by Zach Bigalke

Created on: March 10, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

On the seventh of August, 2007, Barry Bonds hit home run number 756 into the hometown stands of AT&T Park in San Francisco. Fans scrambled over one another to grab the piece of history... and to cash in on the riches associated with historic sports memorabilia these days. The ball was auctioned off to Marc Ecko in early September, who paid $752,000 for the baseball...

Then an unprecedented vote was held online to determine what should be done with the baseball. Ten million fans weighed in their thoughts, and the majority ruled that the ball should be branded with an asterisk and donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. An indictment of the way in which Bonds achieved the record, the asterisk has long been a symbolic gesture for fans and the sports media to mark dubious achievements. From Tour de France winners who have been granted the "maillot jaune" after the champion is stripped of the title for drug use, to Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs garnering an asterisk due to the extended season, to the current fiasco surrounding Barry Bonds, the asterisk is an easily-recognizable, easily-created character which is synonymous with sports indignation...

What exactly IS the asterisk, though, and how did it become the standard mark to set the record straight in sports statistics? A simple star pattern - * - the asterisk first gained infamy in sports as teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle chased Babe Ruth's single-season home-run record in 1961. The commissioner of Major League Baseball, Ford Frick, declared at a press conference in July of that season that, "if a player does not hit more than 60 until after his club has played 154 games, there would have to be some distinctive mark in the record books to show that Babe Ruth's record was set under a 154-game schedule." Never calling specifically for the asterisk, Frick nonetheless ignited the conversation and the controversy. New York Daily News sports writer Dick Young suggested to the crowd at Frick's press conference that an asterisk should be used, asserting, "Everyone does that when there"s a difference of opinion."

So one sports writer changed the course of how we read our box scores and player statistics...

Regardless of circumstance, the asterisk allows a statistician to draw attention to more than mere numbers. An asterisk next to Barry Bonds' home-run total, for instance, allows the record-keeper to note that the athlete enjoyed synthetic advantages allowed to those who held the record

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