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I posted this in the link in the Kirby Puckett thread, but I don't want this to get lost in the "debate" between Imran and me. 
It's important to understand, this is not just a book like Jose Canseco's book. This is hardcore investigative reporting... sworn testimony... etc...
Barry Bonds... scumbag... cheater... science experiment.
but according to some... Hall of Famer...
Book traces Bonds' steroids use to McGwire-Sosa HR race
Ron Kroichick, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
(03-07) 11:47 PST -- Barry Bonds began using steroids after the 1998 baseball season and came to rely on a wide variety of performance-enhancing drugs over the next several years, according to a book written by two Chronicle reporters and excerpted in this week's Sports Illustrated.
The excerpt offers the most comprehensive account of Bonds' experience with steroids, tracing his involvement to the off-season following the historic home-run race featuring Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
Bonds decided to use performance-enhancing substances after watching McGwire -- whom the excerpt says he suspected was "a juicer" -- gain national acclaim for eclipsing Roger Maris' storied single-season record.
Asked about the book excerpt on Tuesday in the clubhouse at Scottsdale Stadium, Bonds said to a small group of reporters, "I don't do interviews, guys, not those." Bonds said he won't be reading the book.
"I won't even look at it. For what? There's no need to," said Bonds, who has repeatedly denied using performance-enhancing drugs.
The excerpt paints a sweeping picture of Bonds' thoughts about using steroids; the role of his weight trainer, Greg Anderson, in introducing him to specific drugs; how his choice of substances changed after he struggled with injuries and met Victor Conte, owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative; and Bonds' reaction as his once-supple body turned thick and muscle-bound.
Bonds is also portrayed as verbally abusive and profane to people around him, including Anderson, a childhood friend.
"Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports," co-authored by Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is scheduled for publication March 27 by Gotham Books.
The excerpt says Fainaru-Wada and Williams based their narrative "on more than a thousand pages of documents and interviews with more than 200 people, many of whom we spoke to repeatedly."
From 2003 through 2005, Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote nearly 100 stories for The Chronicle, lifting the BALCO investigation into an international story and eventually leading to congressional pressure that forced Major League Baseball to twice toughen its steroids policy.
The excerpt suggests Bonds was not truthful during his testimony before a federal grand jury in San Francisco on Dec. 4, 2003. Bonds testified that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by BALCO, but he said he thought they were flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, The Chronicle previously reported. Bonds also flatly stated he never injected himself with drugs, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by the newspaper.
But the book excerpt in Sports Illustrated describes the way Bonds knowingly and meticulously used steroids -- including "the clear" and "the cream" provided by BALCO -- and even took control of his drug regimen when he disagreed with Anderson.
The excerpt also says Bonds "learned how to inject himself" and describes one conversation with Anderson in which Bonds says of starting another drug cycle, "I'll do it myself."
By pinpointing Bonds' initial use of steroids to the months following the 1998 season, the excerpt pushes back the date when Bonds is known to have first used steroids by more than a year. Former Bonds girlfriend Kimberly Bell said in her testimony before a federal grand jury in San Francisco in March 2005 that Bonds told her before the 2000 season that he had started using steroids, The Chronicle previously reported.
The excerpt spells out in vivid detail what attracted Bonds to performance-enhancing drugs: his intense jealousy of McGwire's 70-home run season and the national hero worship it created.
Bonds repeatedly made racially tinged remarks about McGwire to Bell, according to the excerpt, at one point saying of McGwire's chase of Maris, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy."
McGwire's historic season drove Bonds to wander into territory he had previously avoided, according to the excerpt.
"To Bonds it was a joke," one passage reads. "He had been around enough gyms to recognize that McGwire was a juicer. Bonds himself had never used anything more performance enhancing than a protein shake from the health-food store. But as the 1998 season unfolded, and as he watched Mark McGwire take over the game -- his game -- Barry Bonds decided that he, too, would begin using what he called 'the s -- .' "
Bonds' anger over the hoopla surrounding McGwire is clear throughout the book excerpt. His frustration spilled into the 1999 season, when Bonds walked onto the field before the Giants played McGwire and the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game July series at Candlestick Park.
