April 13, 2011

Don Hooton has spent the past seven years of his life telling young people about the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs. He does this with good reason. He blames the suicide of his 17-year-old son Taylor on depression caused by anabolic steroid use.

So when his phone rang a little after 4:30 p.m. CT Wednesday in the Dallas suburbs and he heard the news that Barry Bonds had just been found guilty of the federal crime of obstruction of justice, with a mistrial declared on three other counts, Hooton thought for a moment. Then he realized his message to kids had just become a whole lot stronger.

“It’s a great day,” Hooton, president of the Taylor Hooton Foundation, said to me on that phone call. “It’s a wonderful day. There’s the technicality of what he was guilty of and what the jury couldn’t decide on, but the overall message is that word: guilty. He got caught. He got caught as the cheat that he is.”

Bonds might never serve a day in prison, but that doesn’t matter much to Hooton. Major League Baseball’s disgraced home run king has now been convicted of something — anything —involving his use of performance-enhancing drugs. The words “Bonds” and “guilty” can now appear in the same sentence. Let others worry about the legal mumbo-jumbo. The symbolism of Bonds getting caught and being declared guilty of a felony is good enough for him.

“It’s about the kids,” Hooton said. “Before the verdict, I was hoping the embarrassment Bonds has been going through, having his name and reputation dragged through the mud in that courtroom, would be enough of a deterrent to help young people decide the path they should be taking, that they should choose not to take performance-enhancing drugs.

“But now, with a guilty verdict, even on just that one count, it hopefully sends a clear message to kids that cheating doesn’t pay, that there is a long-term downside for doing these drugs. ..”

For full article please visit:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2011-04-13-bonds-verdict_N.htm

Los Angeles Times

April 13, 2011

After a government prosecution that lasted nearly seven years, a federal jury Wednesday convicted home-run king Barry Bonds on one charge of obstruction of justice  for impeding a grand jury investigation into illegal steroid distribution.

The judge in the case declared a mistrial on three remaining counts.

Bonds was charged with four federal felony counts for denying under oath to a grand jury in 2003 that he had knowingly used steroids or human growth hormones and for maintaining that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had never injected him.

The probe that ensnared Bonds began with an investigation of a Bay Area laboratory that was selling illegal performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes, and expanded to include athletes who lied to investigators. Bonds, holder of major-league baseball’s hallowed record for most home runs, was the probe’s highest-profile quarry.

Prosecutors said Bonds lied repeatedly to a grand jury to protect his reputation. Defense attorneys charged the government had a vendetta against Bonds and used lying witnesses to try to convict him.

Authorities first became interested in Bonds in the early 2000s after learning that the San Francisco Giants superstar had appeared in an advertisement for the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was authorities said was selling designer steroids and other drugs to professional athletes.

Bonds was one of 30 athletes summoned before the grand jury that was investigating the lab. Although given immunity in connection with illegal drug use, Bonds insisted that his trainer told him the two steroids he was taking were flaxseed oil and arthritis cream.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Bonds tested positive for a steroid and a fertility drug in a urine sample taken several months before his grand jury evidence. They also gave the jury a surreptitious recording of Anderson discussing how he injected steroids in response to a question about Bonds.

Anderson refused to testify in the trial and was jailed for its duration. He has spent nearly two years behind bars, mostly because he would not cooperate with the investigation of Bonds.

Jurors heard three key prosecution witnesses: Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend who was close to Bonds for 10 years until the two had a falling-out in early 2003; Kimberly Bell, Bonds’ girlfriend of nine years; and Kathy Hoskins, Steve’s younger sister, who said she was packing Bonds’ clothes for a road trip when she saw Anderson inject the ballplayer.

Prosecutors also presented four former major-league players who testified that Anderson supplied them with drugs that they said they knew were designed to boost performance and escape detection.

Each count against Bonds carried a possible maximum sentence of 10 years, but federal sentencing guidelines recommend 15 to 21 months in prison for a conviction.

WOODLAWN, Md. — One of the hundreds of high school students attending an assembly Monday about the dangers of performance-enhancing substances wanted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to answer this question:

Why is there more drug use in baseball than football?

Goodell began his response this way: “I’m not sure that’s true.”

While making sure to emphasize that he believes the NFL’s drug-testing program is a strong one, Goodell acknowledged that it can be improved, and said the league will insist that its next labor deal with players — whenever there is one — includes testing for human growth hormone.

