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The federal appeals court ruling against the government Wednesday in the long running Major League Baseball drug-testing case has several far-reaching ramifications. The decision means that leaking the names of steroid-tainted players to Sports Illustrated and The New York Times likely constituted crimes, and that an investigation could be launched to identify the leakers. It also means that the blockbuster revelations about steroid cheating by Alex Rodriguez(notes), Sammy Sosa(notes), Manny Ramirez(notes) and David Ortiz(notes) were based on evidence gathered in an illegal search by lead BALCO investigating agent Jeff Novitzky. Unless the Ninth Circuit decision is successfully appealed to the...

SAN FRANCISCO, (AP) -- A San Francisco jury has found former cyclist Tammy Thomas guilty of lying to a grand jury about her steroids use. The first person in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation to go to trial, Thomas was convicted Friday of three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. The jury acquitted her of two counts of perjury.

Former cycling champion Tammy Thomas seemed to be in the midst of shaving her face when an Olympic drug tester paid her an unannounced visit in 2002, according to testimony Wednesday in her trial on perjury charges. Tom McVay, a tester for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, told a jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that on March 14, 2002, he was assigned to locate Thomas at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, east of San Diego, and collect a urine sample for a steroid test. The visit was memorable, McVay said, because of Thomas' appearance when she...

Caught up in the BALCO steroids scandal, an elite athlete adamantly denies using banned drugs, then mounts an aggressive defense to a perjury indictment. It sounds like the case of former Giants slugger Barry Bonds, accused of lying under oath to the federal grand jury that investigated Burlingame's Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid ring in 2003.Instead, starting today in federal court in San Francisco, a lesser-known American sports champion - Tammy Thomas, a onetime star of bicycle track racing - goes on trial, charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Her case is of interest because it amounts to a...

Political insiders have long been wondering how Rep. Nancy Pelosi would mark Barry Bonds breaking of Hank Aaron's home run record. Pelosi represents San Francisco, where Bonds plays baseball with the Giants, but recent allegations of Bonds' doping have brought into question Pelosi's support of the historic milestone. But, today, Pelosi issue a statement on Bonds' achievement: "Tonight, Barry Bonds etched his name into baseball's history books and took his rightful place among sport's immortals," Pelosi said. "It was a great night for baseball and a great night for San Francisco -- the crowd went wild. It was particular exciting...

Barry Bonds hits #756

The abrupt departure of San Francisco's top federal prosecutor may delay a decision on whether Giants star Barry Bonds will be indicted for perjury in the BALCO steroids case, legal experts said. Scott Schools, acting U.S. attorney since February, said Wednesday that he would leave his post as early as July 13 to work as a county prosecutor in his native South Carolina. Several informed sources said the Bush administration hopes to replace him with veteran San Francisco lawyer Joseph Russoniello, who served as U.S. attorney here in the 1980s. Just as Schools leaves, the 2-year-old Bonds perjury probe will...

Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters will avoid jail time after a criminal defense lawyer pleaded guilty Wednesday to leaking them secret grand jury documents from the BALCO steroids investigation. Troy Ellerman admitted allowing reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada to view transcripts of the grand jury testimony of baseball stars Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and sprinter Tim Montgomery, according to court documents. The Chronicle published stories in 2004 that reported Giambi and Montgomery admitted taking steroids while Bonds and Sheffield testified that they didn't knowingly take performance enhancing drugs. A federal judge ordered the reporters jailed after they...

51 minutes ago MILWAUKEE - Barry Bonds hit his 734th career home run Saturday night, breaking Hank Aaron's NL record in the same city where the Hall of Fame slugger started and ended his major league career. The San Francisco Giants star hit a 1-0 pitch from Milwaukee's Chris Capuano over the right-center fence in the third inning, just out of the reach of outfielders Brady Clark and Corey Hart. Bonds, who hit No. 733 and drove in a season-high six runs Friday night, is 21 homers shy of Aaron's career mark of 755. It was Bonds' 26th home run...

A federal judge expressed sympathy Friday for two Chronicle reporters facing subpoenas for their sources of grand jury testimony about steroids in sports, but he said legal precedent works against their request to keep those sources secret. "I think that you have a very compelling argument'' that courts should recognize a right of journalists to protect their sources, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White told the reporters' lawyer, Jonathan Donnellan, near the end of a hearing in San Francisco that lasted almost two hours. White observed that most states and an increasing number of foreign nations have adopted laws to protect...