Bonds discovered the Giants had set up ropes around the batting cage to control the crowd that inevitably gathered to watch McGwire take batting practice. " 'What the f -- is this?' he demanded of the security guards. They told him the ropes were for McGwire. Furious, Bonds began knocking the ropes down. 'Not in my house!' he said."
Bonds did his homework before diving into the murky world of performance-enhancing drugs, according to the excerpt. He obtained medical advice from third parties before he began to use steroids, the excerpt says, and was told he shouldn't take them. Bonds, encouraged by Anderson, ignored the advice.
Anderson -- who later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and money laundering and served three months in prison -- originally decided which drugs Bonds would use, according to the excerpt.
Bonds began using Winstrol after the 1998 season, the excerpt says, with Anderson supplying the steroids and syringes and usually injecting Bonds in the buttocks.
Winstrol "eliminated the pain and fatigue of training," the excerpt says, allowing Bonds to relentlessly lift weights at World Gym in Burlingame in the months before the 1999 season.
Bonds added 15 pounds of solid muscle that off-season, going from 210 pounds to 225, and enjoyed standing in front of a mirror and laughing as he asked, "How do I look?"
When Bonds arrived at spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1999, the excerpt says, those around the Giants began calling him "the Incredible Hulk."
Team management wondered what exactly he had done to so strikingly reshape his body, but the excerpt suggests owner Peter Magowan and other Giants officials "had no interest in learning" whether he was using steroids.
"By pursuing the issue," the excerpt reads, "the Giants ran the risk of poisoning their relationship with their touchy superstar -- or, worse, of precipitating a drug scandal the year before the opening of their new ballpark, where Bonds was supposed to be the main gate attraction."
It was not the only time the Giants are said to have avoided confronting Bonds about evidence of his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs.
Soon after Pacific Bell Park opened in 2000, according to the excerpt, the Giants ordered unofficial background checks on Bonds' three personal trainers -- Anderson, stretching coach Harvey Shields and running coach Raymond Farris -- who regularly roamed the team's clubhouse so they could respond to any Bonds request.
Those background checks revealed that World Gym, now known as Diesel Fitness, "was known as a place to score steroids," the excerpt says, "and Anderson himself was rumored to be a dealer." But the Giants did not act on this information because they "didn't want to alienate Bonds on this issue, either," according to the excerpt.
As Bonds learned in 1999, Winstrol was not a magic potion. He sustained a torn triceps tendon in his left arm in April, requiring surgery and forcing him to miss seven weeks. Bonds and Anderson blamed steroids for the elbow injury, the excerpt says, "because they had made his arm muscles so large that the elbow tendon could not support them."
Bonds also complained of pain in his knee and back, leading Anderson to search for other drugs in 2000. Soon thereafter, Anderson put Bonds on Deca-Durabolin, the excerpt says, and later added human growth hormone (HGH). Bonds favored HGH, according to the excerpt, because it allowed him to stay muscle-bound and maintain his thirst to train while also feeling flexible. It also seemed to improve his eyesight.
Bonds mostly avoided injury in 2000, playing in 143 games and hitting what was then a career-high 49 home runs. But he wanted more, and the path unfolded before him after the 2000 season, when Anderson arranged for Bonds to meet Conte, the owner of BALCO.
Conte introduced Bonds to "the clear" and "the cream," the two then-undetectable designer steroids at the heart of the doping scandal that would also send Conte to prison; he is serving a four-month sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and money laundering.
According to the excerpt, doping calendars kept by Anderson also showed Bonds used testosterone; insulin, which had a significant anabolic effect when used with HGH; "Mexican beans," fast-acting steroids thought to quickly clear the user's system; trenbolone, a steroid "created to improve the muscle quality of beef cattle"; and Clomid, a female fertility drug that Conte believed helped his clients "recover their natural ability to produce testosterone."
Anderson apparently had easy access to drugs: The excerpt explains how he bought testosterone and growth hormone from AIDS patients who had obtained the drugs with a prescription.
