Barry Bonds is the DEVIL!!!

i believe a lot of the specifics come from the recently unsealed court documents. there was a link regarding the notation/documentation that i didn't bother to follow.

at least as interesting as the article, to me.

1990-1994 Age 25-29 175 HRs
1995-1999 Age 30-34 186 HRs
2000-2004 Age 36-40 258 HRs

Either Bonds is some freak of nature that somehow peaked later than 99.99% of every baseball player ever to play the game or something helped him out. Either way, the MLB or the Players Association did not care enough about the doping to make it against the rules.

Bonds was good when he was young, so there isn't anything to say he wouldn't be good in his late 30s, but to do what he did, forget about it.

Timeline wise, 1998 seems early to me, I would have thought Bonds got on the program after being beat up in 99 and missing a bunch of games. If it did help, it did not really kick in until 2000.

Yes, we should definitely pass steroid judgements based on subjective suspicions of performance increase instead of, er, evidence that someone used steroids. Nice.

This is why I generally ignore everything other than positive tests and confessions.

Of course I could. (For starters, if he was Pete Rose.) But the irony of the Bonds Pinata Party resuming the same day as the Saint Kirby eulogies was too obvious to ignore.

So far the response to this has actually been semi-sane. Not the usual over-the-top nonsense

We've been seeing different things! First five minutes of the CBS Evening News last night: 1) Dana Reeve's death from lung cancer; 2) Bonds and the book. Ed Murrow would be so FUCKING proud.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=dw-bondsbook030706&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) -- Boos coming his way from all directions, Barry Bonds slowly stepped into the batter's box for his first spring appearance in two years and struck out swinging on six pitches.

No home run form yet for the San Francisco star -- though he did single sharply to right in his third-inning at-bat. After that, he called it a day, leaving the ballpark in the top of the fourth inning.

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Bonds, playing in a Cactus League game against the AL West-winning Los Angeles Angels, drew some cheers Thursday, two days after the release of excerpts from an upcoming book detailing his alleged longtime steroids regimen.

"We love you, Barry!" one man screamed during Bonds' first at-bat against Angels right-hander Hector Carrasco, the slugger's first trip to the plate in an Arizona exhibition game since 2004. His single came off Carrasco.

After missing the entire spring schedule last year while recovering from knee surgery, Bonds decided to play Thursday. He rejoined the Giants in the morning after spending Wednesday at home in California for a child custody hearing.

The seven-time NL MVP originally said this spring he wouldn't play in any road games, but the quick trip to Tempe is one of the shortest on San Francisco's schedule -- and he had the chance to play designated hitter. Bonds often has complained of how tired his legs become standing in left field for an entire game while also spending significant time on the bases after being walked.

Manager Felipe Alou had hoped Bonds would play Thursday, but didn't list him on the original lineup. Alou quickly wrote a new one upon talking to his star cleanup hitter, who replaced Eliezer Alfonzo as DH.

Bonds waved to the clapping fans when he entered the Angels' stadium for the first time, accompanied by teenage son Nikolai. He also greeted autograph seekers as he made his way into Scottsdale Stadium for warm-up drills and batting practice.

He did a couple of twists to stretch by his locker and said little as he walked out of the clubhouse.

"I gotta go," he said. "I gotta keep on schedule."

The 41-year-old Bonds, who is third on the all-time list with 708 homers and only 48 shy of breaking Hank Aaron's career mark, had been out of the exhibition lineup after playing only 14 games last season following three operations on his troublesome right knee.

After taking several rounds of batting practice, Bonds quickly disappeared into the clubhouse.

"I've got a game to get to," he said.

On Tuesday, Sports Illustrated released excerpts from "Game of Shadows," written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters.

Bonds, who testified before a California federal grand jury investigating steroid use by top athletes, has always denied using performance-enhancing drugs and said his accomplishments are purely a result of hard work and talent.

In their book, authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams describe how Bonds started using steroids because he was jealous of the attention paid to Mark McGwire's home run race with Sammy Sosa in 1998.

By Skip Bayless

Barry Bonds remains the biggest, baddest bully in sports history.

