Barry Bonds' No. 756 May Have Been Artificially Aided - No, Not By Steroids

Mike Bacsik isn't the world's best pitcher. He has a 5.46 ERA in 118 career innings, gives up two home runs every nine innings and hasn't pitched in the bigs since 2007. But the guy did give up home run No. 756 to Barry Bonds. And that's kinda cool...

But not to his 2007 Nationals teammate Tim Redding, who accused Bacsik on Thursday of throwing a softy to Bonds for the monumental home run:

"I mean, the guy that gave it up, I never want to speak ill of anybody," Redding said. "Mike Bacsik is a stand-up guy. He's a little quirky, but he's a nice guy, means well. I think he wanted to give it up. And he can say what he wants in defense or whatnot, but doing the chart, I mean, every ball that Barry hit, the ball was center cut, right down the middle, fastball. You know, I think maybe inside he was thinking he was going to get a little bit more publicity.  Maybe, you know, publicity and some money out of it, appearances, stuff like that."

If this is true, crafty move by Mr. Bacsik. Who can really blame the guy? Prior to 2007, he had seen time with three teams in four years from 2001-2004; he wasn't very good at all. Maybe Bacsik knew at that point that All-Star games and prestigious awards weren't in his future, so he did the next best thing: associated closely with someone much, much better than him.

Bacsik rebuked the thought later on Twitter:

Well just got a call from Bill Ladson of washingtonnationals.com and Tim Redding said he believes I tried to give up homer#756 Good teammate

Was Bacisk being sarcastic when he wrote "good teammate"? Or did he mean it as in, "good teammate, for putting me back into the spotlight and giving me maybe, you know, publicity and some money out of it, appearances, stuff like that"?

Find out in Bacisk's new book, "Record Breaker: How To Throw Meatballs With History On The Line." In stores now!