Conte had Bonds take one blood and urine screening in November 2000, another in November 2001 and another before spring training in 2002 -- to make sure the drugs were working as planned and would not be detected on a steroid test, the excerpt says.
Bonds became a believer, especially as his power soared into new frontiers in 2001, the year he shattered McGwire's three-year-old record with a mind-bending 73 homers.
As the excerpt notes, the drugs helped Bonds become probably the best hitter in major-league history -- in his late 30s, an age when even the game's greatest sluggers and his own father, Bobby Bonds, saw their skills begin to erode.
As he began to work with Conte, Bonds leaned less on Anderson to make decisions about his drug regimen, the excerpt says.
"He could feel the drop of energy that came when he was cycling off the performance enhancers and was mindful of the distance of his home runs," another passage reads. "When his power started to decline he would tell Anderson to start him on another drug cycle, according to a source familiar with Bonds. Anderson kept the calendar that tracked his cycles. If he told Bonds he didn't need a cycle, Bonds would just tell him, 'F -- off, I'll do it myself.' "
Bonds' interest in this expanding menu of performance-enhancing substances continued in 2002, according to the doping calendars kept by Anderson and cited in the excerpt. Bonds was injected with HGH every other day during a three-week cycle, the excerpt says, and he used "the clear" and "the cream" between injections of HGH.
Conte's involvement may have increased Bonds' choices and boosted his power, but it backfired when federal officials raided BALCO's offices in Burlingame on Sept. 3, 2003. As The Chronicle previously reported and as the excerpt recounts, Conte cooperated with federal agents by implicating 27 elite athletes, including Bonds, as having received performance-enhancing drugs.
Conte said Bonds used the substances "on a regular basis," the excerpt states. Conte later denied naming Bonds to the government, but in their search for evidence at BALCO, the excerpt says, federal officials found file folders detailing the players' drug use, including a folder for Bonds.
The excerpt also offers a more explicit account of Bonds' relationship with Bell, a graphic artist whom he dated for nine years, and Anderson, the childhood friend who became Bonds' constant sidekick. They both learned the hazards of spending time around Bonds, the excerpt suggests.
"If Bonds told you to do something, you had to drop everything and do it," the excerpt reads. "If you were slow to comply, or if you tried to explain why it wasn't such a good idea, Bonds would get right up in your face, snarling, calling you a 'punk *****,' repeating what he wanted and saying, 'Did I (expletive) stutter?' You had to suck it up and take the abuse and the humiliation -- everyone did."
Bonds gave Bell money throughout their secret relationship, telling her it came from the sale of autographed memorabilia, as The Chronicle previously reported.
But the excerpt also paints Bonds as controlling, telling Bell, at various points, that she should spend the smaller sums of cash on a new big-screen television or a bed for her apartment. He also had the Beverly Hills Sports Council, his agents, send Bell a check in 1996, when Bonds decided Bell should have breast augmentation surgery, according to the excerpt.
In addition to telling the grand jury Bonds had confessed to her in 2000 about his steroid use, Bell also described the numerous changes in Bonds' physical appearance and behavior, the excerpt recounts. Those changes, consistent with steroid use, included his back breaking out in acne, his hair falling out and his head appearing to grow larger.
Bonds, the excerpt says, also "suffered sexual dysfunction, another common side effect of steroid use."
Bonds' lawyer Michael Rains has previously accused Bell of trying to extort money from him after their relationship ended.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams based the book on a wide range of material, Williams said.
"There are statements to federal investigators, sworn testimony, a secret recording of Greg Anderson and on-the-record interviews, and the gist of our story is all supported by material that we can point to the sources on," Williams said. "It's all going in one direction. There's not any equivocation on this that's compelling or believable. We also have relied on unnamed sources who have given us a story that's very consistent with what the public record says about Bonds and steroid use."
As for why the story matters, Williams said, "I think it's important for baseball to corral performance-enhancing drugs and not tolerate them, because the tolerance for those drugs will inevitably seep down into the colleges and the prep programs. We're already seeing it."