A dispute between the Justice Department and The Chronicle over the use of grand jury testimony in stories about athletes' steroid use will come to a showdown today in a San Francisco federal courtroom. Federal prosecutors will ask a judge to order reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams to reveal who leaked star players' admissions that they had taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The reporters and the newspaper have also been served with subpoenas for grand jury transcripts and any documents that would reveal the source or sources. If the judge refuses to dismiss the subpoenas and orders the reporters to...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Members of the grand jury investigating baseball's Barry Bonds for perjury and tax evasion arrived at the federal courthouse Thursday for what could be their final day of work. Mark Geragos, attorney for Bonds' personal trainer, told The Associated Press his client would be released later in the day from federal prison, where Greg Anderson was sent more than two weeks ago after he refused to testify to the grand jury. The judge said Anderson was to be held until he agreed to testify against Bonds or the grand jury's term expired, and the panel's term...

Lawyers for Barry Bonds' personal trainer say he'd rather go back to prison for a third time than take part in the grand jury investigation of his childhood friend for tax evasion and perjury. Fresh off a 15-day jail term for refusing to cooperate in an earlier phase of the probe, Greg Anderson is expected to be called Thursday before a new grand jury investigating the San Francisco Giants slugger. But the trainer is expected to renew his vow of silence. "He's resigned to do whatever it takes to maintain his integrity," said Paula Canny, an attorney and close friend...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal prosecutors asked a judge today to order two Chronicle reporters to identify their source of grand jury testimony about star athletes' use of performance-enhancing drugs, saying the journalists are the only available sources of the information and have no legal right to withhold it. "The criminal violations here strike at the very heart of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings and the integrity of the judicial system,'' lawyers from the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles said in papers arguing for enforcement of subpoenas against the two reporters. They were referring to the illegal disclosure of...

Barry Bonds dropped his lawsuit against two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who published a book claiming the San Francisco Giants slugger used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds requested that San Francisco County Superior Court dismiss the lawsuit June 2, according to court records reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News. The suit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning he retains the right to refile it. In March, Bonds sued Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, publisher Gotham books, the Chronicle and Sports Illustrated, which published an excerpt of the book, "Game of Shadows." Bonds' lawyers, suing under California's unfair...

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Chronicle is filing a legal motion today to quash federal subpoenas that call on two reporters to identify the source of grand jury testimony they reported in articles about the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Barry Bonds and other star athletes. If the law was bent or broken by the leaking of the testimony, the motion argues, that damage was more than balanced by the benefits of the articles, which revealed the biggest sports scandal in a generation and led to action by Congress and Major League Baseball. [Hearst general counsel Eve Burton explains...

Barry Bonds was in Milwaukee recently and the commissioner of baseball wouldn’t make the 10-minute drive from his house to watch him. So it follows that Bud Selig wasn’t in when Bonds moved past Babe Ruth on the home run list. Nor were any of Ruth’s children. Nor any high-level officials. Nor anybody whose presence screamed, “I’m important, so I’m here.” Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run Sunday. But every overblown ESPN news break-in couldn’t drown out the sad reality of the moment. It was as awkward as it was historical. Some wanted to watch. Most wanted to cover...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' lawyer says he'll ask a judge to order that the authors of a new book detailing the Giants' slugger's alleged use of steroids turn over any profits they make. Notice of the lawsuit came today in a letter from attorney Michael Rains' office to the agent for authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams. They are reporters for The Chronicle and authors of the book "Game of Shadows." The book, published today, concerns the Bay Area laboratory known as BALCO and the athletes, including Bonds, who allegedly were illicitly supplied with performance-enhancing drugs. According to the...

This narrative is based on more than a thousand pages of documents and interviews with more than 200 people, many of whom we spoke to repeatedly. In our reporting on the BALCO story for the San Francisco Chronicle, we obtained transcripts of the secret grand jury testimony of Barry Bonds and seven other prominent professional athletes. We also reviewed confidential memorandums detailing federal agents' interviews with other athletes and trainers who had direct knowledge of BALCO. Sealed material we reviewed also included unredacted versions of affidavits filed by the BALCO investigators; e-mail between BALCO owner Victor Conte and several athletes...

NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Beginning in 1998 with injections in his buttocks of Winstrol, a powerful steroid, Barry Bonds took a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs over at least five seasons in a massive doping regimen that grew more sophisticated as the years went on, according to Game of Shadows, a book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters at the forefront of reporting on the BALCO steroid distribution scandal. The authors, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, describe in sometimes day-to-day, drug-by-drug detail how often and how deeply Bonds engaged in the persistent doping. For instance, the authors write that...

NEW YORK (SI.com) -- Beginning in 1998 with injections in his buttocks of Winstrol, a powerful steroid, Barry Bonds took a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs over at least five seasons in a massive doping regimen that grew more sophisticated as the years went on, according to Game of Shadows, a book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters at the forefront of reporting on the BALCO steroid distribution scandal. (An excerpt of Game of Shadows that details Bonds' steroid use appears exclusively in the March 13 issue of Sports Illustrated, which is available on newsstands beginning on Wednesday. The...