“We’d be naive to think that people aren’t trying to cheat the system. But we have to have the best testing program to be able to offset that,” Goodell told reporters after joining Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, to speak to area students at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore County.

“I made it clear to the kids in the room today that the integrity of the NFL is critical, and we need to make sure we’re doing everything possible to have the best drug program in sports,” Goodell said. “Making changes to our program is critical and we have done that over the years. We need to do more, including the inclusion of HGH testing.”

Preventing athletes from using HGH is a key target in the anti-doping movement. The substance is hard to detect, and athletes are believed to choose HGH for a variety of benefits, whether they be real or only perceived — including increasing speed and improving vision.

HGH use is prohibited by the NFL, but the league’s old collective bargaining agreement did not have testing for it. Goodell thinks players “recognize the importance of” adding HGH tests.

The NFL Players Association has opposed blood tests in the past but did say last summer it would be open to hearing a proposal from the league during CBA talks. Goodell said Monday that HGH was “part of a broader proposal on where we go with our drug program.”

NFLPA spokesman George Atallah declined to comment Monday.

CBA negotiations broke off March 11, and the old deal expired. The NFLPA said it would no longer function as a union, and a group of players filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota. The owners then locked out the players. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday on the players’ request for a preliminary injunction to lift the lockout.

Some former NFL players also sued, and the cases were consolidated Monday.

The retirees said that loss of NFL revenue from an extended lockout would jeopardize their retirement plans and other benefits subsidized by the league. In court documents filed Monday in Minnesota, attorneys for the NFL argued the retirees don’t have standing to ask that the lockout be blocked, because they aren’t current employees and aren’t being locked out.

Goodell wouldn’t say whether he’s optimistic about what will happen in court.

“We’re going to present our case, and the judge will make their decision,” he said.

Asked whether owners have decided under what rules the league would operate if the injunction is granted, Goodell said: “We’re prepared for every outcome. I can promise you that. And we don’t believe this is an issue that should be decided in court. This is an issue that should be decided at the bargaining table. We have to get back to that bargaining table, no matter what the outcome of litigation is.”

Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said he talked briefly to Goodell about the NFL lockout.

“The players and the owners have got to understand that this is bigger than them, and that we’ve got a lot of folks who are spending their hard-earned dollars to come and watch football games, and many of them struggle for those dollars, and there are a lot of people out work,” Cummings said. “I would hope that Congress would not have to get involved in this. … That is not something I would advocate for. We have enough problems we’re dealing with, as it is.”

Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

Updated: April 5, 2011, 4:44 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO — Making a final appeal to jurors before they decide whether Barry Bonds lied about taking steroids, defense attorney Allen Ruby offered a simple explanation Thursday for why the government has spent years pursuing the home run king: “He was Barry.”

Bonds is charged with lying to a grand jury during a Dec. 4, 2003, session when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs and said no one but his doctors gave him an injection of any kind. He was indicted more than three years ago.

Ruby told the jury during his closing argument that two prosecutors attempted to “intimidate” Bonds during that 2003 court appearance by switching places 36 times to question the slugger.

“The prosecutors were being very cagey,” said Ruby, alleging the government lawyers were attempting to confuse and humiliate Bonds. Ruby said the prosecutors failed — and they were angered by Bonds’ demeanor.

“He was not intimidated,” Ruby said. “A lot of the venom in the government’s pursuit here was because he wasn’t intimidated. He was not subservient. He was Barry.”

Ruby said witness accounts that made it sound as if Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, may have injected the baseball star numerous times were simply “made up” by Bonds’ enemies.

Ruby followed Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow to the lectern Thursday. Earlier, Nedrow opened his closing argument by urging the jury of eight women and four men to find Bonds guilty.

“All he had to do was tell the truth,” Nedrow said in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston. “He chose not to tell the truth and that’s why he’s here.”

Bonds is charged with three counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. Bonds, owner of the major league records for home runs in a career and a season, told the grand jury in 2003 that Anderson misled him into taking designer steroids by calling them flaxseed oil and arthritis cream.

Nedrow told the jury that Bonds’ story was obviously false because the former baseball star was a rich, professional athlete who paid close attention to his body.

“He makes $17 million a year and doesn’t know what he’s taking,” Nedrow rhetorically asked the jury. “That’s his account and it’s an account that’s false.”

Nedrow alleged that Bonds lied about his drug use because he wanted to keep it from his famous father, former Major League Baseball player Bobby Bonds and from his team, the San Francisco Giants.