He reportedly lies to a grand jury and laughs about it. He taunts Congress. He treats commissioner Bud Selig with no more respect than he seemingly gives the clubhouse lackeys.

And he ignores a new book that spills over with relentlessly damning allegations about his steroid-junkie habit.

Even now, he's probably injecting himself in the stomach with his body-building drug of choice, human growth hormone. And why not? Baseball doesn't test for HGH.

San Francisco seems more interested in Bonds' pursuit to break Babe Ruth's home-run record.
Laugh, Barry, laugh.

Puke, world, puke.

This is the most maddening question I've faced in my career: How does Barry Bonds keep getting away with it?

How can the United States attorney's office in San Francisco not pursue a perjury indictment against Bonds for his testimony to the BALCO grand jury? Are there simply too many Bonds fans and Giants season-ticket holders in that office? Are they more concerned with being at SBC Park the nights he passes Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron on the all-time home-run list?

Does Bonds keep getting away with it because he's still the biggest individual draw in sports? You might hate him, but you can't take your eyes off him. He'll still pack parks from San Francisco to New York because people want to see just how much farther and harder this chemistry experiment of a robo-slugger can hit a baseball now. The steroid revelations make him an even bigger freak-show gate attraction.

Taunt, Barry, taunt.

And I was so sure in late 2003 that the feds were hell-bent to do something I couldn't -- nail Bonds.

I love watching Bonds hit as much as anyone. But it seemed obvious that he was cheating when he skyrocketed from 49 homers in 2000 to a record 73 in 2001. He also skyrocketed from about 200 pounds to what appeared to be a muscled-up 250.

So in May 2002, I wrote a Bay Area column quoting body-building experts who said it's virtually impossible after age 35 -- when the male's testosterone supply naturally drops -- to pack on that much muscle that quickly without using the artificial testosterone that steroids provide.

You would have thought I had spray-painted profanity on the Golden Gate Bridge.

I took an e-mail beating from many Bonds lovers -- and there are many outside the media. Did I have proof? No, I did not witness Bonds injecting himself with juice -- nor could I find a single source within the organization who knew for a fact that Bonds used steroids. Many insiders had suspicions, but no firsthand proof.

And you couldn't blame Giants ownership or management for looking the other way. The owners tote the entire note on their ballpark, and Bonds has been the reason the Giants have had baseball's biggest season-ticket base. So ownership was going to expose and suspend its lone draw?

Please.

Soon, I experienced firsthand some of Bonds' infamous intimidation. He walked up behind me in the Giants' clubhouse and vice-gripped my arm. When I turned, he gave me the kind of five-second stare he gives a pitcher who has dared to brush him back.

The message, I assumed, was, "Don't you ever write about me and steroids again."

I just stared back, and without a word, Bonds walked away.

Let's take a look at a before and after photo.
After federal agents raided the BALCO office in September 2003, I began hearing about Jeff Novitzky, an agent for the IRS Criminal Investigation unit. At a gym near BALCO, Novitzky had observed Bonds lifting weights under the guidance of trainer Greg Anderson. And Novitzky -- according to several media sources -- was on a mission to expose Bonds.

In fact, word was that the Bush administration wanted to put a face on its stamp-out-steroids campaign -- Bonds' oversized head.

Eventually, Anderson and BALCO founder Victor Conte were convicted. But despite a wall of evidence even Bonds couldn't hit a ball over, he somehow got away clean after three hours with the grand jury.

The media's proof now comes in a book, "Game of Shadows," written by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. These aren't a couple of Johnny-come-latelies trying to make a quick buck. These are two highly respected investigative reporters who have demonstrated in print for three years that their information on this story is accurate and credible.

I believe every last word of the lengthy excerpt in this week's Sports Illustrated. I admire and envy the job they've done. As the BALCO smoke cleared, they had the time and the skill to return to all the sources they quoted periodically in the Chronicle and build a devilishly detailed case against Bonds.

When Bonds' grand-jury testimony originally was leaked to the Chronicle, his excuse at least seemed plausible. He testified that Anderson, his buddy from high school, had told him to rub some cream onto his arm that he thought was flaxseed oil. It turned out to be a newly invented steroid.

