MLB: Bond Issue

So, Bonds is saying the Hall can either get the ball or him. If they choose to display the record setting ball stamped with an asterisk (In a brilliant self-promotional stunt by Mark Echo) they can forget about him showing up to any induction ceremonies or anything else. Now, Bonds has never been convicted or conclusively proven to have taken steroids but, c'mon, at this point there's plenty of reasonable doubt. And this isn't a court of law, we're not talking about holding him legally accountable, we're talking, instead, about whether we can look the other way with everything we know so far.

Boycotting the Hall of Fame doesn't stop the Hall from putting up a plack (If he's even voted in, of course.), I take it, but would be a pretty big blow. Almost as much as it would be the ultimate show of Bonds pettiness. That he'll huff and puff if he doesn't get his way and through a hissy fit if he doesn't.

What's really ironic here is that Bond says "You cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history. You can't do it." When that's exactly what he's trying to do. He wants to alter history, cleansing any record of the controversy that's brewed around him for the past several years. Any suggestion that his record might be tainted. History, though, is of course mutable. Written by people from their memories of what was. We alter it, our understanding of it, every day. And, in this case, enough people have enough legitimate doubts that you can't simply ignore them while you write your own version of events. The people decided to brand that ball with an asterisk. To respark this conversation over and over a thousand times until we finally get a satisfactory conclusion. And, try as he might, Bonds will never be able to wash that mark away.