“The defendant had a secret and he didn’t want his dad to know about it,” Nedrow said. Bobby Bonds died of cancer in 2003.

Dressed in a dark blue suit, Bonds leaned forward at the defense table and occasionally sipped from a water bottle during closing arguments. He sat attentively between two of his lawyers as Nedrow discussed the testimony of Bonds’ former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, and his estranged best friend and ex-business partner, Steve Hoskins. Bell testified about physical and behavioral changes she witnessed during her nine years with Bonds, including hair loss, acne, shrunken testicles and mood swings. Nedrow alleged those were side effects of steroid use.

Nedrow played a recording Hoskins secretly made of a conversation he had with Anderson. Hoskins testified that he made the recording in 2003 to prove to Bonds’ father that his son was using steroids. Nedrow said the recording shows the two men discussing injecting Bonds with designer steroids.

Hoskins “cared about the defendant,” Nedrow said. “He was worried about the dangerous effects of the drugs.”

The defense team contends that Hoskins made the recording in an attempt to extort Bonds. In early 2003, Bonds accused Hoskins of selling memorabilia without Bonds’ permission. Bonds severed his business relationship with Hoskins and also asked the FBI to investigate Hoskins.

Bonds’ trial, now in its 12th day, has generally attracted little interest locally but the San Francisco courtroom where the case is being tried was packed on Thursday with spectators and media.

Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

ESPN.com news services

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds’ confident defense team rested its case Wednesday without calling a single witness, just minutes after a federal judge accepted the government’s request to dismiss one of the five counts against the home run king.

Prosecutors called 25 witnesses to the stand over 2½ weeks, but the defense needed just one minute to present its side. The jury of eight women and four men barely had time to get settled in the courtroom before being told to return Thursday morning for closing arguments.

“We are expecting that you will get this case for decision tomorrow,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said to the jurors. “Tomorrow will be the last day.”

Once indicted on as many as 15 counts, Bonds will face just four charges when the jury starts deliberations in a court house less than two miles from the ballpark where he set records for the Giants. A decision could come as early as Friday — when the World Series championship flag is raised in San Francisco for the first time.

Faced with a defense motion that Illston was prepared to grant, prosecutors dropped the count accusing Bonds of lying to a grand jury in 2003 when he said prior to that season he never took anything other than vitamins from trainer Greg Anderson.

The defense said the government presented no evidence that Bonds was given tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and a testosterone ointment, designer steroids known as “The Clear” and “The Cream,” before 2003. Bonds testified in front of the grand jury that Anderson told him the substances were flaxseed oil and arthritic balm.

The remaining counts charge Bonds with lying when he denied knowingly receiving steroids from Anderson, denied getting human growth hormone from Anderson and said he only allowed himself to be injected by doctors. The final count accuses Bonds of obstruction of justice.

Illston issued an order Wednesday night rejecting three of the government’s proposed seven answers from Bonds to be included in the jury instructions for the obstruction count — accusations he was “intentionally evasive, false or misleading” in addition to the false statement charges. The four additional statements involve Bonds saying Anderson always gave him “The Clear” and “The Cream” at the ballpark and not at home; that Bonds didn’t keep track of the number of times he used those substances; that he evaded answering whether Anderson gave him anything that required a syringe; and he evaded answering whether Anderson gave him injectable testosterone.

Illston is considering a request from Anderson’s lawyers that he be released from prison now that both sides have rested. The government asked for Anderson to be held until the verdict.

On the 11th day of the trial, the defense presentation lasted about the time it took Bonds to circle the bases after one of his record 762 home runs. Lawyer Cristina Arguedas read the jury one answer from the grand jury testimony of former Bonds’ girlfriend Kimberly Bell in which Bell said she wrote her own diary. That conflicts with Bell’s trial testimony, in which she said ghost writer Aphrodite Jones collaborated on the diary.

Defense lawyer Allen Ruby had said Tuesday he might call up to six witnesses, including Bonds, and every spectator seat in the court room was filled in anticipation. But Bonds’ never took the stand to tell the jury his side of the story, signaling the defense believes the government has failed to prove its charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Just one witness, former Bonds’ personal shopper Kathy Hoskins, gave eyewitness testimony that corroborated any of the charges. She said she once saw Anderson inject Bonds near the belly button — she didn’t identify what substance was being injected.

With Anderson in jail on a contempt citation for his refusal to testify, prosecutors had to rely on witnesses who put Bonds near Anderson and needles, along with evidence that Anderson was supplying players with performance-enhancing drugs.

