Bond's ball in limbo

Fashion designer Marc Ecko had the winning bid Saturday in the online auction for the ball that Bonds hit last month to break Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs. The final selling price was $752,467 (all figures U.S.). Ecko, 35, has set up a website that lets visitors vote on three options for the ball: give it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk before sending it to Cooperstown or blast it into space on a rocket ship. Ecko plans to announce what he will do with No. 756 after voting ends Sept. 25. You can place your vote for the balls fate here.

"All of those options don't weigh anything," Bonds told the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday night in Phoenix. "In baseball, that number (756) stands.'' Bonds said Ecko could have found a better way to spend three-quarters of a million dollars. "He's stupid. He's an idiot," Bonds said. "He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid.''

Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds' comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, ``Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this 'stupid' T-shirt.'''

Ben Padnos, the California entrepreneur who submitted the $186,750 winning bid on Bonds' record-tying 755th home run ball, said Tuesday he also plans to have the public vote on what to do with it.

This is what happens when your balls are put in the hands of a fashion designer. Although this use of the ball is a lot different then Ecko's usual of having them bounce off of his chin. But dude has left out a lot more options for this storied baseball, such as:

- grind it up and let Doc and Straw fight to death over who can snort it
- inject it with HGH until it balloons to the size of a buoy and give it to Bob Ojeda for the next time he goes boating
- paint it black and send it to John Rocker for life-long torment
- strap it in shotgun with Tony LaRussa and wait for it to be crushed on a telephone pole