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Barry Bonds (Juiced Merge)

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Dispatch

3/26/06


Appointment expected

With opening day only a week away, it’s highly likely commissioner Bud Selig will appoint someone to investigate Barry Bonds’ ties to steroids within the next few days. Selig, fatigued by travel from Milwaukee to Arizona and the World Baseball Classic sites this spring, spent the weekend resting and clearing his head before publicly diving into the Bonds matter.

According to highly placed sources, Selig has been wrestling with the scope and language of an investigation. It appears Bonds’ alleged flagrant use of steroids, as reported in the book Game of Shadows, which largely followed the same trails as federal prosecutors in the BALCO investigation, will be the primary focus but that could open doors involving other players, including Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield.
Bonds has had an amazing spring considering questions about his knee and the storm clouds over his career. He entered the weekend having gone 9 for 13 with four home runs and eight RBI. He was scratched from the San Francisco Giants’ lineup for an exhibition game yesterday because of a strained left elbow. Giants trainer Stan Conte stressed the move was strictly a precaution for the seven-time National League MVP, who’s closing on Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron atop baseball’s career home-run list.
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ABJ

3/27/06

Bonds may not take another spring swing

JANIE McCAULEY

Associated Press

<!-- begin body-content -->SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Barry Bonds might not take another Cactus League swing in Arizona, choosing instead to rest his tender left elbow and surgically repaired right knee before the season starts.
Bonds was examined by two doctors Sunday for evaluation of his inflamed elbow, and the San Francisco Giants were hopeful the slugger would resume on-field baseball activities Monday.
"The doctors were very happy with what they saw in the examination," team spokesman Blake Rhodes said.
The Giants break spring training on Wednesday, though Bonds has said he plans to return to the Bay Area a day ahead of the team and work out Wednesday at the stadium in San Francisco. The Giants host the Angels on Thursday and Bonds is still projected to play in that game as well as Saturday's exhibition in Oakland. San Francisco opens the season April 3 at San Diego.
"Thursday and Saturday, that's what we're looking at," manager Felipe Alou said after the Giants' 6-5 loss to the San Diego Padres in Peoria. "I wasn't really concerned yesterday. ... It's nice to know for sure it's nothing serious."
Alou certainly would like to see Bonds in left field again before the opener, though Bonds potentially could be the designated hitter in both those games if the Angels agree to let him do it in the Giants' NL ballpark.
Bonds, scratched from the lineup Saturday with what was then called a strained elbow, seemed upbeat during a brief stop at Scottsdale Stadium for treatment before heading out. He was examined by Giants team doctor Ken Akizuki and Angels orthopedist Lewis Yocum.
The seven-time NL MVP, 10-for-16 with four homers this spring, underwent an MRI exam Saturday that revealed inflammation in the back of his elbow - apparently unrelated to the surgery he had April 20, 1999, to repair a damaged triceps tendon near his left elbow that landed him on the disabled list for seven weeks.
"The trainer had a pretty good feeling this (wasn't) 1999," Alou said.
By Sunday, Bonds had full range of motion in the joint, the swelling was gone and he was not in pain, trainer Stan Conte said.
"If this were a regular-season game, he could probably play," Conte said. "We're trying to be ultraconservative. He shouldn't have any restrictions, but we'll see how he comes through."
Bonds, facing more scrutiny than ever after last week's release of the book "Game of Shadows" detailing his alleged longtime steroids regimen, has been optimistic about starting the season healthy and resuming his chase of the home run record. In the final season of a $90 million, five-year contract, the 41-year-old Bonds has 708 homers - seven shy of passing Babe Ruth and 48 from breaking Hank Aaron's mark of 755.
Bonds' teammates aren't worried about him being ready. Even after missing the first five months of the 2005 season following three operations on his right knee, his swing was still intact in the 14 games he did play in September.
He hit five home runs and drove in 10 runs.
"He's the kind of guy who can come back after a two- or three-month period and do what he's used to doing," said Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel, who won his 10th Gold Glove award last season at age 38.
"He's one of those patient hitters at the plate and he has natural ability. We hope he'll be OK. You don't want to go into the beginning of the season hurt or with any sore muscles."
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:slappy:

Bonds proclaims 'my life is in shambles'
Slugger 'just trying to stay sane,' but also upbeat amid steroid controversy

Updated: 7:23 p.m. ET March 27, 2006
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Seven home runs shy of passing Babe Ruth, this should be a time of unbridled joy and excitement for Barry Bonds.

Not so, he says.

