Hagstrom
Fashion designer and winning bidder for Barry Bonds’ 756th home run ball Marc Ecko has decided to give the power to the fans to decide what to do with his latest purchase. Too bad he didn’t come up with some better options than give the ball to Cooperstown, brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to Cooperstown or launch it into space via a rocket ship. I mean, all things considered, a ball of that magnitude is like a bona fide version of a genie in a lamp. It can only mean one thing: instant power.
Remember the movie "The Sandlot"? Well, the blundering, lousy-throwing Smalls, who didn't even know who The Babe was — always asking, "Who is she?" — found instant gratification from a ball signed by the Sultan of Swat himself.
Smalls calmly knocked a homer out of the park when no one else thought it possible.
Ipso facto, the well-documented ball juiced him up. And the Colossus of Crash probably was never on steroids.
Not only could it be possible that whoever chooses to play with Bonds' No. 756 finds instant success, but there's a very high probability of that occurring.
Thus, I propose that the ball should be given to the Kansas City Royals. Their power production is anemic. Sitting at 97 home runs with just over 10 games left in the season, the Royals could very well fail to eclipse the century mark. With 52 and 46 homers respectively, Alex Rodriguez and Prince Fielder alone have more home runs than the entire Kansas City team.
At the rate the Royals are hitting long balls, it would take them nearly seven-and-a-half seasons to reach No. 756.
Instill a little genie into the Kansas City hitters, and give them a ball that will sail over the fence.
Point: Smalls' success spells Kansas City.
Voelkel
When it comes to history, I am a packrat; I hang on to mementos, ticket stubs and other random stuff from games and events I've been to. Because of this, I have a very cluttered room.
One thing I wouldn't hang on to, however, is Barry Bonds' 756th career home run ball. That, friends, should be blasted off into outer space.
In most circumstances, I would be the first one lining up to protest the ball going anywhere but the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. In this case, however, the ball needs to be returned to its rightful owners.
Who might that be, you ask, now that the BALCO labs are shut down?
The Nerdlocks from "Space Jam."
How are they the rightful owners of Bonds' historic ball?
If you remember the movie, the Nerdlocks were some undersized aliens who tried to capture Bugs Bunny and Co. and enslave them on Moron Mountain. They were undersized, that is, until right before the critical game. They then used magical powers (possibly bovine growth hormones or female fertility drugs) to bulk up, have their heads swell exponentially and acquire out-of-this-world talent.
Sound familiar?
We might as well use that NASA budget for something constructive, too. Humans aren’t going to Mars in my lifetime, so save the money for that next satellite and use it for something that would be really cool to see: a baseball attached to the end of a rocket blasting off into space.
Before the ball gets shot into orbit, put some sort of GPS chip in there so people can track its path. More people would follow that than follow the Royals, anyway.
After all, since home runs are typically referred to in baseball jargon as moon-shots, as a society, we might as well send the most infamous moon-shot in baseball history off for a lunar landing.
Moon-shot. Roger that.