If Bonds is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison on each count. However, federal guidelines suggest a total sentence of 15 to 21 months. For similar offenses in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) case, Illston sentenced cyclist Tammy Thomas to six months of home confinement and track coach Trevor Graham to one year of home confinement.

Illston denied a defense motion to strike testimony that Bonds’ testicles shrank, which prosecutors alleged is a side effect of steroids use. She also turned down a defense motion to strike testimony from former AL MVP Jason Giambi and three former players — Jeremy Giambi, Marvin Benard and Randy Velarde — all of whom detailed how Anderson supplied them with steroids and human growth hormone.

With the trial nearing its end, there were interjections of humor — or at least attempts — by the lawyers. When Illston asked for a “ballpark figure” on the length of closing argument, Ruby estimated three hours and told her, “I think the football people call it a hard cap.”

When Ruby said he planned to split the closing with Arguedas, Illston said, “The court does not give you permission to tag team.”

Ruby then took a shot at the prosecutors, saying, “We’re not going to do that like they did at the grand jury,” prompting Illston to respond, “Because there’s a judge here, I get to tell you.”

She ultimately told them they could share the argument but could not keep alternating.

ESPN.com news services

Whenever a new collective bargaining agreement is reached with the NFLPA, the league is insistent that HGH testing for all NFL players be included in the deal, according to a report on FoxSports.com.

“We want it. We think it’s necessary. We’re going to ensure that it’s done,” NFL vice president and general counsel Adolpho Birch said, according to the report. “That’s something very important to us and the integrity of our game. We believe some of the basis for going slowly on it before has been addressed. At this point, it’s proper for it to be an active part of our program.”

Birch said the NFL and the NFLPA representatives had discussed the matter prior to the end of labor talks March 11.

HGH was previously on the NFL’s list of banned substances, but was not tested for in the league’s previous drug-testing program.

In other lockout-related news, the NFL players concluded their annual meetings Thursday while receiving words of support from former players.

The NFL Players Association dissolved as a union hours before being locked out by the league March 11. Now it looks toward April 6, when a lawsuit filed by 10 players requesting an injunction to end the lockout will be heard in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minn.

Nolan Harrison, the director of former player services for the NFLPA, says 215 former players spoke with members of the organization’s executive board, executive director DeMaurice Smith and current players during the last few days.

“Letting our guys know what the course is from here and where we are as an association, that’s one of the main things this was about,” Harrison said, adding the former players have been briefed on the lawsuit.

“All of us realize we are teammates, from the guys who play today to the guys who wore leather helmets. Every generation was represented, from guys my dad watched play to my former teammates to guys who were in preschool when I played.”

Smith met with leaders of the former players, held a question-and-answer session with all the veterans and gave a speech encouraging unity, Harrison said.

More than 100 current players attended nine days of meetings. Harrison encouraged them to speak with former players who were involved in the 1987 strike to “get firsthand knowledge of what it’s like and what will happen.”

No negotiations are scheduled, although earlier this week Smith did invite NFL lawyers to discuss a settlement of the lawsuit, a request the league turned down. The two sides last met March 11 at a federal mediator’s office in Washington. Talks collapsed and the union decertified. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and seven others put their names on the lawsuit, then the NFL enacted the lockout.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urged a renewal of negotiations several times during the owners’ meetings this week.

“The faster we can get back to mediation, the faster we will get an agreement,” Goodell said. “We made a lot of progress in mediation. The 17 days we were there forced us all to consider our positions, find the common ground, negotiate and come up with solutions for the issues that we’ve all addressed that are important to the game, important to the players and important to the clubs. I’m hopeful that we’ll get back there and resume them.”

But Harrison noted the optimism by the players — current and former — about prospects for victory in court.

“We put together an agreement between the leadership here that supports all the NFLPA is trying to accomplish in the class action,” he said. “There was unanimous support for the class-action suit.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

http://sports.espn.go.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds’ trial was a lot like high school chemistry and biology class Thursday.

After former Bonds business partner and childhood friend Steve Hoskins finished a cross-examination in which he admitted his previous statements included inconsistencies and inaccuracies, Larry Bowers of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency took the witness stand for more than four hours of mind-numbing testimony on the whats, whys and hows of steroids, human growth hormone and changes they cause to the body.

Bonds is charged with lying when he told a grand jury in 2003 that he didn’t knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs. The jury of eight women and four men was treated to an Advanced Placement class in androgen receptors and acromegaly, a condition in which there is too much HGH in the body.

