Well, whaddya know: Baseball really is a metaphor for life. American life, anyway.

You don't have to care one whit about the game of baseball to consider the fate of the little white orb that made Barry Bonds sort-of-kind-of-maybe the greatest home run hitter of all time.

In August, Bonds hit his 756th home run, breaking Hank Aaron's record. It wasn't a crystal-clear conquest, however, in the wake of wide speculation that Bonds had used performance-enhancing drugs for years.

Bonds has denied this, his imprisoned trainer isn't talking, and the evidence against Bonds remains circumstantial.

When he was 36, he hit 73 home runs. Ten years earlier, at age 26, he hit only 25. Many writers have reported that his head has grown one hat size and his shoe size bumped up nearly three notches.

Curious circumstances, indeed, and not normally associated with eating one's Wheaties.

Fans got testy. So did a lot of sportswriters, who have that pesky habit of revering statistics. Compare Bonds' 73 home runs when he was 36 to these numbers for two of Bonds' predecessors at the same age: Babe Ruth hit 46; Hank Aaron's total was 38.

Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

Many sportswriters insisted that Bonds' record should wear an asterisk forever, which is code for "there's somethin' fishy here."

Lots of fans agree. Some started wearing giant foam asterisks on their hands, waving them wildly whenever he came to the plate.

Then, when Bonds broke the record, fashion designer Marc Ecko got an idea. Ecko paid $752,467 for the record-breaking ball after the 21-year-old fan who caught it said he couldn't afford to keep it because of the taxes. Ecko then set up a Web site and asked fans to vote: Should he brand the ball with an asterisk before donating it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, hand it over unmarked or shoot it into space?

Ecko said more than 10 million people voted. A whopping 47 percent wanted him to mark it with an asterisk.

The Hall of Fame said, "We'll take it."

"To us, the asterisk represents the voice of the fans at this moment in time," spokesman Jeff Idelson said last week. "The level of interest reflects the strong bond between baseball and American culture. Our responsibility as a history museum is to present every story in the proper context, and this ball allows us to do that."

Some aren't so happy with this decision. New York Times writer William C. Rhoden was particularly vitriolic, accusing Ecko of hijacking the Hall of Fame, tampering with history and compromising the integrity of the ball.

Ecko's message, Rhoden wrote, reflects a cynicism that "personal wealth can shape history and skew reality."

Whew.

If it weren't so fat, I'd mail Rhoden Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," which is a fine counterpunch to most traditional historical narrative, which tends to be written by the victors — who are allowed to shape history and skew reality, by the way.

"There is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation," Zinn wrote. "Behind every fact presented to the world — by a teacher, a writer, anyone — is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important, and that other facts, omitted, are not important."

Many Americans do not believe Bonds behaved honorably. One man had the financial wherewithal to make that point irrevocably clear. It's all part of the history behind the 756th home run.

Oh, and about that asterisk? Turns out it has a footnote.

One of Ecko's clothing lines has an asterisk for its logo and — wouldn't you know it? — it matches exactly the five-pronged asterisk that Ecko drew on the ball, instead of the traditional six- or eight-point symbol found on most keyboards.

Totally coincidental, said Ecko's spokeswoman.

And so totally American.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz ([email protected]) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.