“My life is in shambles. It is crazy,” Bonds said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. “It couldn’t get any crazier. I’m just trying to stay sane.”

Then, clearly joking, he went for shock value:

“Go to the Empire State Building and jump off, commit suicide and people can say, ’Barry Bonds is finally dead.’ Except for in San Francisco,” he said. “I’ll leave something for them.”

Despite those pronouncements, the 41-year-old Bonds has been upbeat and approachable — by his standards — this spring despite the recent release of “Game of Shadows,” the book detailing his alleged longtime regimen for taking performance-enhancing drugs.

He appears unfazed at the plate. He’s 10-for-16 with four homers in exhibition play despite being held out of San Francisco’s lineup for the third straight day because of a tender left elbow.

Bonds starts the season next Monday at San Diego with 708 homers, close to Ruth and 48 from breaking Hank Aaron’s mark of 755.

Asked how he blocks out distractions, he says:

“What’s my job description? That’s what I’m doing at that time,” Bonds said. “No, I don’t forget (what is said). I will never forget. I forgive you but I don’t forget. I forgive everybody.”

Bonds teased about starting the season on the disabled list, — saying “it could happen” — then changed his stance completely and said he “will” play in one of the Giants’ exhibition games back in the Bay Area later this week.

Bonds certainly looks healthy and vibrant, though still a little heavier than usual.

He spent the morning slurping a smoothie while sitting in his corner locker, and wrestling with his personal videographer in the clubhouse. He stopped by the card table to socialize with teammates, too. Later, he had a lengthy sitdown with players’ union head Donald Fehr.

Bonds is scheduled to return to California on Tuesday — one day before the Giants officially break camp in Arizona — and work out Wednesday in San Francisco.

Bonds played in only 14 games last season, all in September, following three operations on his troublesome right knee. An exam over the weekend revealed inflammation.

“It’s fine,” Bonds said. “The knee is good. ... I’ve just got to get my strength back. My legs are fine. I just took a couple weeks off from training.”

Bonds joked that he is ready for the season to start because then “it’s closer to being over.” He is in the final year of a $90 million, five-year contract and will be eligible for free agency after the World Series.

Bonds has said he wants to retire in San Francisco, and the Giants realize he is the biggest reason they have drawn 3 million fans a year in each of the first six seasons of their waterfront ballpark — the highest attendance in the National League during that period.

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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ABJ

3/31/06

BALCO founder, fresh from prison, denies giving steroids to Bonds

DAN GOODIN

Associated Press

<!-- begin body-content -->SAN MATEO, Calif. - BALCO founder Victor Conte insisted he never provided performance-enhancing drugs to Barry Bonds and that a new book that makes those claims is "full of outright lies."
Conte spoke Thursday to The Associated Press outside his San Mateo home hours after his release from prison, where he spent four months after pleading guilty to orchestrating an illegal steroids distribution scheme that allegedly involved many high-profile athletes, including Bonds.
Asked whether he gave Bonds performance-enhancing drugs, Conte said: "No, I did not."
A new book, "Game of Shadows," by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, chronicles the founding of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative and details alleged extensive steroid use by Bonds and other baseball stars. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday that former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell will lead an investigation into the claims.
"I plan to provide evidence in the near future to prove that much of what is written in the book is untrue," Conte told the AP. He declined to list specific inaccuracies or what evidence he would provide, but said the book is "about the character assassination of Barry Bonds and myself."
"It's my opinion that the two writers of the book have a disease called fabrication-itis," Conte said.
The book's authors, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, were on an airplane Thursday and not available for comment.
Lisa Johnson, a spokeswoman for Gotham Books, which published "Game of Shadows," said: "Gotham Books stands by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, and we stand by their research."
"We stand by the reporting that Mark and Lance did throughout this story and in all the stories that were published in the paper," said Chronicle executive vice president and editor Phil Bronstein. "And if and when Mr. Conte speaks further about this, I'm sure we'll report about that as well."
Conte was picked up by his family after his 5:30 a.m. release from Taft Correctional Institution, about 40 miles southwest of Bakersfield, according to spokeswoman Mandy Ruff.
About five hours later, Conte arrived at his green two-story house in San Mateo, about 20 miles south of San Francisco, in a white sports utility vehicle with darkened windows. He was carrying a copy of "Game of Shadows."
Wearing blue jeans, a red sweat shirt and a baseball cap, Conte said "it feels great" to be out of prison. He said prison was "like a men's retreat," during which he read, gave music lessons to fellow inmates, coached a sprinting team and participated in a debate about steroids.
Conte founded and managed the Burlingame-based BALCO, where the steroids were sold. He pleaded guilty to money laundering and a steroid distribution charge, and dozens of other charges were dropped as part of his plea deal.
Conte was sentenced in October to four months in prison and four months' home confinement in a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
Baseball investigators could seek to interview Conte about steroid use in the game.
Bonds, who has denied using steroids, was the most prominent athlete linked to BALCO. He testified in December 2003 to the federal grand jury investigating the case but has not been charged with a crime.
Other baseball players linked to BALCO include New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield.
Olympic track and field stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery and former NFL player Bill Romanowski also were called to testify in front of the grand jury. No athletes were charged in the scheme.
Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, was sentenced to three months behind bars and an additional three months of home confinement after pleading guilty to money laundering and a steroid distribution charge.
BALCO vice president James Valente was sentenced to three years' probation, and track coach Remi Korchemny received a year of probation.
---
Associated Press writers Greg Risling in Taft, Calif., and Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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Dispatch

