The Barry Bonds steroids trial in San Francisco continues with the only certainty presented is that tax payer money is still being drained. The trial is not being held to determine if Bonds took steroids while playing baseball for the San Francisco Giants and chasing the all time home run record held by Hank Aaron. What the prosecution is trying to prove is that Bonds lied under oath when he said he was not aware he was taking steroids at the time. This is not going to be easy to prove.
When the court paraded Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi, and Marvin Bernard through the courtroom on Tuesday to basically recite the same thing they said to a grand jury 8 years ago; it still does not prove within a shadow of a doubt that Bonds knew anything. Prosecution is not based on what you know; it is based on what you can prove. Just about anyone with common sense knows Barry Bonds knew exactly what he was doing; but Bonds is challenging anyone to prove it.
Three ballplayers took the witness stand in federal court Tuesday and, as expected, confirmed that they had received performance-enhancing drugs from Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ childhood friend and weight trainer.
But the players also all admitted Tuesday that they had juiced before they’d ever heard of Anderson or BALCO, the Burlingame lab that triggered a historic investigation into athletic doping and then spun off Bonds’ current perjury trial.
Jason Giambi testified that Anderson ran some tests on his blood and urine in late 2002, then told him that he had tested positive for the steroid Deca-Durabolin. Anderson supplied him with BALCO’s then-undetectable steroid and also offered to provide human growth hormone if Giambi wanted it. To paraphrase the American League’s MVP of 2000: “Thanks anyway, I already have some.”
Many baseball players were using steroids and not all of them were MVP’s which brings us back to the point that just because you take steroids does not mean you will become the home run king. It could be that the initial talent still has to be there. However, the question will always remain as to how far these players would have gone in their careers without the performance enhancing drugs. It makes you wonder if anyone was concerned about steroids at all in the locker room. Evidently there was someone:
The only hint that the culture of doping met with real resistance in baseball came when Stan Conte, the former Giants trainer, testified about a conversation he had with Bonds shortly after federal agents raided BALCO and then Anderson’s home. Conte said he told Bonds he did not approve of steroids and reminded the slugger that his son, Nick Conte, was a minor-leaguer for the Giants. As a father as well as a trainer, he didn’t want young athletes to face an unlevel playing field, believing that they had to take drugs to succeed.
It is good to know that there were and still are people in baseball with a conscience. The problem continues to be that there is too much money to be had in professional sports and everyone wants their piece of the pie. Perhaps money as well as steroids has ruined sports in our country. As the Barry Bonds trial continues with no sufficient result to occur; fans have to wonder in despair what happened to the games.
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