Even I had second thoughts. Maybe Bonds was duped into using these mysterious steroids that don't require injections.

But the Williams and Fainaru-Wada reports could blow that defense all to hell. They write that Bonds left his grand-jury session "confident that he had asserted control over the government's inquiry, just as he had controlled his baseball team and, for that matter, most of the people in his life. His reputation had been preserved and his well-guarded secret had not been revealed."

Until now.

The authors go into astonishing detail about how Bonds turned himself into a human pin cushion, injecting just about every steroid known to man and beast. Yes, they even report that he tried a steroid used to beef up cattle. They also report that while Bonds found injecting human growth hormone was the most painful -- into a pinch of stomach skin -- HGH was so potent that it allowed him to keep his physique and strength through the season with minimal weight-lifting.

Bonds makes Jose Canseco look like he was on no more than fruit juice.

So why in the name of Henry Aaron wasn't Bonds called before the congressional hearing on steroids that obviously was prompted by Canseco's bombshell book? Reportedly, because Bonds was still involved in the BALCO investigation -- though his day in court had been about 16 months before last March's hearing.

Of course, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa were forced to lie or deny that day on national television. All three wound up tainting their legacies. Bonds was the elephant that was not in the room.

Yes, "Game of Shadows" reports that Bonds resorted to steroids because he was convinced McGwire was juicing when he (and Sosa) broke Roger Maris' single-season record in 1998. But should that make Bonds any less guilty or more brazen?

Incredibly, when the Giants played in Washington last season, Bonds ridiculed Congress. He said Congress has more important problems to address than steroids -- even though the point of the hearing was that steroid abuse has become an epidemic among teenagers.

How do congressional leaders let Bonds get away with this? Were they content to have box seats when Bonds was in town?

And why hasn't the IRS investigated Bonds for tax evasion? His lawyer continues to paint ex-mistress Kimberly Bell as nothing but a scorned lover. Yet she comes across as an extremely credible witness, and she has hours of secretly taped phone calls from Bonds. She alleges he gave her about $80,000 in unreported cash for the down payment on a house -- all made from signing baseballs.

Selig's lieutenants have been dropping hints to national baseball writers that the commissioner is livid over the book. Selig met with Bonds two years ago to ask if he had anything to hide, and when Bonds shrugged him off, Selig reportedly warned that Bonds had better be telling the truth.

But what's Selig going to do now, suspend Bonds? He hasn't failed a single test. The players' union would have Selig for lunch.

No, Selig will do nothing but huff and puff and hope the book fades away.

It appears that government agents and officials finally gave up and decided they could get Bonds only in the court of public opinion. So they emptied their notebooks for the Chronicle reporters, who paint a chilling picture of a steroid junkie and an O.J.-like bully who threatened Bell's life.

But so what? Most people already considered Bonds a bad guy.

So he'll continue to laugh at us and pack parks and hit home runs. And in the end, maybe, he'll get his last laugh from only one source -- the body he has abused.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Tampa, Fla. -- It may never end. Jason Giambi understands that now. Even after a vague apology, an award for comeback player of the year and the attempted restoration of his public image, Giambi remains tethered to Barry Bonds and the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids scandal, though he is not the primary subject of the discussion.

Giambi was not mentioned in the excerpt released Tuesday from "Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, Balco and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports," the soon-to-be-published book that says Bonds began using steroids after the 1998 season. But the book's cover, in what is probably not a coincidence, features a photograph of Giambi standing next to Bonds during a game.

The book's authors, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, are the reporters who wrote in The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2004 that Giambi had admitted using steroids to the federal grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003. Williams said Giambi's BALCO involvement is part of the book, which addresses the entire case, not just baseball and Bonds.

"Jason is an important character in the book," Williams said Wednesday. "He'll be treated fairly and accurately in the book."

So, a year after Giambi thought he had put the issue behind him, he sat at his locker answering more questions about Bonds.

"I understand it," said Giambi, who sat out Wednesday night's exhibition game against Pittsburgh because of a sore left calf. "It gets old. It was two seasons ago. But I know you guys have a job to do."

