Texas Rangers vs. Baltimore Orioles; July 4th, 2008

Now branded with an asterisk, the ball Barry Bonds launched for his record 756th home run nearly a year ago landed last night in the Hall of Fame.

The souvenir arrived in Cooperstown, N.Y., after a strange day of back-and-forth statements between its owner, fashion designer Marc Ecko, and the shrine.

“We are very happy to receive the baseball as a donation, and not as a loan,” Hall spokesman Brad Horn said. “We look forward to adding [it] to our permanent collections.”

A driver walked up the front steps of the Hall, handing over the ball and a letter from Ecko saying it was an unconditional donation.

Bonds, then with the San Francisco Giants, broke Hank Aaron’s career homer record Aug. 7.

Ecko paid $752,467 for the prize in an online auction in September. Soon after, he asked fans to vote in an Internet poll on what he should do with the ball.

The winner: brand it with an asterisk, to reflect the steroid allegations surrounding Bonds, and give it to the Hall.

The ball indeed was marked, with the five-pronged asterisk dye-cut into the cowhide, from stitch to stitch where “Major League Baseball” is printed.

After months of discussions, the Hall said earlier yesterday that talks with Ecko had “unfortunately reached an impasse.”

Well, he and his wife have separated less than three months after the birth of their second daughter, the New York Daily News reported. The newspaper posted the article on its Web site amid reports linking Rodriguez to Madonna. He declined to address the topic on three occasions Tuesday.

The Daily News reported Wednesday night, citing an anonymous source, that Rodriguez and his wife, Cynthia, had separated after having “problems” for about three months. Cynthia Rodriguez’s mother, Evangeline Scurtis, denied a report on a gossip Web site that her daughter had gone on a romantic getaway with musician Lenny Kravitz in Paris. Kravitz issued a statement yesterday denying the getaway.

Baseball’s drug-testing program was threatened when federal prosecutors seized player records and samples four years ago, baseball commissioner Bud Selig said in a letter to Congress that was released yesterday.

The seizure of the 2003 test results jeopardized the program’s confidentiality and caused a delay in the start of testing in 2004, Selig and union head Donald Fehr told Reps. Henry Waxman and Tom Davis, leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“Major League players faced the realistic prospect of criminal prosecution based on evidence from a drug test that they were promised would be anonymous,” Selig wrote in his letter from last Friday, which was hand-delivered to the committee. “The seizure undermined representations made to players that drug testing records generally would be confidential. … It is no exaggeration to say that the seizure threatened the continued viability of the entire drug-testing program.”

The legality of the government’s seizure is under dispute. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld the government’s actions, reaffirming a decision it made in December 2006. But the entire 9th Circuit has been asked to rehear the case, which could wind up before the Supreme Court.

Baseball, just do what is expected and move on from this…

The Cardinals slugger lined his 18th homer of the season on a 2-2 pitch from the Cubs’ Bob Howry in the eighth inning, the ball banging off the foul pole in left field. He beat Hall of Famer Mel Ott for the fifth-fastest by one day.