Video: Bonds May Boycott Baseball Hall of Fame

It was a humorous gimmick. Fashion designer Marc Ecko purchased Barry Bonds 756th Home Run ball and allowed internet voters decide what to do with it. While 19% wanted to launch the ball into space, and 34% wanted to give it to the Hall of Fameas is, the winning majority (47%) voted to give the ball to Hall, but only after branding it with an asterisk first, a sign of baseball fans disapproval of Bonds alleged steroid use.

Now, Bonds says should Ecko go through with branding the baseball, and the Hall of Fame go through with accepting the ball (which they have said they would), he will boycott the Hall of Fame. Should he be inducted, Bonds told Jim Gray, interviewing him on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight, "that he would won't be part of it, I won't be there, you can call me but I won't be there." I've embedded the video below.

My thought is, if Barry Bonds wants to boycott the Hall of Fame, who cares? I don't think Major League Baseball will be too broken up about not having to deal with Bonds, and honestly, his record-breaking home run ball being branded with an asterisk, leading to his boycott of the Hall of Fame, would put a nice bow on Barry Bonds' tainted career. Bonds can continue to claim he did not knowingly use performance enhancing drugs, but that claim strains credibility the more one looks into Bonds' history, statistics, and the controversy which oozed from the Bay Area Lab Co-Operative (BALCO).

Plus, this all assumes that Bonds will be elected to the Hall of Fame. While there is no question, steroids or not, BALCO or not, that Bonds is one of the best players ever to play the game, he was never a favorite of the media before the steroid allegations. Now, especially if Bonds is indicted and/or convicted of lying to the BALCO grand-jury about his alleged steroid use, or it otherwise is proven that Bonds knowingly used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs, he may never have a chance to boycott the Hall, who may choose instead to boycott him.

You have to give credit to Olbermann in getting Bonds to sit down for an interview, even if Jim Gray, and not Keith, did the interview. Bonds hardly ever sits down for one-on-one interviews with the media, and I'm actually a bit surprised Olbermann and MSNBC did not try to make this a bigger deal ahead of time. I think the interview, and some of Bonds quotes, may get talked about a lot in the coming days (maybe I'm wrong) and it could have maybe gained Countdown some extra juice (pun intended) in the ratings. Then again, Part 2 of the Bonds interview airs tomorrow on Countdown (8:00 EST on MSNBC) maybe they had ratings in mind after all.