Prosecutors allege Bonds’ feet, hands and head grew due to use of HGH, and Bowers testified as an expert witness about scientific studies alleging HGH abuse causes soft tissue swelling. Defense lawyer Allen Ruby tried to make the science sound like mumbo jumbo.

“If someone abuses human growth hormone, how much does their head grow?” Ruby said. “Does it grow twice as big?”

Many of the times Ruby asked a pointed question, Bowers answered that there were too many variables to give a single answer.

“You know the difference between theories and proof?” Ruby asked sarcastically.

Bonds, in a dark suit, light pink shirt and dark pink tie, read through a binder book at his defense table. Jurors attentively followed, but they didn’t take as many notes as they did during the testimony of Hoskins on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

The trial hasn’t exactly been must-see drama in the Bay Area, where Bonds set major league season (73) and career (762) records for home runs during a career than ended in 2007.

When Bowers began his afternoon testimony, just 27 of the approximately 100 seats in the courtroom were occupied, and eight of those were in the Bonds family row. Having experienced the uncomfortable wood bench earlier in the week, three people in that row brought pillows with them.

Only three witnesses testified during the trial’s first week, and there is no session on Fridays. When the trial resumes Monday, the government intends to call IRS Special Agent Mike Wilson, Bonds’ former girlfriend Kimberly Bell, former San Francisco Giants head athletic trainer Stan Conte and former Bonds personal shopper Kathy Hoskins.

Bowers, USADA’s chief science officer, described how the organization helped unmask the designer steroid dubbed “the clear,” which turned out to be Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). Bonds admitted taking “the clear” but told the grand jury that personal trainer Greg Anderson — who is in prison for refusing to testify — informed him it was flaxseed oil.

Bowers also testified about side effects of steroids use, such as acne breakout and “bloating.” Looking ahead to Bell’s expected testimony, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey D. Nedrow asked Bowers what effect steroid abuse could have on testicles.

“They would shrink,” Bowers said.

Ruby confronted Bowers with the claim that any of the theories he espoused were “just speculation.”

Out of the presence of the jury, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston denied Ruby’s motion to exclude evidence on acromegaly. Ruby claimed there was insufficient scientific evidence to allow the evidence.

Hoskins, his answers halting at times when he was confronted with inconsistencies, testified Wednesday that he suspected Bonds was using steroids from 1999-2003, the year he was fired as Bonds’ business partner. Hoskins also testified that Bonds’ shoe and hat size grew — he had been in charge of ordering Bonds’ spikes and keeping his uniforms in order.

During cross-examination Thursday, Hoskins admitted that he paid about $10,000 in legal fees for Bell, which she repaid after she sold her house. He also couldn’t recall precisely the allegations his sister made against Bonds that he passed on to federal investigators.

At one point under questioning from Ruby, Hoskins appeared to get confused over which of Bonds’ Bentleys they were talking about.

“He had so many cars, I don’t remember,” Hoskins said.

Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

The article, entitled “The Correlation Between Steroids & Injuries in Baseball,” points out that, at the height of the Steroid Era—between 1992 and 2001—the number of player on the disabled list (DL) increased 32% from 352 to 465. Also, time spent on the DL list rose 55%  from approximately 18,000 to near 28,000.  These statistics mean that there were more players injured, and, on average, they were injured for longer periods of time.The fact that this increase in injury coincided with Steroid Era is no more surprising than the explosion of offensive output that put baseball back in the limelight.

The author also states that before the Steroid Era, the types of injuries that used to be very rare among players have now become more common—patellar tendonitis, strained rib cages (oblique strains), torn hamstrings, torn rotator cuffs and ruptured Achilles tendons all occurs when muscles rip away from ligaments that can no longer support them. This makes sense considering the repetitive powerful movement of pitching and hitting.  In fact, Tommy John surgery, which replaces a ligament in the elbow, used to be rare before the Steroid Era, but now it is commonplace.

Some athletes think that they can add HGH into the mix to supplement their increased muscle size. While HGH has been shown to increase tendon and ligament size, it is also a serious threat in and of itself, and it fails to cause significant enough increase to keep up with the ballooning muscles. The bottom line: The longer you use steroids, the more likely an injury is.

In the end, injuries are just one more reason steroids are not worth the risk. Athletes using them to enhance their performance may injure themselves so severely the will no longer be able to perform at all. Thus, in addition to the ethical considerations and health hazards, the threat of injury is just one more reason to say “no” to steroids.