Giambi is trying to put it behind him. After a strange news conference in spring training last season in which he apologized but didn't say what for, Giambi recovered from early season struggles by hitting 14 homers in July, the most by a Yankee in any month since his idol Mickey Mantle hit 14 in July 1961.

Giambi finished with 32 homers and 87 runs batted in, won comeback player of the year and landed a multiyear endorsement deal with Reebok, the surest sign his image had recovered.

"He cares," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "I'm not saying Barry doesn't care. But (Giambi) tried to keep an upbeat attitude, and it's not easy to do. He's been as open as he could be."

The way Giambi handled it worked for him. "I've got an award sitting on my mantle because of it," he said. But he didn't recommend that Bonds apologize.

"Different situations," he said. "Barry is a friend of mine, and I don't really know what's going on. That's in the past, and I'm going forward."

Oh and a sac bunt...

Thanks to two enterprising San Francisco Chronicle reporters who cast a spotlight into the shadows, we have a pretty good idea of what Barry Bonds did to himself to pump out those big numbers. To illuminate his motivations, ESPN The Magazine turns to writer Jeff Pearlman. In his upcoming biography, "Love Me, Hate Me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero," Pearlman examines why, and pinpoints when, one of the most talented and dominant players in baseball history went over to the dark side.

The concentration of sports and entertainment superstars living in the 800-acre Windermere, Fla., enclave known as Isleworth can make an afternoon stroll down one of its sidewalks seem like a red-carpet rehearsal. Shaquille O'Neal, Tiger Woods, Wesley Snipes -- they all flock to this gated community of multimillion-dollar homes. Few spreads match the splendor of the 13,000-square-foot mansion owned by Ken Griffey Jr. Decorated in serene linens and creams, the place features floors of marbled Macedonian stone and a miniature movie theater. Video games line the walls of an entertainment center; outside, a large in-ground swimming pool begs for balmy days.

Griffey's friendship with Barry Bonds dates back to 1987, when Griffey was a 17-year-old Mariners prospect playing in the Arizona Instructional League. Bonds, a young Pirate at the time, was living near Phoenix, and he took the future star under his wing. "Barry would come by and pick me up in his white Acura Legend," Griffey recalls. "He probably treated me to four or five dinners." The two bonded over baseball and the identity crisis that comes with having a renowned parent. "Now whenever I go to San Francisco, Barry takes me out to dinner," Griffey says. "And when he comes to Cincinnati, I'll take him out. I fly my mom in because Barry loves the way she cooks macaroni and cheese and fried chicken. That's the kind of relationship we have. It's not just about baseball."

In the winter following the 1998 season, Bonds brought his family on vacation to Orlando, where he could also visit his longtime buddy. After spending a day toting his two kids around Disney World, he headed to Griffey's house for dinner.

In June of 1998, when this photo was taken, Barry Bonds was being left in the dust of the epic home-run onslaught of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.On an otherwise ordinary night, over an otherwise ordinary meal, Griffey, Bonds, a rep from an athletic apparel company and two other associates chatted informally about the upcoming season. With Griffey's framed memorabilia as a backdrop, and Mark McGwire's obliteration of the single-season home run record a fresh memory, Bonds spoke up as he never had before. He sounded neither angry nor agitated, simply frustrated. "You know what," he said. "I had a helluva season last year, and nobody gave a crap. Nobody. As much as I've complained about McGwire and Canseco and all of the bull with steroids, I'm tired of fighting it. I turn 35 this year. I've got three or four good seasons left, and I wanna get paid. I'm just gonna start using some hard-core stuff, and hopefully it won't hurt my body. Then I'll get out of the game and be done with it."

Silence.

According to others in the room, Griffey was uncertain how to react. At age 29, he was at the top of his game, fresh off a season in which he compiled 56 home runs and 146 RBIs. As the pressure to indulge in performance-enhancing drugs mounted, the man known as 'The Kid' stayed clean. Sure, he, too, could see the physical differences in many players, including some on his own team. But to him, baseball wasn't important enough to risk his health and reputation. "If I can't do it myself, then I'm not going to do it," Griffey says. "When I'm retired, I want them to at least be able to say, 'There's no question in our minds that he did it the right way.' I have kids. I don't want them to think their dad's a cheater."