4/3/06

COMMENTARY

Messy affair with Bonds puts baseball in a no-win situation

Monday, April 03, 2006

Greg Cote
THE MIAMI HERALD

<!--PHOTOS--><TABLE class=phototableright align=right border=0><!-- begin large ad code --><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE align=center><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle>
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</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=credit width=200>ERIC RISBERG | ASSOCIATED PRESS </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>Giants slugger Barry Bonds will dominate the 2006 baseball season, with nothing good coming out of it. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


The most controversial, disliked, scandalized, mistrusted figure in all of sports chases the most hallowed, historic record in all of sports, to the awful tune of a season-long soundtrack of booing and derision if not outright hatred.
Nothing about baseball overrides Barry Bonds in 2006. Nothing comes close.
The experimental World Baseball Classic disappears to insignificance now. The supposed retirement of Roger Clemens is relegated to afterthought. The latest installment of Yankees-Red Sox shrinks by comparison.
Particular soaps such as the sale of the Washington Nationals and the possible move of the Florida Marlins to San Antonio are parochial matters off the broad radar. The long, arduous hunt for October, for the World Series, plays out as background stuff.
Bonds is our national sports theater for the spring, summer and fall, and likely beyond. We shall take a seat and find what we are seeing as impossible not to watch as a train wreck unfolding in slow motion.
Nothing happening in any other sport will equal the drama and chaos. It will be terrible and delicious, all at once.
Poor Bonds? No. Please, no. If he is painted into a corner, the brush is in his own hand, dripping.
His defenders see a virulent crusade against him, perhaps one tinged with racism. They note, rightly, that he has never tested positive for steroids. But the new investigative book, Game of Shadows, buoys suspicions with documents and evidence, and leaves little doubt that he used steroids beginning in 1998 for about five seasons.
Juries might convict on circumstantial evidence; so can this baseball jury.
A dilemma is presented, though, to beleaguered baseball commissioner Bud Selig. He got to preen and crow over the better-than-expected debut of his World Baseball Classic but now reality hits him, and won’t soon stop.
Bonds’ chase is no-win for Selig, and for the sport.
Selig comes off as naive or willfully blind if he acts like the ugly cloud isn’t there, like the book doesn’t exist. The San Francisco Giants might be expected to do that, but baseball comes off like a Bonds co-conspirator if it recognizes and honors his historic climb up the home run chart as business as usual.
The alternative, though, is even more ominous. If Selig treats Bonds like a suspect, if the MLB investigation is ongoing as the season continues to play out, it will be tantamount to a declaration: What’s happening is dirty. The record will be tainted.
Selig appointed an independent investigator to probe the veracity of the book. No matter the outcome, it’s lose-lose for Bonds and for baseball.
The one thing baseball still has on the NFL, still does better, is history. And such a big part of that are the revered records — home runs above them all.
Well, the magic season number — 61 — got run asunder, muddied after the fact by suspicions of performanceenhancing drugs. It is 73 now. Bonds owns it, dubiously.
Now the magic career numbers — Babe Ruth’s 714, topped only by Hank Aaron’s 755 — are under assault in a way that makes the whole thing smell and seem fraudulent. Bonds has 708. How many might he have without steroids? Fifty fewer? More?
The point is not to guess. The point is that we’ll never know.
Bonds coming clean publicly, and retiring out of respect for Ruth and Aaron, is the only way his image might get a makeover now. The thing is, Bonds never has seemed to care much what anybody thinks of him.
The shame is not Bonds’ alone to carry. Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro are among pallbearers. Is Sammy Sosa, too? Bonds, 41, will own the records, though, and therefore Bonds will own the greatest burden. He will be the face of this scandal for all time.
Baseball owes it to itself — to Ruth, to Aaron, to its history and integrity — to note Bonds’ eventual home run total with an asterisk, an official acknowledgement of the scandal that enveloped the chase. The asterisk would be unfortunate. It would look ugly. But it would be an accurate reflection of this mess we’ll be watching unfold.
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ABJ

