Free Republic

An international investigation code-named Operation Raw Deal that culminated in the last four days could produce the next steroids scandal in sports – and perhaps the biggest yet. The undercover operation led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration resulted in the seizure of massive amounts of anabolic steroids from an illegal, underground network and the ability to identify hundreds of thousands of people who received steroids and other substances used by some athletes as performance-enhancing drugs, a DEA spokesman told Yahoo! Sports on Sunday. Most of the raids took place in the United States, and the DEA called the steroids...

Have you heard the latest Barry Bonds joke? He’s not just a ballplayer, he’s an inventor -- the first man to make an asterisk out of a syringe. It may not be very funny, but baseball fans don’t seem to be in the mood for laughter. Last night the tainted slugger finally hit his 756th career home run, passing Hammerin’ Hank Aaron as baseball’s all-time home run king. America ought to be enjoying a moment of exaltation, but the overwhelming sentiment seems to be indifference. As USA Today’s Mike Lopresti observed, “…the unconditional applause barely carried beyond the gates of...

There's no denying 756 home runs, and if Selig wants to try, he'd better examine the rest of baseball history Baseball's most cherished record now belongs to Barry Bonds, and no matter what is said, written or alleged, there is no taking it away. Teeing off on a 3-2 pitch from Washington Nationals left-hander Mike Bacsik, Bonds launched his 756th career home run to the deepest part of AT&T Park on Tuesday night. The instant the ball left his bat and sizzled toward right-center field, there was no doubt the San Francisco Giants' controversial slugger had just elbowed his way...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Barry Bonds became the most prolific home-run hitter in Major League Baseball history Tuesday night, slugging his 756th in front of more than 43,052 hometown fans to pass Henry Aaron. Bonds' record-setting homer came in the fourth inning to give the Giants a 5-4 lead over the Washington Nationals. Bonds hit a 3-2 pitch from Washington's Mike Bacsik deep to center field. The game was delayed by a standing ovation for Bonds, whose late father Bobby was a Giants player, coach and front-office employee.... Bonds also holds the season record for home runs with 73 in...

The Natural -- Michael Jordan -- should know better than to give Barry Bonds a video salute after slugger's 754th homer SAN FRANCISCO -- He was real. He was natural. His muscular definition, by all accounts, was developed in weight rooms and not in some science lab. His only competitive sin on the court was trying to destroy one's dignity, and when you ponder it all, Michael Jordan's magnificent legacy only should be enhanced by the sleaze surrounding Barry Bonds. So why, after Bonds ripped his 754th home run at AT&T Park, would a tribute from Jordan suddenly appear on...

CHICAGO -- Responding to Rick Morrissey's July 18 column, my point is simply this: Barry Bonds will soon break the MLB home run record, hitting against the best pitchers in the world from Asia, Latin America, the U.S. and Canada. His will be a genuine world record. Barry Bonds has earned the title of home run king in the most advanced globalized playing field of Major League Baseball. Today's game is a truly international sport. And against the modern-day system of starters, middle relievers, setup men and closers. I applaud Morrissey for his analysis of the Winter Olympics, but am...

As the ball ripped through the summer sky, much like a syringe injected into soft tissue, a spooky sense of finality settled over Wrigley Field. The villain is going to win, isn't he? A grand jury can't stop him, the commissioner can't stop him, old age can't stop him, and the weight of overwhelming public disapproval can't stop him. Barry Bonds, creep of creeps, is about to own the mother of all baseball records. And there's nothing we can do about it except watch and grow physically ill. ''Fans like the game of baseball, regardless of what you guys are...

CHICAGO (AP) -- White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen thinks Major League Baseball's steroids investigation is unfairly targeting Latino players. Guillen was interviewed by several officials last season, and he said they repeatedly focused their questioning on players from Latin America. "I meet with, like, five people," Guillen said Wednesday. "The only thing that made me upset was they tried to mention too many Latino players. I think they try to put the Latinos to be the bad cloud in this thing. This thing was bugging me because everything they asked me (was), 'Do you ever see this in Venezuela?"' Guillen...

SAN FRANCISCO - Giants owner Peter Magowan sent a letter to about 27,000 season-ticket holders this week explaining why the club decided to re-sign free agent slugger Barry Bonds for another season. "The process of negotiating this contract was complex, lengthy and highly unconventional," Magowan wrote Monday in his letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday. "This decision was not taken lightly and we spent significant time evaluating all of the elements and circumstances surrounding the negotiations before we made a final determination to move forward." Magowan and executive vice president Larry Baer have repeatedly said they have a...

