Bonds may say he’s stupid but I say Ecko’s move is brilliant marketing.

I wonder how much he just decided to do it because it was cool, vs. how much he calculated a likely return on investment.

My bet is that Ecko’s success comes from intuition, that here he doesn’t really care about the cost, and knows he can only guess the benefit. With good instincts, you hit enough home runs with those unpredictable benefits that you have to swing at them. Don’t let bean counters and committees hold you back, because mediocre efforts that take no risks reap no rewards.

(For the record, I voted to bestow it.)

Here’s Sports Illustrated photographer Brad Mangin again, this time with his photos of Barry Bonds home number 756. It’s been fun spending so many games in the last few weeks at the fence with Brad and his assistants. (He also shot #755 in San Diego, and many others that are showing up in the magazine and web site.)

I’ve watched more baseball in the last month than I had in the rest of my life, and I’m glad I was able to be there for the fireworks and all the rest… it was amazing.