Sometimes I wonder about “nationally respected” sports writers. You know the type — the ones who are in regular rotation on The Sports Reporters, Around The Horn, Outside The Lines, or any of the 500 other programs that ESPN tries to shove down our throats on a weekly basis. It’s easy to spot a “nationally respected” sports writer. The vast majority make a living by taking stupid contrarian viewpoints, then trying to claim that those viewpoints are immune from criticism. This is the time of year when these folks really get on a roll. We got a little taste with Sally Jenkins’ strange man-hating column on Friday, but Bill Rhoden decided to skip the appetizer and give us the main course with his column about the Ecko/Bonds ball today.

For those who missed it this week, the infamous “vote” regarding the disposition of Barry Bonds’ record-breaking home run ball ended this week, with a near-majority (47%) voting to send the ball to the Hall of Fame with an asterisk branded into it (the other options were to send it to Cooperstown undoctored, and to blast the ball into space).

Well, NYTimes columnist Bill Rhoden has a big problem with this — which comes as no surprise, seeing that Rhoden is one of the biggest steroid deniers out there, at least when it comes to Bonds. Rhoden’s column breathlessly claims that the Hall of Fame is being “hijacked” by some young punk with too much money and an opinion different from his about how this so-called moment of history is being recognized.

Rhoden takes some slaps at Ecko throughout the column, but his biggest irritation appears to be with the Hall of Fame itself, for not telling Ecko to keep the ball. As he states in the column:

This is a silly prank that has no place in the Hall of Fame. A fashion designer is putting his spin on history, forcing the Hall to accept that spin as a condition of receiving the historic ball.

And then again, later on:

The ball itself is a historic object, regardless of your opinion of Bonds or the accomplishment. It is a document of a person, a time and a place…The Hall says it is neutral, but when it accepts a ball stamped with an asterisk, it is giving institutional credibility to the cynicism.

I can’t believe that someone with Rhoden’s intelligence REALLY believes this tripe. What exactly is in dispute here? Despite what steroid deniers like Rhoden claim, anyone with half a brain and vision in at least one of their eyes knows damn well that Barry Bonds has been juicing steadily since the Clinton administration. We wouldn’t have HAD a new record-holder (nor the resulting controversy) without Bonds having artificially enhanced himself.

What is Rhoden protesting here, exactly? The branding of the ball? He seems to be arguing that branding the ball defaces a historical object, which should stand apart from the “now” and represent the breaking of the record at this juncture of time and space. But inanimate objects can’t communicate the reality of days past on their own, and the passage of time tends to mute the arguments and issues that existed at the time those objects became historical. If anything, Marc Ecko did future fans of baseball a big favor, because 50 years from now, when some young baseball fan is visiting Cooperstown and sees that ball with the asterisk on it, he’s going to ask his father what it means. And his father will have to reply, “That’s the ball which broke the home run record in 2007 — but the guy who hit the ball cheated the fans and the game of baseball to get there.”

Rhoden isn’t buying it, though. His claim is that the opinion that Bonds used steroids is shared by only “some” fans. That may be the case, but anyone who doesn’t realize what Bonds did to his body is either completely clueless or willfully ignorant. Steroid deniers love to throw the concept of “proof” around, knowing full well that there can be no iron-clad proof, thanks to Major League Baseball’s aiding and abetting of steroid takers until it became a public relations negative.

Just because MLB refused to police itself doesn’t mean that fans of baseball should be expected to accept the lack of iron-clad proof as evidence that Bonds is innocent of taking steroids. Sports organizations across the globe, from MLB to the NCAA to the NFL to the IOC, have demonstrated time and time again that they are money-obsessed, untrustworthy charlatans who have no regard whatsoever for the people who actually watch the games and root for the teams. It’s ironic, then, that Rhoden, who is infected with the same holier-than-thou attitude so present in the leagues he criticizes, would discount even a partial attempt to let the fans decide the disposition of one of the most tainted sports-related objects that we’ve seen in the last 30 years. No, the Ecko vote was not a true vote in the popular/electoral tradition. But it was a much greater effort in listening to “the fans” than we could ever expect to see from MLB…or from the New York Times sports section.

I, for one, am glad that the the ball is in Cooperstown with an asterisk on it…and I’m glad that Cooperstown accepted it without reservations. Despite Rhoden’s whining, perhaps this is an indication that the Hall of Fame really IS interested in protecting the sanctity of the game of baseball, after all. By placing an asterisk-enhanced Bonds ball on display, Cooperstown can tell future generations what some of today’s sportswriters are trying to deny to the current generation. The only regret I have is that we can’t brand the single-season record ball, too.