Baseball fans have spoken: The ball Barry Bonds hit to break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record will go to the National Baseball Hall of Fame stamped with an asterisk.

On Sept. 15 – 38 days after Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run – fashion designer Marc Ecko won an online auction for the ball with a winning bid of $752,467. Over the ensuing eight days, 10 million fans voted online at www.vote756.com to decide the fate of the historic ball.

Fans could choose to “Brand It” with an asterisk and have it sent to the Hall of Fame, “Bestow It” to the Hall without any markings, or “Banish It” to space. Eighty-one percent of voters chose to “Bestow” the ball to the Hall of Fame, and 47 percent of those votes called for the ball to be branded, which would symbolize a tainted record.

The remaining 19 percent voted to send the ball into space.

“I bought this baseball to democratize the debate over what to do with it,” Ecko wrote on the Web site. “The idea that some of the best athletes in the country are forced to decide between being competitive and staying natural is troubling.”

Bonds’ name has been linked to investigations by Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a company with possible involvement in distributing illegal growth hormones. Bonds has denied ever knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs, and despite the allegations, he has never tested positive for steroids of any kind.

Both Bonds and Ecko were unavailable for comment.

Jerry McNertney, a former player and coach at Iowa State and in the major leagues, played against Bonds’ father, Bobby, while with the St. Louis Cardinals. He considers Bonds to be innocent until proven guilty.

“That’s a tough call. Everybody assumes he took steroids and I’m sure he wasn’t alone,” he said. “Those ballplayers were getting pretty big, and I guess I was guilty of thinking that it was from working out and training and all that. They want to be the very best, and if they think they can get an edge they’re gonna do it”

McNertney played at Iowa State from 1956 to 1958. Along with St. Louis, he played professionally for a total of nine seasons with the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Pilots, Milwaukee Brewers and Pittsburgh Pirates. He also coached in the New York Yankees organization before finishing his coaching career at Iowa State.

McNertney doesn’t recall players taking supplements during his career but does remember players finding ways to get ahead.

“When I was playing, steroids weren’t an issue at all,” he said. “The only thing I remember the guys doing was they would take ‘greenies’ – I guess you might call them uppers or caffeine pills or something – to get pumped up. You know, legal stuff.”

Dale Petroskey, president of the hall of fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., said in an Associated Press story that the museum is excited to receive the historic ball, but accepting a branded ball in no way endorses the viewpoint that Bonds took performance-enhancing drugs.

Three days after Ecko announced on “The Today Show” that the ball would be branded, NBA player Gilbert Arenas said he wanted to prevent the defacing of the ball. He offered Ecko $800,000 to buy the ball back, later adding that he would give the ball back to brand with an asterisk if Bonds was ever found guilty.

Coming off his 22nd season in the major leagues, Bonds recently confirmed that the San Francisco Giants will not be renewing his contract after 15 seasons with the team.

Along with being the single-season and career home run leader, he is the only member of the 500 career home run/500 career steals club. He’s won seven MVP awards – four more than the next closest player.

Although Bonds is arguably the most successful player in MLB history, his memorabilia isn’t attracting many buyers.

“At this stage of his career, his stuff should be selling well, and it’s not,” said Bill Ford, owner of Main Street Sportscards, 305 Main St. “I don’t know which has made him less popular: the steroid thing or the fact that he doesn’t [get] along with the media.”

Ford graduated from Iowa State in 1990 and opened his sports memorabilia store in 1991.

“Seems like a waste to me, but if he’s got three-fourths of a million dollars to spend on it, just to give it away, I guess he can do with it what he wants. To me, that’s a bad investment,” Ford said.

Having bought and sold sports artifacts for 16 years, Ford doesn’t want to see the ball tainted without conclusive evidence to back up the steroid allegations.