To read the excerpt online, go to www.si.com.
E-mail Ron Kroichick at rkroichick@sfchronicle.com
Ron Kroichick, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
(03-07) 11:47 PST -- Barry Bonds began using steroids after the 1998 baseball season and came to rely on a wide variety of performance-enhancing drugs over the next several years, according to a book written by two Chronicle reporters and excerpted in this week's Sports Illustrated.
The excerpt offers the most comprehensive account of Bonds' experience with steroids, tracing his involvement to the off-season following the historic home-run race featuring Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
Bonds decided to use performance-enhancing substances after watching McGwire -- whom the excerpt says he suspected was "a juicer" -- gain national acclaim for eclipsing Roger Maris' storied single-season record.
Asked about the book excerpt on Tuesday in the clubhouse at Scottsdale Stadium, Bonds said to a small group of reporters, "I don't do interviews, guys, not those." Bonds said he won't be reading the book.
"I won't even look at it. For what? There's no need to," said Bonds, who has repeatedly denied using performance-enhancing drugs.
The excerpt paints a sweeping picture of Bonds' thoughts about using steroids; the role of his weight trainer, Greg Anderson, in introducing him to specific drugs; how his choice of substances changed after he struggled with injuries and met Victor Conte, owner of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative; and Bonds' reaction as his once-supple body turned thick and muscle-bound.
Bonds is also portrayed as verbally abusive and profane to people around him, including Anderson, a childhood friend.
"Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports," co-authored by Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is scheduled for publication March 27 by Gotham Books.
The excerpt says Fainaru-Wada and Williams based their narrative "on more than a thousand pages of documents and interviews with more than 200 people, many of whom we spoke to repeatedly."
From 2003 through 2005, Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote nearly 100 stories for The Chronicle, lifting the BALCO investigation into an international story and eventually leading to congressional pressure that forced Major League Baseball to twice toughen its steroids policy.
The excerpt suggests Bonds was not truthful during his testimony before a federal grand jury in San Francisco on Dec. 4, 2003. Bonds testified that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by BALCO, but he said he thought they were flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, The Chronicle previously reported. Bonds also flatly stated he never injected himself with drugs, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by the newspaper.
But the book excerpt in Sports Illustrated describes the way Bonds knowingly and meticulously used steroids -- including "the clear" and "the cream" provided by BALCO -- and even took control of his drug regimen when he disagreed with Anderson.
The excerpt also says Bonds "learned how to inject himself" and describes one conversation with Anderson in which Bonds says of starting another drug cycle, "I'll do it myself."
By pinpointing Bonds' initial use of steroids to the months following the 1998 season, the excerpt pushes back the date when Bonds is known to have first used steroids by more than a year. Former Bonds girlfriend Kimberly Bell said in her testimony before a federal grand jury in San Francisco in March 2005 that Bonds told her before the 2000 season that he had started using steroids, The Chronicle previously reported.
The excerpt spells out in vivid detail what attracted Bonds to performance-enhancing drugs: his intense jealousy of McGwire's 70-home run season and the national hero worship it created.
Bonds repeatedly made racially tinged remarks about McGwire to Bell, according to the excerpt, at one point saying of McGwire's chase of Maris, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy."
McGwire's historic season drove Bonds to wander into territory he had previously avoided, according to the excerpt.
"To Bonds it was a joke," one passage reads. "He had been around enough gyms to recognize that McGwire was a juicer. Bonds himself had never used anything more performance enhancing than a protein shake from the health-food store. But as the 1998 season unfolded, and as he watched Mark McGwire take over the game -- his game -- Barry Bonds decided that he, too, would begin using what he called 'the s -- .' "
Bonds' anger over the hoopla surrounding McGwire is clear throughout the book excerpt. His frustration spilled into the 1999 season, when Bonds walked onto the field before the Giants played McGwire and the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game July series at Candlestick Park.
Bonds discovered the Giants had set up ropes around the batting cage to control the crowd that inevitably gathered to watch McGwire take batting practice. " 'What the f -- is this?' he demanded of the security guards. They told him the ropes were for McGwire. Furious, Bonds began knocking the ropes down. 'Not in my house!' he said."
