COOPERSTOWN, New York (AFP) — The baseball hit by Barry Bonds for his historic 756th career home run has landed in the Hall of Fame after all.
After a day of dueling statements between the Hall of Fame and the ball's owner, fashion designer Marc Ecko, Hall officials accepted the artifact on Tuesday night and said it would eventually go on display in their permanent collection.
"As we previously stated, we are very happy to receive the baseball as a donation, and not as a loan, as previously declared by Mr. Ecko," Hall of Fame spokesman Brad Horn said in a statement. "We look forward to adding this ball to our permanent collections here in Cooperstown."
Earlier Tuesday, Hall officials had said they wouldn't accept Ecko's offer to loan the ball for exhibit. Ecko bought the ball for more than 750,000 dollars last September 15.
Abiding by the outcome of an on-line poll, he had it marked with an asterisk before offering it to the sport's shrine in Cooperstown.
The asterisk symbolizes the controversy that surrounded Bonds's pursuit of Hank Aaron's hallowed all-time home run record, which Bonds broke when he last August 7 in San Francisco when he belted his 756th career homer.
But Bonds's achievement divided baseball fans across the country because of a cloud of doping suspicion raised by his links to the BALCO steroid investigation.
Bonds has denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs, but the former Giants slugger is now facing felony charges of lying to a federal grand jury about his drug use. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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