Nevertheless, Griffey understood how Bonds felt. For most of the past decade, they had been the sport's two top players. Now, from their point of view, men with significantly less talent were abusing drugs to reach their level. Where was the fairness? The integrity? Griffey didn't agree with Bonds' position, but he certainly empathized.

Bonds' frustration had peaked on Aug. 23 of the previous season. That was the day he crushed a knuckleball from Marlins lefthander Kirt Ojala into the bleachers of Miami's Pro Player Stadium, becoming the first man in major league history to compile 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases.

Ken Griffey Jr. apparently understood the dilemma Bonds thought he faced back in the late '90s.On the scoreboard, "400/400" flashed in bright yellow letters, and most of the 36,701 fans rose in appreciation. Outside the stadium, however, few people cared. Bonds' achievement found its way into every sports section across America --but on the second, third or fourth page.

For Bonds himself, the ultimate statistics scavenger, reaching 400/400 was momentous. He had gone beyond his father, Bobby Bonds. He had gone beyond his godfather, Willie Mays. He had gone beyond Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. In the sort of aw-shucks false modesty he put on from time to time, Bonds told the small number of assembled reporters that he was nothing compared to McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who were in the midst of their epic home run race. "I have nine writers standing here," he said. "McGwire had 200 writers back when he had 30 home runs. What they're doing is huge, phenomenal. Two guys might break the record. I mean, what's the chance of that ever happening again?"

Though Bonds delivered the sentiment with a broad smile, he was in fact feeling unappreciated, grumpy and terribly jealous. Just one day earlier, after the Associated Press reported that a bottle of androstenedione had been found in McGwire's locker, Bonds scoffed. He was well aware McGwire had ingested more than vegetables and vitamin C tablets to become the size of The Thing. "I use that stuff too," Bonds told teammates. "The difference is Mac's doing stuff I wouldn't think of." The belief that McGwire was cheating infuriated Bonds, who -- for all his faults -- respected the sanctity of the record book.

But despite his protestations that he wanted only to be left alone, Bonds cared deeply about his status. He was already a three-time MVP, widely considered one of the greatest players ever. In his mind, he was the best. Here was a guy who, as a freshman at Junipero Serra High School in suburban San Francisco two decades earlier, had turned to a classmate and declared, "I'm gonna be a superstar." A guy who, as a 21-year-old spring training invitee with the Pirates in 1986, told manager Jim Leyland, "Dude, you're gonna need me around here."

Now, with McGwire and Sosa occupying the center of the baseball universe, Bonds was unhappy. For years he had perfected the art of media deflection, of hiding the fact that he actually liked -- no, needed -- the spotlight.

"Barry yearned to be the Michael Jordan of baseball, the icon of the game," says one ex-teammate. "He knew he was better than McGwire and Sosa, and at that point he was, factually, better. But everyone loved Mac and Sammy, and nobody loved Barry."

By the time Bonds arrived at Scottsdale Stadium on Feb. 25, 1999, he had a new daughter -- Aisha Lynn, born Feb. 5 -- and a new physique. Everything seemed to have blown up: his arms, his chest, his shoulders, his legs, his neck. When asked by Rick Hurd of the Contra Costa Times to explain his physique, Bonds blew off the question. "It's the same thing I've always done," he said. "It's just that I started so early."

Last September, Bonds was just coming back from injuries that kept him out of all but 14 games during the 2005 season.Within the Giants' clubhouse, Bonds' transformation was met with skepticism. His face was bloated. His forehead and jaw were substantially larger. "And the zits," says Jay Canizaro, who played 55 games as a Giants infielder in 1996 and '99. "Hell, he took off his shirt the first day and his back just looked like a mountain of acne. Anybody who had any kind of intelligence or street smarts about them knew Barry was using some serious stuff."

Canizaro had firsthand knowledge of the side effects, having used steroids himself while in college at Oklahoma State. Observing from a nearby locker throughout spring training in 1999, Canizaro was almost 100 percent certain Bonds was using steroids and human growth hormone. Any lingering doubts were eradicated when Canizaro approached Greg Anderson, Bonds' trainer, and asked a simple question: "What's he on?" Anderson didn't hesitate. "He was calling out Deca-Durabolin and testosterone and all these different things that were steroids and hormones," Canizaro recalls. "Then he told me he could easily put a cocktail together for me, too."