Bonds did his homework before diving into the murky world of performance-enhancing drugs, according to the excerpt. He obtained medical advice from third parties before he began to use steroids, the excerpt says, and was told he shouldn't take them. Bonds, encouraged by Anderson, ignored the advice.
Anderson -- who later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and money laundering and served three months in prison -- originally decided which drugs Bonds would use, according to the excerpt.
Bonds began using Winstrol after the 1998 season, the excerpt says, with Anderson supplying the steroids and syringes and usually injecting Bonds in the buttocks.
Winstrol "eliminated the pain and fatigue of training," the excerpt says, allowing Bonds to relentlessly lift weights at World Gym in Burlingame in the months before the 1999 season.
Bonds added 15 pounds of solid muscle that off-season, going from 210 pounds to 225, and enjoyed standing in front of a mirror and laughing as he asked, "How do I look?"
When Bonds arrived at spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1999, the excerpt says, those around the Giants began calling him "the Incredible Hulk."
Team management wondered what exactly he had done to so strikingly reshape his body, but the excerpt suggests owner Peter Magowan and other Giants officials "had no interest in learning" whether he was using steroids.
"By pursuing the issue," the excerpt reads, "the Giants ran the risk of poisoning their relationship with their touchy superstar -- or, worse, of precipitating a drug scandal the year before the opening of their new ballpark, where Bonds was supposed to be the main gate attraction."
It was not the only time the Giants are said to have avoided confronting Bonds about evidence of his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs.
Soon after Pacific Bell Park opened in 2000, according to the excerpt, the Giants ordered unofficial background checks on Bonds' three personal trainers -- Anderson, stretching coach Harvey Shields and running coach Raymond Farris -- who regularly roamed the team's clubhouse so they could respond to any Bonds request.
Those background checks revealed that World Gym, now known as Diesel Fitness, "was known as a place to score steroids," the excerpt says, "and Anderson himself was rumored to be a dealer." But the Giants did not act on this information because they "didn't want to alienate Bonds on this issue, either," according to the excerpt.
As Bonds learned in 1999, Winstrol was not a magic potion. He sustained a torn triceps tendon in his left arm in April, requiring surgery and forcing him to miss seven weeks. Bonds and Anderson blamed steroids for the elbow injury, the excerpt says, "because they had made his arm muscles so large that the elbow tendon could not support them."
Bonds also complained of pain in his knee and back, leading Anderson to search for other drugs in 2000. Soon thereafter, Anderson put Bonds on Deca-Durabolin, the excerpt says, and later added human growth hormone (HGH). Bonds favored HGH, according to the excerpt, because it allowed him to stay muscle-bound and maintain his thirst to train while also feeling flexible. It also seemed to improve his eyesight.
Bonds mostly avoided injury in 2000, playing in 143 games and hitting what was then a career-high 49 home runs. But he wanted more, and the path unfolded before him after the 2000 season, when Anderson arranged for Bonds to meet Conte, the owner of BALCO.
Conte introduced Bonds to "the clear" and "the cream," the two then-undetectable designer steroids at the heart of the doping scandal that would also send Conte to prison; he is serving a four-month sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and money laundering.
According to the excerpt, doping calendars kept by Anderson also showed Bonds used testosterone; insulin, which had a significant anabolic effect when used with HGH; "Mexican beans," fast-acting steroids thought to quickly clear the user's system; trenbolone, a steroid "created to improve the muscle quality of beef cattle"; and Clomid, a female fertility drug that Conte believed helped his clients "recover their natural ability to produce testosterone."
Anderson apparently had easy access to drugs: The excerpt explains how he bought testosterone and growth hormone from AIDS patients who had obtained the drugs with a prescription.
Conte had Bonds take one blood and urine screening in November 2000, another in November 2001 and another before spring training in 2002 -- to make sure the drugs were working as planned and would not be detected on a steroid test, the excerpt says.
