Darren Rovell has been all over the Tiger-Apple-Ebay scene lately, and he didn't skip a beat on the newest development: fantasy sports site RotoHog has purchased the "Monday Apple" eaten by Tiger during the U.S. Open playoff and is holding a vote to determine what they should do with the rotten scrap of fruit.
"We were looking for something that would be a good Golden Palace play," said Shane Igoe, the site's director of content and viral marketing, referring to the online casino that has generated publicity by buying weird auction items.
A la Marc Ecko, who put the Barry Bonds' No. 756 home run ball up for a public vote, the folks at Rotohog are asking the masses what they should do with the apple.
It's a pretty good move on the part of RotoHog -- our nation's collective fascination with food, celebrity and the webbie-tubes are a solid combination to market off of. Of course, unlike Ecko, RotoHog guarantees to actually follow through with whatever the public decides (and is mocking the designer/baseball-history-ruiner on the site, +1). Anyway, head over to the Tiger Apple site and get your vote on.
To keep you prepared before you do, the choices are ...
It was a quietly weird day for the Hall of Fame. After a long-standing consensus that Barry Bonds' No. 756 ball would end up in Cooperstown with its crowdsourced asterisk -- courtesy of Marc Ecko, of course -- they suddenly reversed their stance. Now, because the ball was on loan and was not an unconditional donation, the Hall didn't want it. Picky, picky.
''Based on the Hall of Fame's previous statements that they would both accept and display the ball, the only open issue we were talking about was the Hall's recent indication of discomfort in displaying it and addressing the controversy surrounding the record.''
Ah, yes, hand-wringing in Cooperstown. It's as much a part of summer as sweatrash and annoying tourists.
Barry Bonds's 756th home run has been celebrated by some and denigrated by others but visitors to the Baseball Hall of Fame won't be able to see the ball he blasted into the stands either way. Talks between Marc Ecko, the clothing entrepreneur who bought the ball at auction, and officials from the Hall have come to an impasse, leaving one of baseball's most infamous artifacts without a place in Cooperstown.
"The owner's previous commitment to unconditionally donate the baseball has changed to a loan. As a result, the Hall of Fame will not be able to accept the baseball. Should the owner choose to unconditionally donate the ball to the museum at a future date, we would be delighted and of course, accept his offer."
The vast majority of items in the Hall's collection were donated for perpetuity. The Hall already has Bonds's batting helmets from the record-breaker and only makes exceptions when nothing else is available.
Originally, the Hall was queasy about the plan to put an asterisk on the ball. If it were so branded, though, it would help tell the full story of Bonds and the home run record. Regardless of what you think about Bonds, the ball and the homer are a big piece of baseball history and should be exhibited in the game's museum.
Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball generated controversy for, like, four days over the summer when FASHION ICON Marc Ecko decided to buy it. Ecko made a deal with fans: If you visited marcecko.com, you could choose to vote for Marc to send the ball to space, brand it with an asterisk, or blowing it up, which is not a very fair set of choices to Bonds. Anyway, fans chose the asterisk, and unbelievably, the Hall of Fame is going to accept it as such:
Jeff Idelson, vice president of communication and education for baseball's Hall of Fame and Museum, expressed confidence that the shrine eventually will receive the ball Barry Bonds hit for his record-setting 756th home run, perhaps by Opening Day.
"The asterisk doesn't implicate Barry," Idelson said. "It's purely a part of the story of how it ended up in Cooperstown. You let the visitor determine how they feel and make their own value judgment. We would never suggest how they value or judge things."
Idelson's view would be plausible -- that it's up to the HoF consumer to decide -- except that people could probably decide for themselves better if there wasn't a big fat red asterisk staring back at them. Barry Bonds may have done lots and lots of cattle steroids (mmm ... cattle steroids), but don't people know that already? As much as the Hall might try to deny it, showing the ball with an asterisk forces a value judgment on Bonds, rather than simply allows it, and that's no way to have a productive conversation about steroids. Not to mention it validates Marc Ecko, which is just ... ew.
By now, most of us have heard of the stunt fashion designer Marc Ecko pulled with Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball. He bought it, had the people vote on its fate and, in the end, "brand it" won out -- he's set to put an asterisk on the ball and ship it off to the Hall of Fame.
But Bary Bonds does not like that. In fact, he claims he'll have nothing to do with the Hall of Fame if said ball shows up there.
"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."
[ ... ]
"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."