Canizaro was tempted. He was fighting for a job against other players who were clearly using. But then he remembered the acne and the shrunken testicles -- and the time he blacked out while injecting steroids into his rear.

"Thanks," he told Anderson, "but no thanks."

Canizaro estimates that as many as a dozen other Giants were taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. "The Giants that year were really out of control," he says. "It started in the minors. You're in Triple-A, and you think you need that extra boost to make the majors. So you give in and cheat."

What was the motivation not to? True, the possession of steroids for nonmedical reasons is a crime under U.S. law. But who was busting athletes? Not baseball.

"You're a product," says former Giants catcher Brian Johnson. "Teams say they care about their players, but it's only true until you stop producing. So it's hard to see a motivation for having your players stop using steroids if it's working for them."

And in Bonds' case, it seemed to be working. According to the Society for American Baseball Research, the peak age for players with at least 200 career home runs is 27. After 30, a noticeable decline begins. At 35, the decline becomes a steep hill. But here was Bonds, at 35, hitting the ball harder and farther than ever. He started the 1999 season on a tear, leading the Giants with an April average of .366. "One of the things I noticed was how fast he was able to put the bat on the ball," says pitcher Russ Ortiz. "He could recognize the pitch well before he had to swing, and then he would get around so fast, so hard." Equally amazing was Bonds' indifference to fatigue. He could lift weights, play, lift more weights, then arrive early the next morning to pump more iron.

Such are the recuperative powers supplied by steroids. But the body often isn't able to handle the rapid muscle growth. In a mid-April series against the Astros, Bonds began to feel pain in his left elbow. He tried playing and sleeping with a protective rubberized sleeve, but to no avail. The pain became so bad that Bonds needed someone to rub his arm to dull the sensation before at-bats. On April 20, he underwent surgery for, of all things, a damaged triceps tendon.

Bonds missed 60 games in 1999, and he played in only 14 last year due to three surgeries on his right knee. During the five years in between, he hit 258 homers with a .535 on-base percentage, staggering numbers that dwarfed those he himself had put up until then. But he also attracted the attention of federal prosecutors and became the most controversial figure in baseball since Pete Rose.

In the end, Barry Bonds may be the least likely drug abuser baseball will ever see. Going into 1999, he was already the best all-around player in the game, making more than $9 million a year. With or without another five or six great seasons, he was guaranteed enshrinement in Cooperstown.

But it wasn't enough.

You can write and say whatever you want about Barry Bonds now. He's the new O.J. Simpson, on trial for threatening to murder the legacies of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron.

Even though it certainly appears Barry juiced on his way to 700 home runs, it doesn't seem fair that he's receiving the same treatment as The Juice.

But, make no mistake, with Barry on the brink of surpassing Ruth, it's time for sportswriters to cash in and crucify Barry for money. Geraldo Rivera must be livid he's a poor writer. Barry-bashing in print will get you the lead on "SportsCenter" and put you on the cover of Sports Illustrated and in ESPN The Magazine.

Two San Francisco sportswriters proved beyond a shadow of a publisher's doubt that Bonds ingested steroids and human growth hormone throughout the late '90s and early in the new millennium. Now, another sports scribe is unveiling his Barry book, and it details the motivation for Barry's love of the juice.

Can you believe this? Barry Bonds used steroids because muscle-bound bombers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa "saved baseball" by stroking 136 combined homers during a magical 1998 duel.

Not only is Barry a cheat, a boorish ass, a womanizer and a tax evader, he's also capable of being jealous.

Yep, according to writer Jeff Pearlman, Barry told Ken Griffey Jr. and several other unnamed dinner companions that he was joining the baseball arms race and was willing to stick needles in his rear end to do it.

