Bonds Home Run Ball Still Sitting

The world's most famous baseball--or infamous depending on your point of view--was supposed to have an asterisk tatooed on it by now. 

Despite the thumbs down vote from fans on preserving Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball, multi-millionaire Mark Ecko still hasn't turned it over to the Hall of Fame, despite a promise to do so if fans voted to brand it with an asterisk.

Barry Bonds's record-breaking 756th home run ball hasn't been sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by fashion designer Mark Ecko and the museum doesn't know when it will receive it.

Ecko said in a televised announcement on Sept. 26 that he was donating the ball to the Cooperstown, New York, museum with an asterisk as determined by fans in an online vote.

Bonds, who broke Major League Baseball's career home run mark in August, said last week he wouldn't participate in his possible induction into the Hall of Fame if the ball was displayed with an asterisk. His chase of Hank Aaron's record was marred by allegations he used steroids, charges he has publicly denied.

``Mark Ecko has given us no indication of when it might come,'' Brad Horn, a spokesman for the Hall of Fame, said in a telephone interview. ``The timetable is unknown.''

Ecko didn't return at least four messages at his office or on voicemail seeking comment.

Ecko spent $752,467.20 to buy the ball at auction and then let the fans decide what he should do: donate it to the Hall of Fame, mark the ball with an asterisk and give it to the museum or send it into outer space. Of the 10 million people who voted, 47 percent said it should be put into the museum with an asterisk. Ecko gave no timeframe for turning the ball over.

Items are pledged to the Hall of Fame and sometimes not sent to the museum for months or years, Horn said.