Remember how Gilbert Arenas said he wanted to save Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run ball from going into the Hall of Fame marked with an asterisk? Well, he's upping the ante ... by offering to give Marc Ecko Barry's 715th home run ball to top Babe Ruth. From Gil's blog:
I have a real big fan in Oakland who caught the 715 ball to beat Ruth. His name is Tom. Whenever we go West, he goes from city to city and travels to watch me play. He's been doing this since I came in the league. He goes to Portland, he goes to Seattle, Golden State, Lakers, Clippers ... he just drives and goes to all of them. Well Tom's brother caught the 715 ball. He said he would give me that ball for free so I could tell Marc Ecko that he can switch out No. 715 for No. 756 and he can mark up No. 715 or whatever he wants to do with that ball, as long as he gives me the 756 ball.
Apparently this Tom fella simply wants 20 pairs of Gil's new shoes in return, which makes me think he (or his brother, I guess) is getting the raw end of the deal. If that's not enough to convince Ecko, Gil also said he's willing to sit down and negotiate (presumably money, and not several thousands pairs of shoes). If he Gil was actually serious, I'm guessing he would have already initiated contact outside of a blog entry, but hey, it makes for good copy on a Monday afternoon, does it not?
Not to be outdone in anything by anyone, Gilbert Arenas is now angling to get involved in the Barry Bonds ball controversy. How? He wants to take this controversial bit of memorabilia off of Marc Ecko's hands and keep it pristine. From D.C. Sports Bog:
"It's history," Gil began. "It's still history. I mean, the guy's a man before he's some big slugger. I mean, how you just going to take what this man's done for his career and, as another man, say 'Hey, you were accused of this, you allegedly did this, I want to take this away from you.' I mean, what if we took away your Ecko company?
Arenas says he'll offer $800,000, which would mean a $50,000 profit for Ecko. Plus he "really wants it," while the designer is just trying to prove a point. Oh, and he's afraid that this is a slippery slope; if, say, they made hyperbaric chambers illegal, someone might want to deface the shoes Arenas wore when he dropped 60 on the Lakers.
Also, the NBA's premier entertainer has vowed to stop himself before saying anything controversial, and instead let loose with the Vonage song. Just another day in Arenasland.
But for me, in confusing times like these, I applaud the Times for allowing Ivy League-educated rappers turned baseball historians to also have their say:
Pete Nash, a baseball historian who was also one of the members of 3rd Bass, a defunct rap group, said writing on baseballs dates from the 1850s. Nash said players used to scrawl on important baseballs before saving them. In that respect, Nash argued, the asterisk on Bonds's 756th home run ball was not as rare as it appeared.
"Is writing on a ball the exact same thing as putting an asterisk on a ball?" Nash said. "It's similar. You're trying to put something on this ball that happened with this ball. This is his 756th and it's in question, so there's an asterisk."
Yes, Pete Nash, aka Pete Nice, of Pop Goes the Weasel fame, is a Columbia University graduate and published author of books about baseball history. I had no idea, but for some reason that completely makes my day. Now can somebody get Biz Markie and MC Hammer on the phone?
Well, we now know that Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball will not be jettisoned into orbit by Mark Ecko. I'm disappointed, because I really like the idea of a baseball beating 75% of the world's nations in the Space Race, but an asterisk ought to be interesting as well.
Mr. Ecko strikes me as a pretty lame dude, but I actually am happy he did this. I can't hear the guy's name without thinking of Mr. Eko from television's "Lost." I couldn't help but think of similarities between the two, and the result is today's Dugout, after the jump.
You may remember just over a week ago when intrepid clothing designer Marc Ecko left the fate of Barry Bonds' No. 756 ball up to the public. After purchasing the ball for a whopping $750,000, he started up Vote756.com and let fans vote on the fate of the ball, either to bestow it to Cooperstown, brand it with an asterisk and send it to Cooperstown or banish it and send it into space.
Well kids, after more than 10 million votes recorded, the winner is ... brand it! Slapping an asterisk on the ball won out with a resounding 47 percent, while bestowing it sans asterisk came in second at 34 percent. And sending it into space? Only 19 percent of voters wanted the ball off the planet for good.
No matter what your feelings for Bonds -- love, hate, indifference -- through Ecko's decision here, we all had a chance to have a say in this matter. Not only was this a good public relations for Ecko, but with a record the American public had such strong convictions about, this was a pretty cool way of deciding the ball's fate.
It was a quietly weird day for the Hall of Fame. After a 
Barry Bonds
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You may remember just over a week ago when intrepid clothing designer 