Pearlman, who was not at the alleged dinner as far as we know, quoted Barry's message to Griffey and Co. verbatim:

"You know what? I had a helluva season last year, and nobody gave a crap. Nobody. As much as I've complained about McGwire and Canseco and all of the bull with steroids, I'm tired of fighting it. I turn 35 this year. I've got three or four good seasons left, and I wanna get paid. I'm just gonna start using some hard-core stuff, and hopefully it won't hurt my body. Then I'll get out of the game and be done with it."

Wow. Someone has a photographic memory, or took very detailed notes of a 1998 meeting. Or maybe Pearlman has been sitting on that little nugget for seven years. Whatever the case, it doesn't matter now. You can write or say anything about Bonds. We're 99.99 percent sure he took steroids, and we're 100 percent sure we don't want him to pass Babe Ruth on the home run chart.

Sportswriters and broadcasters want this so bad that some of them are pushing for Bud Selig to suspend Bonds this season. Not only did Bonds cheat -- just like 75 percent of the players, according to Ken Caminiti, a far more credible source than uninvolved sportswriters -- but he was driven by jealousy.

The latter crime is what cracks me up about the latest attack on Bonds.

People are genuinely upset that Bonds grew frustrated with baseball's unwillingness to address the steroid issue and sportswriters' celebration of McGwire's chemically enhanced "magical season" and basically said, "If I can't beat 'em, I might as well join 'em."

If McGwire, Sosa, money-hungry owners and spineless, jersey-chasing, look-the-other-way, hypocritical baseball writers caused Bonds to use steroids, then I feel sorry for Bonds.

He's a victim in all of this, no different than the kids who turn to steroids because they want to be just like Barry Bonds.

During the McGwire-Sosa farce, the media sent the clear message that using steroids was OK. I'll quote Pearlman's book to make my point. Pearlman quoted Jay Canizaro, one of Bonds' teammates in 1999, saying this about Bonds:

"Hell, he took off his shirt the first day and his back just looked like a mountain of acne. Anybody who had any kind of intelligence or street smarts about them knew Barry was using some serious stuff."

And I'm supposed to believe the same thing couldn't be said about McGwire?

Balls were flying out of parks at a record clip, players' biceps and shoulders were expanding at a record clip, and all we heard were a bunch of smoke-screen stories about juiced baseballs and an andro bottle in McGwire's locker.

Gimme a break.

The excerpt from Pearlman's book humanizes Bonds. He's driven by the same emotions as the rest of us. Jealousy is a vice we all carry. It's great that Ken Griffey Jr. didn't succumb to his feelings of jealousy. More power to him.

But there are reasons we establish laws and rules. It's because most of us can't control ourselves without them. If police never handed out speeding tickets, most of us would ignore the signs and drive as fast as we wanted. If there were no penalties for defaulting on a debt, many of us would not pay our bills.

Bonds watched his peers get rewarded for apparently cheating. The whole country saluted McGwire. If baseball purists, the seamheads who allegedly care about the game, called BS on McGwire and Sosa and celebrated Bonds' truly astonishing 400/400 feat, Bonds likely wouldn't be nipping at Ruth's heels today.

But we didn't do that. No one imagined Bonds' challenging Ruth's legacy as the greatest slugger of all time. So now Bonds must be vilified, disgraced and, if we're lucky, run out of baseball. He can't do what Jason Giambi and almost every steroid cheat has done.

Why can't he?

!!!

And what's this, a Jason Whitlock column that doesn't accuse* an entire sports league of being racists? STFU!

* unless you want to take the McGwire and Giambi references and read between the lives, which is probably the smart thing to do.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (AP) Barry Bonds, the only player in baseball history alleged to have taken any form of Performance Enhancing Drugs, gave the baseball world a grim forecast of the rest of his season by striking out. Bonds stood powerless as the sixth pitch of his first Spring Training at-bat in 2 seasons nipped the outside corner for a third and final strike.

Home plate umpire Bill Sharpley added "Stee-ike fwee, OAWT" for emphasis.

Despite going 5-6 with 3 singles and 2 homeruns since, this first at-bat shows that being the focus of all the negative attention this offseason has clearly affected his game. And this is only the begginning. Bonds season will be an uphill battle all the way, facing mean-spirited crowds and taunts for the very first time in his career.

...DEVELOPING....