Attributed Sources

Anonymous. “The Correlation Between Steroids & Injuries in Baseball” Baseball’s Steroid Era. http://thesteroidera.blogspot.com/2006/08/correlation-between-steroids-injuries.html

Contador is a three-time Tour de France winner whose 2010 yellow jersey was threatened when he tested positive for clenbuterol during last year’s Tour. Earlier this week, Spanish officials bought his defense that the trace amounts of clenbuterol came from tainted meat he’d eaten.  The decision means that Contador will retain his 2010 Tour title and is free to ride in both national and international races for the time being.

However, the decision by the Spanish federation can still be appealed by WADA and the International Cycling Union.  If the Court of Arbitration for Sport finds reason to think that Contador knowingly took steroids, the decision could be overturned. Contador insists that he did not benefit from Spanish patriotism and called for changes in anti-doping procedures.

Taurasi is a WNBA all-star who has led the league in scoring for the past four consecutive years. Her positive tests for modafinil came as a shock to many Americans because Taurasi is a dynamic point guard who was pivotal to the US Olympic gold medals in 2004 and 2008.  If the Turkish Basketball Federation banned her for more than six months, she would not be allowed to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games. Also, there was her multimillion dollar contract with the Phoenix Mercury hanging in the balance.

Interestingly, these cases have shown us that politics may play a pivotal role in whether or not a player is found guilty of doping. Voepel writes that many in the international community are still suspicious of the Spanish federation’s verdict on Contador because they think that federation officials were protecting their star rider. Conversely, the Turkish lab who tested Taurasi entered a plea of nolo contendere –retracting their results without admitting any wrongdoing.—and thus inspiring suspicions of sabotage.

So, while Contador insists that he will retire if found guilty, Taurasi refuses to go back to Turkey because the lucrative salary is not worth her reputation, career and Olympic glory. In all of this mess, it is difficult for sporting fans to know where the truth lies. Perhaps a good staring point would be a centralized and uniform set of rules clearly stating what cheating is and what it is not. But, as WADA is an international body, it is likely to have countries battling for influence. So, let the games begin!

Anderson is Bonds’s former trainer. He is also a long-time friend. While such loyalty may be inspiring under different circumstance,  it’s  often indicative of an abuse of power in the sports world.: the athlete says  the word, and the trainer does as he’s told. This leaves many in the sports world wondering if Bonds has a fall man.

As both sides look to the upcoming trial—slated to begin March 21—Bonds is expected to enter a plea of not guilty for the third time since he was first indicted in 2007.  The legal morass surrounding the Bond’s case has had Anderson in and out of prisons from 2006 onward.

Anderson ‘s lawyer, Mark Gregaros, says Anderson will once again refuse to testify against Bonds one a March 1 pretrial meeting. If he refuses, Judge Susan Ilston has said she will keep him in prison for contempt of court through the duration of the trial. Anderson is currently in a California correctional facility on charges of tax evasion.

Anderson is the crux of Bond’s case because several key pieces of evidence seized during a 2003 BALCO raid –including doping calendars— are said to belong to Anderson. However, if Anderson will not testify to the authenticity of the documents, then Judge Ilston will rule that they are not admissible as pieces of evidence (This is not speculation, she has already ruled as such.)

With Ilston barring the hard evidence, the government prosecution has a contingency plan of including  testimony from a variety of former NFL and MLB athletes testifying that  Anderson gave them performance-ehnancing drugs as well as instructions on how to use them and their anticipated effects. Such testimony is intended to cast doubts on the veracity of Bonds’ claim that he could have unintentionally taken steroids.

Additionally, Judge Ilston today announced that she will allow a 2003  locker room conversation that could incriminate Bonds. The conversation is between Anderson, and Bonds’ former business partner, Steve Hoskins,  who  secretly recorded the conversation. In the tape, Hoskins and Anderson discuss injections and urine tests, but no  particular substances are mentioned. HOwever, Anderson is heard to say “…everything I’ve been doing at this point, it’s all undetectable” (Reuters.)

Ultimately, the biggest player in the Bond’s trial may be sitting in a jail cell instead of the witness stand. However, as the government’s case against Bonds is strong, we are sure Barry will be right where he belongs, in the hot seat.

Attributed Sources

Macur, Juliet. “Focus at Bonds Trial May Be Empty Seat.” New York Times 11 Feb. 2011.

Henderson, Peter. “Secret recording may be heard at Bonds trial.” Reuters. 15 Feb. 2011.