4/4/06

Fan tosses syringe near Bonds

Associated Press

<!-- begin body-content -->SAN DIEGO - A fan tossed a syringe near Barry Bonds as he came off the field in between innings on Monday at Petco Park, and the San Francisco Giants slugger said he picked it up in his glove and carried it off the field.
The syringe apparently did not have a needle.
"I just put it off the field so no one would get hurt," said Bonds, who is under investigation by baseball for alleged steroid use.
The syringe toss occurred after the bottom of the eighth inning of the San Diego Padres' 6-1 win over the Giants.
"If that's what they want to do, embarrass themselves, then that's on them," Bonds said. "That has nothing to do with me at all."
According to the book "Game of Shadows," written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, Bonds used a vast array of performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone, for at least five seasons beginning in 1998. According to the book, Bonds used several substances in various forms, including by injecting himself with a syringe and taking injections from his personal trainer.
Bonds, who has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, was booed often by the sellout crowd of 43,767 on Monday.
"I don't judge them," Bonds said. "I have to concentrate on baseball. I leave that up to you guys to make those statements in the paper."
Richard Andersen, the Padres executive in charge of Petco Park, didn't immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
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Maybe I'm too young to respect the history... but I'm rooting for Bonds to break the record. I think everyone is overly cruel to him. I will say that Bonds is the only athlete I've ever felt sorry for, and I know that my opinions on the subject are in the minority.
 
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BuckWrestler141 said:
Maybe I'm too young to respect the history... but I'm rooting for Bonds to break the record. I think everyone is overly cruel to him. I will say that Bonds is the only athlete I've ever felt sorry for, and I know that my opinions on the subject are in the minority.
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Normally, I'm not one for bagging too much on any athlete, but Bonds has behaved like a worldclass asshole his entire career. He's brought it on himself.
 
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Dispatch

4/6/06

ESPN floats softballs with Bonds series

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Richard Sandomir
THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Bonds on Bonds, the ESPN vanity series that debuted Tuesday night, shows a Barry Bonds that few of us know: He weeps, he talks to his father at his grave site, he mops up the mess from a busted aquarium pipe in his house, he wonders why he is not GQ’s most-hated athlete.

He is, in a production that he sought out and controls, a new man, a man fully in control of 10 hours of ESPN’s time.

He is happy and angry, the recipient of vile hate mail, the lover of fans who love him.

He is the son of an alcoholic father, a man in a self-created public cage who finds a measure of peace inside a batting cage. He says he doesn’t care but insists everything ticks him off. He says he doesn’t care about money but says he loves his paycheck. He is, as a target of unfair accusations, a fugitive in his own sport, the Richard Kimble of Major League Baseball.

But if the cameras from Tollin/Robbins Productions were not there, would we know all this? It’s all tree-in-the-forest stuff.

A reality series is a celebrity’s temporary cure-all to rotten press and intrusive reporters sticking microphones in his face. Reality TV’s open-door policy yields an unfiltered view that the celebrity believes will benefit his or her career.

But B-list celebrities are not newsmakers, unless Ozzy Osbourne’s bizarro world ramblings counted as front-page fodder. Bonds is major news. He is not Jessica Simpson, yet he has opted to join The Surreal Life.

It is undeniable that ESPN the news operation would never be invited to follow Bonds to the cemetery to commune with his father, Bobby.

ESPN the news operation gets Bonds’ clubhouse mantra, "Do you want to talk baseball or do you not want to talk at all?"

ESPN the entertainer, through its proxy, Mike Tollin, does not ask Bonds tough questions:

Have you taken steroids?

Have you taken human growth hormone?

Do you know Victor Conte Jr. of BALCO?

It’s Bonds’ ESPN party, and he’ll say what he pleases.

The ethical issues about such an arrangement were the subject of a spirited, sometimes angry debate at an ESPN gathering last week.

But George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN and ABC Sports, put the in-house criticism firmly in its place.
"Not all decisions are made to please the newsroom," he said. "It’s just one part of our puzzle. Business decisions must be made as well." He added: "I’m comfortable with it. We’re doing our best to serve our fans."
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