Outlet for 'roid rage, if baseball fans like, By: Bill Shaikin

Tom Wilson would like to sell you a foam asterisk -- same as those foam fingers fans wave, except in the shape of a star.

April 22, 2007

The fans come, millions more than ever before. The television networks pay, millions more than ever before. The teams profit, millions more than ever before.

The steroid era did not kill baseball, or injure it. Baseball absorbed a pretty stiff beating at the hands of Congress, and not undeservedly.

But after the last strike, attendance tumbled. After the steroid hearings, attendance soared. The fans have made their peace with the steroid era.

Tom Wilson doesn't buy it. He's a fan, a producer from Los Feliz. He loves nothing more than a day at Dodger Stadium.

Baseball sacrificed its integrity, he says, and there ought to be a way for fans to express their disgust without depriving themselves of a trip to the ballpark. He has just the way, or so he hopes.

He'd like to sell you a foam asterisk — same as those foam fingers fans wave, except in the shape of a star. Booing isn't enough, he says, and throwing a syringe on the field is too much. Wave the asterisk, and take a stand.

He lugged 100 of them to Dodger Stadium two years ago, on a day the Giants were in town. He says he sold out, before guards shooed him away. He carted 1,000 to Shea Stadium in New York last year, on a day the Giants were in town, and he says he sold out there too.

The closer Barry Bonds gets to Hank Aaron's all-time record, the better for Wilson's business. This is about Bonds, isn't it?

"It's not about hating," he said. "It's about love of the game. It's about Barry Bonds and everybody else. He's not alone."

Bonds and the Giants come to Dodger Stadium this week, and Wilson would love to see asterisks rippling through the crowd. He won't.

He approached two major novelty manufacturers last year and said both refused to make the asterisk, for fear of losing huge accounts with Major League Baseball. After he found a guy in Texas to make the asterisk, he called around the country but could not find a sports store that would carry it, for the same reason.

We called one of the novelty manufacturers — Wincraft, based in Winona, Minn. — but no one there would talk to us. We called one of the stores Wilson did — Wrigleyville Sports, across the street from Wrigley Field in Chicago — and asked buyer Tim Boucher whether the risk of jeopardizing the license to sell jerseys and caps had influenced the decision not to stock the asterisk.

"Yeah," he said, "to an extent."

We called Aramark Industries, which also turned down Wilson. The company runs team stores at eight major league stadiums.

"Before we introduce anything into any of the team stores, we work with MLB and the teams to make sure it's something they'd be comfortable with," spokesman Dave Freireich said.

Wilson acknowledges he has no market research to prove his asterisk would sell. Marty Brochstein, executive editor of the Licensing Letter, suggested no retailer or manufacturer would jeopardize tens of thousands of dollars per year — or more — in sales to stock an item he called "amusing."

Said Brochstein: "I think it would have a limited life. Obviously, he would follow a certain baseball team around. I can't imagine it would be a big enough business that a guy with an MLB license would even want to raise the issue."

We left a message for Tim Brosnan, the MLB executive vice president for business, so we could ask whether a company really needed to fear losing its license to make or sell official merchandise if it distributed a foam asterisk. His spokeswoman, Susan Goodenow, called us back.

"Baseball is not going to be making a comment on this," she said.

That's probably for the best. It avoids the risk of another mixed message.

Baseball is in business with Bonds, after all. Bonds hired MLB.com to run his website, including his online shop, featuring memorabilia from milestone home runs. An asterisk would ruin the ambience.

Yet Commissioner Bud Selig won't embrace Bonds as he approaches the record. Selig refuses to say whether he will show up to see Bonds break perhaps the most celebrated record in sports.

Selig finally began an investigation last year, more than a year after the infamous congressional hearing. After the book "Game of Shadows" highlighted Bonds' alleged steroid use in compelling detail, Selig appointed former Sen. George Mitchell to report how — and how widely — steroids had infected baseball. Mitchell started work 13 months ago — the same month as the Iraq Study Group, which issued its report last December.

Selig likes to say that baseball now has the toughest drug policy among the major sports. He points out that MLB awarded $450,000 to Don Catlin, the renowned Los Angeles scientist, to develop a urine test to detect human growth hormone, even as two types of blood tests could be available soon.

"We've chosen the most difficult road," Catlin said. "The others have by far the real money — millions — and they've been working for years. We've been working for less than a year, and we don't have millions."

If the fans have forgiven baseball for its steroid era — or shrugged it off amid the mixed messages that might drive a fan to make a foam asterisk — Aaron has not. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he would not attend when Bonds broke the record.

"I'm [73] years old, and I'm not hopping on a plane and flying all the way to San Francisco for anybody," Aaron said.

One week later, he hopped on a plane and flew all the way to Los Angeles, for ceremonies honoring Jackie Robinson. That's a gesture that speaks volumes, without an asterisk.