Cubs Winning! -- Barry's Ball to Visit Space Station?

The Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds last night with an impressive 3-run rally in the bottom of the ninth inning. Of course, they still left 11 runners on base, something that will have to be fixed if they want to start winning consistently.

I get the feeling that the NL Central race is going to come down to the last day. Especially if teams like the Astros keep rolling over for the Brewers. The Astros removed Woody Williams and Roy Oswalt from their projected starts against the Brewers this week and replaced them with two rookies with ERAs over 6.0. The Reds are out of the race too, but the Cubs will face their #1 and #2 starters twice over the next two weeks.

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The person who bought Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball is letting the public decide what to do with it. He has set up a website to allow fans to vote on the treatment of the ball. The options are 1) send it to Cooperstown, 2) brand it with an asterisk and then send it to Cooperstown, or 3) put it in a rocket and fire it off into space. Although I thought #3 was interesting - out of sight, out of mind - I ultimately felt like that was the easy way out - just ignore the issue.

I decided to vote for #2 - mark it with an asterisk. As much as I hate to admit it, Bonds was probably the best player of my generation to this point (A-Rod, Pujols, or some other younger guys could surpass him). He has won 7 MVPs (he won 3 in the early 90s, before he was "enhanced") - the last person to win even 3 MVPs was Mike Schmidt. I have no doubt in my mind that he used drugs to keep himself in shape to play baseball at this level well into his 40s. So, even though he was a great player and would have been a HOFer even ignoring everything since 2000, I still feel he deserves an asterisk on his record-breaking ball because I really doubt he would have been able to reach that number if he wasn't using drugs to elevate his physical condition.

I doubt I would put an asterisk in the record books next to his stats, because he technically never broke any rules that baseball had in place. But, marking the record-breaking ball at least recognizes the fact that he didn't get that record in the proper way.