Organized Chaos

Have an idea of what should be done with Barry Bonds’ 756th home run ball? If you do, you can voice your opinion on the Web.

Marc Ecko, the clothing guy, purchased the ball for more than $700,000. Now he’s started a Web site where there are three choices to vote on.

The first is send the ball to the MLB Hall of Fame. The second is to stamp it with an asterisk then send it to the Hall. And the third, and potentially more intriguing if he could actually pull it off, is to send the ball hurling into space.

I’ve already voted. You can, too.

Have any other creative ways to dispose of the ball?

Roger Clemens showed his feisty side on Monday after his final minor-league tuneup before joining the lameduck New York Yankees.

He ended his media session with gusto, calling out reporters who wrote negative accounts of his comeback. Heaven forbid a journslist should do his job, Mr. Clemens. Heaven forbid you should take some heat, because, contrary to what you may think, your millions of dollars don’t give you a free pass.

In fact, it sets you up for a higher level of scrutiny. You are on a level that not many players have reached. But, at the same time you are no different from any other ballplayer. 

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I’m a Cubs fan. My wife, a native of Georgia, loves the Atlanta Braves. To say this baseball season has been rough on us is an understatement.

The Braves have played terribly the past month. The Cubs haven’t been good since April 1.

As of Friday, if the Cubs (28-43) were in the National League East they’d be in last place by one game behind the Braves (30-43). Chicago is dangerously close to being last in the Central, which tells you just how poor the Cubs are when they are potentially worse than Pittsburgh.

And in case you don’t know, the man in the picture is Ryne Sandberg. He was the reason I started playing baseball way back when. He is the true No. 23 in Chicago, to me at least.

Ozzie Guillen has done it again.

This time the Chicago White Sox manager’s ire was directed toward Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti last week. Guillen on Tuesday used profanities and a homosexual slur to describe Mariotti prior to the White Sox game. Guillen later apologized about the slur, not his feelings toward Mariotti.

That’s fine. We’re all entitled to our opinions. But Guillen should have been man enough to vent his frustrations to Mariotti directly.

Mariotti has a desk and telephone at the Sun-Times just as I do at The News Herald. If people have a gripe, they can call Mariotti. He’s been around the block enough to be prepared to defend his opinions.

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