Soon the tentacles of the BALCO doping case had reached into professional baseball and football, into Olympic track and field, into championship boxing, into the very consciousness of the American sports fan. There was grand-jury testimony and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency sanctions and congressional hearings with pumped-up athletes stuffed into designer suits talking about designer steroids. And now the trail has led to a three-story beige building in the cornfields of central Illinois, to a nutritional supplement company called Proviant Technologies and what investigators believe is the true genius behind the whole operation. To a 39-year-old organic chemist who signed off...

Ever since the Olympics were played in ancient Greece, athletes have been looking for an edge. At that time, athletes used some very suspect compounds in hopes of increasing their strength, quickness, and endurance. They ingested various substances with the hopes of giving themselves even a slight advantage over other athletes. Innumerable amounts of various herbs of questionable efficacy, quality, and consistency were swallowed by those interested in gaining that elusive lead on their opponents. In that respect, you can think of that period of time as being pretty similar to the 1980's. The 80's were a time when steroid...

Bill Romanowski used steroids and human growth hormone supplied by Victor Conte, the former NFL linebacker tells CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. Romanowski said he took illegal steroids for a two-year period starting in 2001 and got them from Conte, the former head of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which has been at the center of a steroids controversy in several sports.... Last May, he agreed to pay former Raiders teammate Marcus Williams $415,000 in damages for a hit to the face during a practice drill in 2003. Williams' career ended after his eye socket...

The joylessness of Barry Bonds is immutable now. His return in pursuit of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron is made of radioactive stuff. His undertaking is hard to embrace. It smacks of wrong. The fun is absent amid the clearing of throats. Bonds now lives in his imaginary bunker to ward off the slings and arrows of the BALCO scandal. He is the victim, of course. He is both the victim of BALCO and an unsympathetic national press that sees his exploits through the lens of race. His is an understandable gambit. What else does he have to play? More...

Barry Bonds had arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in January. He's still out. Gives a man time to think, a long leave of absence like that. About his life. About his career. About whether it makes sense to come back at all. Crazy talk? Well, sure, but tell me what about Barry's recent behavior has been particularly bright.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- BALCO founder Victor Conte and two other men pleaded guilty Friday to steroid distribution in a deal with federal prosecutors, making it much less likely that top athletes such as Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Marion Jones will be forced to testify about alleged drug use. Conte pleaded guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering. If U.S. District Judge Susan Illston accepts the deal, he'll spend four months in prison and four months under house arrest. Greg Anderson, Bonds' longtime friend and personal trainer, pleaded guilty to the same charges in exchange for a six-month prison...

Victor Conte, accused mastermind of the BALCO steroids conspiracy, has agreed to a plea bargain that will require him to spend four months in federal prison for distributing banned drugs to elite athletes, a source familiar with the case told The Chronicle. Conte, the founder of the Burlingame-based nutritional supplements company that became the flash point for an international sports doping scandal, is scheduled to appear at a hearing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today. His lawyers are expected to ask Judge Susan Illston to approve the plea, which was reached after negotiations with federal prosecutors in the...

NEW YORK (AP) - Major League Baseball is looking into Barry Bonds' relationships and activities, according to a report in the New York Daily News. Citing anonymous baseball sources, the newspaper reported in its Sunday editions that baseball security officials believe Bonds might be at risk of conviction over allegations of tax fraud. The San Francisco Giants outfielder, who has been at the center of baseball's steroid's scandal, has yet to play this season as he recovers from knee surgeries. The most recent Bonds controversy involves him using his own doctors and trainers to treat his injured right knee. The...

Prosecutors in the BALCO steroids conspiracy case subpoenaed a former girlfriend of Barry Bonds to testify before a federal grand jury in San Francisco last week, questioning her about the Giants star's finances and whether he used steroids, The Chronicle has learned. Kimberly Bell, 35, a graphic artist from San Jose who says she dated Bonds from 1994 to 2003, told the grand jury Thursday that in 2000, the left fielder confided to her that he had begun using steroids, according to two sources familiar with an account of her testimony. Bell also testified that in 2001, Bonds had given...

FBI agents raided the San Mateo home of accused steroid dealer Victor Conte Wednesday as part of a federal probe into how The Chronicle had obtained federal grand jury testimony for stories about the BALCO sports-doping scandal, informed sources said. The sources, who asked not to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said the agents arrived before 8 a.m. with a search warrant at the home of Conte, who is BALCO's founder and accused mastermind of an international steroid conspiracy. Agents seized Conte's computer and other items, the sources said. The sources said the FBI...

