Barry Bonds Hammers "Idiot" Who Bought No. 756

Here's a humorous piece that's too odd for me to have made up. Barry Bonds has called an "idiot" the man who bought the baseball Bonds hit for his record-breaking 756th home run.

Marc Ecko, a fashion designer who won the ball last week in an online auction by paying $752,467, has set up a Web site to let visitors vote on what should be done with the ball, and that's apparently what Bonds thinks is idiotic.

Ecko's three options? Donate the ball to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, brand it with an asterisk and then send it to Cooperstown, or blast it into space on a rocket. The asterisk, of course, is a reference to allegations that Bonds has used performance-enhancing drugs and that his home-run record is therefore tainted.

''All of those options don't weigh anything,'' Bonds told the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday night. ''In baseball, that number (756) stands.'' As for paying all that money to buy the ball and let the public decide its fate? ''He's stupid. He's an idiot,'' Bonds said of Ecko. ''He spent $750,000 on the ball and that's what he's doing with it? What he's doing is stupid.''

Ecko said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, ''Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this 'stupid' T-shirt.'''

The public can vote on the fate of the record-breaking ball online at www.vote756.com. Ecko says he'll announce what he'll do with the ball when voting ends Sept. 25.