recorded the big moment as it unfolded, capturing not just Bonds' home run, but Aaron's message on the Jumpotron and Bonds' speech to the crowd. I love the internet. Previously on FanHouse: Barry Bonds Home Run Chase
On TV, it looked every bit as terrifying as you might imagine. This is a close up view of what it was like to be in that sinkhole of greed and despair in right-center after Barry Bonds broke the record. I'd love to post a detached diatribe about the way a small piece of rawhide and core can make us go all Lord of the Flies on each other, but ... yeah, if I was in there, I'd have been doing the same thing. Cannonball!
You think you're displeased with Barry Bonds' new record. You think your day at work this morning is a little bit drearier, especially now that you have to face all your co-workers' uninformed opinions on steroids in sports and baseball and Barry Bonds' involvement therein. You think Bonds is making your life harder.
Sorry: nobody knows the trouble Pedro Gomez's seen.
Gomez, ESPN's official Barry Bonds pet/stalker/pepper-haired reporter, has been trailing Bonds for years, providing breathless updates on everything from Barry's hat size to Barry's reclining locker room chair to Barry's famous interview about how the media was hurting his family. It's been a long road.
But it's over now, and the question has to be asked: What will Pedro do? Some suggestions:
-- Cuddle up at Jeff Kent's house with a pint of Ben and Jerry's -- Stalk Mark McGwire; failing that, stalk Sammy Sosa; failing that, stalk Brady Anderson -- Play office politics ever so gently, take Steve Phillips' job -- Host Who's Then?, ESPN's hard-hitting look at athletes who existed at any point in the past -- Elope with Rachel Nichols, unleash terrifying horde of mutant sideline-reporting children on unassuming public -- Schedule joint therapy sessions with Sal Paolantonio -- Ignore lingering sense that too many precious breaths have been wasted on Barry Bonds, pick up that mic, and keep on plugging -- Start a blog
"I congratulate Barry Bonds for establishing a new career home run record. Barry's achievement is noteworthy and remarkable.
"After Barry came out of the game, I congratulated him by telephone and had MLB executive vice president Jimmie Lee Solomon and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson -- both of whom were at the game and witnessed the record-breaking home run -- meet with him on my behalf. While the issues which have swirled around this record will continue to work themselves toward resolution, today is a day for congratulations on a truly remarkable achievement."
Honestly, I can't think of a more passive-aggressive way to try making some kind of point while weaseling out of doing it in person. As I've said before, this is your mess, Bud -- it's the least you can do to own up to it and watch history unfold. Sorry, No Photos
Remember Barry Bonds' home run chase this season? I know, you may not want to remember it, but drudge up those old nightmares for just a second here. Bear with me. 
You don't have the money to toss, like, $800,000 at 
I've written a couple of 
I told you last week that not too many people 
It's been a long time coming, and rightfully so, I was prepared for the moment. The moment when 
You think you're displeased with 
Bud Selig
