…and there’s the truth
Plenty of time for the Sultan of Surly to bail on that reality show.
Barry 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 a book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters.
An excerpt from “Game of Shadows,” which details the San Francisco slugger’s extensive doping program, appears in the March 13 issue of Sports Illustrated.
“I won’t even look at it. For what? There’s no need to,” Bonds said Tuesday at Giants camp in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Giants said Bonds would not comment any further.
Bonds, who testified before a California federal grand jury looking into steroid use by top athletes, repeatedly has denied using performance-enhancing drugs. Phone messages left by The Associated Press seeking comment from his attorney and publicist were not immediately returned Tuesday.
Authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who led the newspaper’s coverage of the BALCO scandal, recount in remarkable detail the specifics of Bonds’ drug regimen, which they write started in 1998 with injections of Winstrol, a powerful steroid also linked to Rafael Palmeiro.
According to the book, Bonds was using two undetectable designer steroids, informally known as the cream and the clear, plus insulin, human growth hormone and other performance enhancers by 2001, when he hit 73 home runs for the Giants to break Mark McGwire’s single-season record of 70 set in 1998.
According to the book, Bonds used several substances in various forms by injecting himself with a syringe, taking injections from Anderson, gulping pills, putting liquid drops under his tongue or rubbing cream on his skin.
Bonds became so experienced and well-versed with the regimen that he occasionally overruled Anderson and took control of his own doping schedule, the book says.
Just reading this stuff makes my knee hurt. Probably Barry’s, too.
more here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/03/06/news.excerpt/index.html
This seriously makes me consider removing Bonds from my “personal hero” listing on My Space. I’d change it, but I’m afraid to get near My Space as I think it’s crawling with cops and I’m waiting for the place to cool down.
Ben
I’ts interesting that no reporter has unearthed any information on Sosa like where he got his steroids from, etc. I am surprised no one is talking from his camp.
There’s nothing in the excerpt about a failed drug test. I’m sure there are lotsa interviews from eyewitnesses, more leaked testimony and possibly some physical evidence too, but until there’s an admission from The Sultan himself, or a drug test, I’ll have to wait for the paperback edition. Is any of this really news?
Is there no agent or PR guy shrewd enough to tell Bonds or Giambi or Sosa or McGwire that if they were the first to voluntarily say they took that shit and now regret it and act like real humble, that there is a good chance they’d be held up as heroes? We’re a sucker society like that: come clean, act contrite, shed a tear or two and you’re home free. Bonds is like one of those great tragedies: if it wasn’t for his attitude and the steroid thing, he’d be bigger than Ruth, Mantle, Jordan put together. He may not have gotten the hr record but he’d definitely be one of the top 5 hitters of all time. Eh.