Bonds became a believer, especially as his power soared into new frontiers in 2001, the year he shattered McGwire's three-year-old record with a mind-bending 73 homers.
As the excerpt notes, the drugs helped Bonds become probably the best hitter in major-league history -- in his late 30s, an age when even the game's greatest sluggers and his own father, Bobby Bonds, saw their skills begin to erode.
As he began to work with Conte, Bonds leaned less on Anderson to make decisions about his drug regimen, the excerpt says.
"He could feel the drop of energy that came when he was cycling off the performance enhancers and was mindful of the distance of his home runs," another passage reads. "When his power started to decline he would tell Anderson to start him on another drug cycle, according to a source familiar with Bonds. Anderson kept the calendar that tracked his cycles. If he told Bonds he didn't need a cycle, Bonds would just tell him, 'F -- off, I'll do it myself.' "
Bonds' interest in this expanding menu of performance-enhancing substances continued in 2002, according to the doping calendars kept by Anderson and cited in the excerpt. Bonds was injected with HGH every other day during a three-week cycle, the excerpt says, and he used "the clear" and "the cream" between injections of HGH.
Conte's involvement may have increased Bonds' choices and boosted his power, but it backfired when federal officials raided BALCO's offices in Burlingame on Sept. 3, 2003. As The Chronicle previously reported and as the excerpt recounts, Conte cooperated with federal agents by implicating 27 elite athletes, including Bonds, as having received performance-enhancing drugs.
Conte said Bonds used the substances "on a regular basis," the excerpt states. Conte later denied naming Bonds to the government, but in their search for evidence at BALCO, the excerpt says, federal officials found file folders detailing the players' drug use, including a folder for Bonds.
The excerpt also offers a more explicit account of Bonds' relationship with Bell, a graphic artist whom he dated for nine years, and Anderson, the childhood friend who became Bonds' constant sidekick. They both learned the hazards of spending time around Bonds, the excerpt suggests.
"If Bonds told you to do something, you had to drop everything and do it," the excerpt reads. "If you were slow to comply, or if you tried to explain why it wasn't such a good idea, Bonds would get right up in your face, snarling, calling you a 'punk *****,' repeating what he wanted and saying, 'Did I (expletive) stutter?' You had to suck it up and take the abuse and the humiliation -- everyone did."
Bonds gave Bell money throughout their secret relationship, telling her it came from the sale of autographed memorabilia, as The Chronicle previously reported.
But the excerpt also paints Bonds as controlling, telling Bell, at various points, that she should spend the smaller sums of cash on a new big-screen television or a bed for her apartment. He also had the Beverly Hills Sports Council, his agents, send Bell a check in 1996, when Bonds decided Bell should have breast augmentation surgery, according to the excerpt.
In addition to telling the grand jury Bonds had confessed to her in 2000 about his steroid use, Bell also described the numerous changes in Bonds' physical appearance and behavior, the excerpt recounts. Those changes, consistent with steroid use, included his back breaking out in acne, his hair falling out and his head appearing to grow larger.
Bonds, the excerpt says, also "suffered sexual dysfunction, another common side effect of steroid use."
Bonds' lawyer Michael Rains has previously accused Bell of trying to extort money from him after their relationship ended.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams based the book on a wide range of material, Williams said.
"There are statements to federal investigators, sworn testimony, a secret recording of Greg Anderson and on-the-record interviews, and the gist of our story is all supported by material that we can point to the sources on," Williams said. "It's all going in one direction. There's not any equivocation on this that's compelling or believable. We also have relied on unnamed sources who have given us a story that's very consistent with what the public record says about Bonds and steroid use."
As for why the story matters, Williams said, "I think it's important for baseball to corral performance-enhancing drugs and not tolerate them, because the tolerance for those drugs will inevitably seep down into the colleges and the prep programs. We're already seeing it."
To read the excerpt online, go to www.si.com.
E-mail Ron Kroichick at rkroichick@sfchronicle.com
Barry Bonds... scumbag... cheater... science experiment.
but according to some... Hall of Famer...
Bonds, Sosa, and McGwire -- all cheaters. 
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