Meesta Ecko

I'm struggling to find the energy. Marc Ecko, the douche who bought Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball for $752,467, is going to put an asterisk on the ball before sending it to Cooperstown. "This is obviously something that struck a chord with fans," Ecko said. How many fans? Who knows, but 34% felt like the ball should go to the Hall without a mark, and 47% voted pro-ASSterisk. 19% said the ball should just go away. What I love about this whole idea is that I didn't know about it ahead of time. How many people did? I didn't vote. How many others who aren't retarded didn't know and therefore didn't vote? How many of us who realize that anything any player has ever done to prolong a career changes the measurement? Knee surgery? Asterisk. Better weight-lifting techniques? Asterisk. Creatine? Asterisk. Closer fences? Asterisk. Watered-down quality of players due to expansion? Asterisk.

Fuckface

So a collection of short-sided shitwads, the demographics of which we know little, have decided they know enough to pass ultimate judgement on a piece of history. They, including Ecko, fail to recognize that they are not important enough to decide it right now. They never will be. Legacies have to be determined over time by those who can remove themselves from an emotional reaction and the inluence of biases. We all know if Bonds played in New York, the ball would have sold for 14 billion dollars and there would have been a parade in Manhattan. But he doesn't play in New York, or Boston, or Philadelphia, where the fate of the ball, and Bonds' image could have been spared.

This is our problem, right Mr. Ecko? This belongs to those of us who rose to our feet each time Bonds stepped into the box. This is mine because I cheered when he hit a ball off Chuck Finley over my head and into the bay during game 4 of the 2002 NLCS. Shame on me for cheering for a cheater, right? Shame on me for wanting entertainment. It's easy when it's not your guy, I know. It's not just Bonds your fucking with. It's me. Like it or not, we put our hearts into our teams. It's silly, but we do. You're not putting an asterisk just on the Bonds ball. You're putting an asterisk on the buzz that went through the ballpark when Bonds came up with two on and the Giants down by two. You're putting an asterisk on an entire group of people, not one guy's accomplishment. It's easy, I know, to make a judgement from far away. When it's not your guy on your team, it's easy. You don't even have to think about it. There are good guys and there are bad guys. This is our bad guy, huh? You might profess an objective attitude, but it's not real. That you'd even conduct a vote shows it. You knew you wouldn't get a representative view. And you didn't. And you've got what you wanted. And the 34% of voters who recognize that the accomplishment is bigger than you, and us, are screwed.

You've watched from afar as Bonds has had the shit beat out of him by the media and you've never questioned it. You, like many others, forget to really examine the whole Bonds idea. It's easier that way. Bonds is bad. People tell us he is. The media rams it down our throat. But where are the questions, Mr. Ecko? Why don't you ask where the good guy stories are? Todd Benzinger wrote a letter to the editor to SI in 1993 in which he describes Bonds rolling and playing on the floor with Benzinger's two year-old daughter. That's not the Bonds you know? The point is, there is always more to the story than black and white, good or bad. We know the bad guy tales. He's a cheater, and a cheater, and a dick, and a bad teammate. But he's a nice guy, and a good dad, and a good teammate. If it's your guy, Mr. Ecko, are you going to simply take the easy road, suspending intellectual honesty? No, you won't. You're going to do what we all did with Mark McGwire. Or Roger Clemens. It's hard to ask questions, but if you're going to permanently, arbitrarily, decide history, don't you owe it to all of us, even the sheep, to ask the real questions? Don't you owe it to everyone in the baseball world to recognize that you are not big enough to pass final judgement?