The lawyer for triple Olympic champion Marion Jones has challenged the indicted head of the BALCO laboratory to take a lie detector test after he alleged he had seen her taking performance-enhancing drugs. The challenge comes a day after Jones sued Victor Conte $25 million for defamation, saying he had falsely accused her of doping. "Today we challenge Mr Conte to take and make public a lie detector examination from a qualified, well-respected polygrapher," Jones's attorney Rich Nichols said in a statement. "Marion Jones took, passed and made public a lie detector test, which confirmed what she has said publicly,...

December 8, 2004 George Bush vs. Barry Bonds The government's effective smear campaign against baseball's best player Matt Welch The United States government has sent the impressionable Youth of America an unmistakable signal: Do not, under any circumstances, break any sporting records after adding 18 pounds of muscle at age 36. If you do, Uncle Sam will use the awesome powers at his disposal—grand jury inquisitions, illegal leaks, even the State of the Union address—to humiliate you in public and pressure your union to accept year-round random urine testing, even if you will never be charged with breaking a single...

Professional baseball–America’s pastime. You don’t have to be an avid fan of the game to know the names of Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig and other greats, or to realize that the sport of baseball today is not as it was when the three previously mentioned greats played. As a radio ad I once heard asked rhetorically, “how did the word ‘negotiate’ make it from the business page to the sports page?’ Admittedly, I am not a huge sports fan. Nevertheless, I understand the basic rules, now how to read the statistics, and whenever the Red Sox make it...

Responding to new allegations of drug use by sprint star Marion Jones, the world governing body of track and field (IAAF) will consider today whether to conduct a formal investigation of Jones, an IAAF official said yesterday. IAAF General Secretary Istvan Gyulai said the IAAF had obtained transcripts of last night's ABC News "20/20" interview in which Victor Conte -- the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) who is under indictment on federal steroid charges -- claimed to have given steroids and other drugs to Jones before the 2000 Olympics.

Anyone have Before/After Photos of Barry Bonds --- One photo ~ 20 years ago when Barry was ~ 180 lbs with a hat size of ~ 7 1/2; And a recent photo showing him ~ 260 lbs with a hat size of ~ 9 3/4;

Barry Bonds testified to a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by a trainer who was indicted in a steroid-distribution ring, but said he didn't know they were steroids, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. Bonds told a U.S. grand jury that he used undetectable steroids known as "the cream" and "the clear," which he received from personal trainer Greg Anderson during the 2003 season. According to Bonds, the trainer told him the substances were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a pain-relieving balm for the player's arthritis. According to government attorneys,...

On April 21, 2001, I was sitting in an Embassy Suites hotel room in Covina, Calif., about a foot away from Marion Jones. The next day, she was going to try to break the world record in the 300 meters. It was her first competition of the 2001 season, and we were both excited. We'd had a lot of success since the previous August, after I'd arranged for her to receive various performance enhancers including "The Clear," a steroid that later became famous as THG, and nutritional supplements. She was on all of it at the 2000 Games in Sydney,...

On Sept. 3, 2003, federal agents raided the offices of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative and set off one of the biggest sports scandals in history. Now the man at the center of the scandal, Victor Conte, wants to tell his side of the story -- about giving Marion Jones performance-enhancing drugs, about helping Tim Montgomery become the world's fastest man, about supplying Barry Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, with the designer steroid THG. "Did I do things wrong? Yes. Am I the only one? No," says Conte, who has been indicted on 35 counts of steroid distribution and money laundering....

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds hit his 700th home run Friday night, toppling another milestone and edging closer to Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in his quest to become the greatest slugger in baseball history.

1 Justin Rose -6 2 Jose Maria Olazabal-4 2 Alex Cejka -4 4 K.J. Choi -3 4 Phil Mickelson -3 6 Charles Howell III -2 6 Ernie Els -2 6 Davis Love III -2 6 Chris DiMarco -2 6 Fred Couples -2 14 Tiger Woods E

The federal investigation into steroids has expanded to the world of bodybuilding. The home and gymnasium of a bodybuilder linked to Balco Laboratories was searched last November, and last weekend federal agents reportedly handed out subpoenas at an Ohio bodybuilding convention co-owned by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman in Los Angles told the Mercury News that agents searched the Temecula home of Milos Sarcev, a former Mr. Yugoslavia. ESPN reported Thursday night that federal agents delivered at least five subpoenas to bodybuilders at the Arnold Fitness Weekend in Columbus, Ohio, as part of a second grand jury...

<p>San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield and three other major league baseball players received steroids from a Burlingame nutritional supplement lab, federal investigators were told.</p> <p>The baseball stars allegedly got the illegal performance-enhancing drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative through Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal weight trainer and longtime friend, according to information furnished the government and shared with The Chronicle.</p>