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...

Yes Babe you are #3

Heads turned. The ball bid the park adieu. With a single, violent swing of his bat, Barry Bonds made baseball history Saturday in Oakland, climbing one home run closer to the immortal Willie Mays. Six hundred sixteen home runs. It's a mind-numbing number, a body of work to rival Tupac's posthumous releases. Congratulations are in order. Wait. Hold up. You say Bonds actually has 714 career home runs? Er, no. Good one. But no. Sure, if you want to get all technical, there's no arguing that Bonds has forcefully redirected 714 pitches into home run territory over his 21 major-league...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Bonds will have to wait until he passes Hank Aaron before baseball throws a party for him. Major League Baseball is not planning any celebration for Bonds if and when he tops Babe Ruth's mark of 714 home runs, commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday. "Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record," Selig said. "We don't celebrate anybody the second or third time in." Bonds has been the subject of steroids speculation for several seasons. The recent book "Game of Shadows" detailed allegations against him, and a federal grand jury is investigating whether he committed perjury when...

NEW YORK (AP) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson says Major League Baseball and San Diego police failed to protect Barry Bonds and should be trying to find out who threw a syringe at him in the Giants' opener. The object was thrown near the San Francisco slugger as he came off the field following the eighth inning Monday night in San Diego. Bonds picked up the syringe - about the size of a fat cigar - and carried it off the field. "That fan should have been arrested," Jackson said. "That object could have had a needle in it. It...

One of the saddest days for baseball purists will occur early in this upcoming season, to be followed by a second, even sadder, day later this year or early next season. In the first, San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds, who has allegedly been cheating for years by taking massive amounts of performance-enhancing steroids, will hit his 715th home run to surpass the number achieved by Babe Ruth. And, in the second, he will cross home plate after his 756th round-tripper, beating out current home-run king Hank Aaron. Bonds enters this season with 708 career home runs, including a single-season...

WASHINGTON -- Rafael Palmeiro gave his first public explanation of his failed drug test Wednesday, on the eve of a congressional report on whether the former Baltimore Orioles slugger lied under oath when he denied using steroids. In a statement released by his lawyer, Palmeiro acknowledged several facts of his case that already had been reported, including that the anabolic steroid stanozolol was found in his system in May, and that he had raised the possibility that a shot of vitamin B12 he took in April "might have been the cause." "I have never intentionally taken steroids," Palmeiro said in...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants general manager Brian Sabean thinks Barry Bonds could be physically ready to play around 120 games for San Francisco next season. Barry Bonds hopes to kiss about 40 pounds goodbye this winter.Sabean and Bonds both have acknowledged the slugger needs an intense conditioning program over the winter to shed some weight Bonds put on while recovering from three operations this year on his right knee. Sabean hinted that Bonds might continue to work with physical therapist Clive Brewster in Los Angeles this offseason under the direction of Angels' team orthopedist Dr. Lewis Yocum, the pair who...

HUNT VALLEY, Md. -- Calling steroid use "cheating" and a "black cloud" hanging over Major League Baseball, former Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken said he was dismayed Rafael Palmeiro tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance and was suspended. Speaking Tuesday at a media event for next month's Constellation Energy Classic, the Champions Tour golf event for which he is honorary chairman, Ripken said he was "shocked, surprised, just like everyone else. I hope there's a reason or an explanation." Ripken, who played with Palmeiro from 1994 to 1998, said he was in the Bahamas when he learned his former teammate...

NEW YORK -- 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 involving undeclared income from memorabilia sales. However, baseball investigators are having difficulty conducting their own probe because "a federal investigation changes everything," a source told the Daily News. One official from another team told the Daily News that the San Francisco Giants' front office "is starting to freak...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- So now we're supposed to believe that American sports -- and American society -- lost their innocence because baseball players used steroids to hit home runs. Repeat after me, please, and say it loud: American sports have never been innocent, and America's capitalist society has a built-in set of checks and balances because we know unfettered competition for money breeds corruption. So, Sports Illustrated, spare me the whining about the congressional hearings on steroids and baseball. Spare me the whining about the lost summer of '98 and what to do with your scrapbook. I was a...