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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.