Posted on 03/23/2006 11:17:06 AM PST by JZelle
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Gary Sheffield knew full well he was doping, and Jason Giambi was turned on to a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs similar to what Barry Bonds was taking, according to a new book.
"Game of Shadows," set for release Thursday, says BALCO's performance-enhancing drugs were used by several athletes, including track stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, NFL players such as Bill Romanowski, and sluggers including Bonds, Sheffield and Giambi.
It centers on Bonds' allegedly extensive drug regimen - steroids, human growth hormone, insulin and more - but also undercuts Sheffield's claims that he took designer steroids unwittingly.
Sheffield has admitted that he used a cream two years ago, but said he did not know it contained illegal steroids. The authors, however, say Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, put Sheffield on injectable testosterone and a human growth hormone in 2002, and later sold him designer steroids known as the "cream" and the "clear."
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.washingtontimes.com ...
(Extreme sarcasm alert...)
I remember he came out to CA. and trained with Bonds for a couple of years in the off season. Just report should surprise nobody.
Boone, Giambi, Sosa, Canseco, McGuire, Sheffield, Bonds... a doper?
Who knew?
(Extreme sarcasm alert...)
This whole decade is going to have to be erased from the record books.
So how come he has never failed a drug test?
I actually believe Sheffield's story. I don't really believe most of the other players.
These guys have a "look at me" complex and they clearly hav ean animus against Bonds. They know sensational charges sell books.
Steroid use by big league ball players is about as important to me as dust mites.
So glad we got congress involved ...
you need to read the book - I read an excerpt and it was a case of cutting-edge steriods administered in regimines designed to avoid detection by the standard tests. In fact, one or two of these designer steriods were unknown to even the FDA until Victor Conti & his BALCO cohorts were busted a couple of years ago.
the problem is the health risks to high school & college atheletes who will use this stuff when it provides an big advantage with little downside when pro sports do not ban it. The health problems of Giambi & Ken Caminitti - who died about a year ago at around 42 - should give anyone pause.
Personally, I'm not all that concerned that people do things to destroy themselves. I see it all the time, with both drug users and non-drug users.
People should be encouraged to live intelligently and not do things that are harmful to themselves. But in the end, it is their decision.
As for high school kids - any kids who can afford steroids in high school and buy them without their parents knowledge are unproperly supervised.
College students SHOULD be smart enough to educate themselves regarding safe and unsafe steroid dosages.
You can ban steroids but covert performance enhancement will continue - especially when you consider the riches one can receive.
That's my point here - if baseball gets tough on steriods, then the incentive to use them goes way down. I am generally libertarian about recreational drugs - let people kill themselves as long as they are not harming others.
Sheffield has always been a gbig guy, unlike Bonds. And he has never failed a drug test. He says he used some cream (that Bonds sent him) for a knee problem, for a couple of weeks until he found out what it was and then he stopped.
Given the consistency of Sheffield's performance, I can believe that. Giambi is another matter, as it appears that he admitted to using, and Bonds certainly bulked up a lot in the later years of his career.
However, the San Francisco Chronicle is an unreliable source on anything, and anything that two Chronicle reporters tell me, given the paper's apparent view that socialism is too right wing -- which is even more pervasive in its reporting than in its editorial pages -- I would tend to take with a full box of salt. (Like most liberal news outlets, they don't even try to get the story right, just politically correct. The story of the rescue of the pinko peacenik hostages is one of the best examples of how liberals would rather distort for a political point than actually make an effort to get the story right.)
And the media is well-known to have a strong and long-standing animus towards Bonds, at least in part because he has never catered to them and that hurts their egos.
Furthermore, these authors know that trashing big names makes them big names and makes them more money. For people who hate capitalism (requried to work at the Chronicle), they sure do practice it.
That doesn't mean that Barry didn't juice up -- just that these guys have an agenda, so I'll need more than this before I'm sold on the idea that it's "proven."
Bonds lawyer sues over new book on BALCO scandal
Bonds has repeatedly denied using steroids or any other illegal drugs. But his suit, as described by his lawyers, does not challenge the contents of the book, only the way the information was gathered.The book and previous newspaper articles by the same reporters were based partly on transcripts of confidential testimony by Bonds and others before a federal grand jury investigating BALCO. The investigation led to the indictments and guilty pleas of four people, including the lab's owner, Victor Conte, and Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson. No athletes were indicted.
Federal law prohibits only the leaking of a grand jury transcript and not its publication by an outsider.
We really do have to do something now. Unless we take action to ban steroids many kids will do things that harm their long term health (and teenagers think they are invincible anyway) for a chance at a longer shot than the lottery. At least powerball won't destroy anyone's liver.
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