Federal prosecutors have filed a new indictment against Barry Bonds, charging the home run king with 14 counts of lying to a grand jury and one count of obstruction when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds was originally charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice last Nov. 15, but on February 29th, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered prosecutors to rework the indictment so that each charge alleged only one lie rather than lumping several alleged falsehoods into single counts.
The new indictment doesn't add any new alleged falsehoods.
The case against Bonds is still built on whether he lied when he told the grand jury that his personal trainer Greg Anderson never supplied him with steroids and human growth hormone.
Can a Roger Clemens indictment be far behind?
The sad thing about all this is that it’s all SHOW no GO.
In the seventies ballplayers used amphetamines, and MLB juiced the ball, moved in the fences and lowered the pitcher’s mound to increase run production.
Starting in the 1980s, “designer steroids” and HgH came into vogue and both MLB and its fans winked and nodded at player’s use as both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled it out for the single-season home record obviously fueled on by performance enhancing drugs.
But since then, MLB’s had a major image problem, and that image problem grew worse, much worse, when the surly misanthropic Bonds vaulted past Ruth and eventually Hank Aaron to wrest MLB’s career home run record.
Now MLB is trying to USE Congress to convince the American people that “only 5% of the players, at most, used performance enhancing drugs over the previous decade.”
THAT is utter nonsense.
The FACT is that performance enhancers WORK, just check Bonds and Clemens out!
Other players know that and they know that the regimen these guys were on weren’t near the mega-doses that, say, WWF wrestler’s use.
Bottom-line MLB wants to quiet down the fan base with a “Congressional Seal of Approval” and move on, even if current future players continue to use better and better drugs with better masking agents.
The theme going forward seems to be, “just don’t make it too obvious.”
Bonds was originally charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice last Nov. 15, but on February 29th, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered prosecutors to rework the indictment so that each charge alleged only one lie rather than lumping several alleged falsehoods into single counts.
The new indictment doesn't add any new alleged falsehoods.
The case against Bonds is still built on whether he lied when he told the grand jury that his personal trainer Greg Anderson never supplied him with steroids and human growth hormone.
Can a Roger Clemens indictment be far behind?
The sad thing about all this is that it’s all SHOW no GO.
In the seventies ballplayers used amphetamines, and MLB juiced the ball, moved in the fences and lowered the pitcher’s mound to increase run production.
Starting in the 1980s, “designer steroids” and HgH came into vogue and both MLB and its fans winked and nodded at player’s use as both Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa battled it out for the single-season home record obviously fueled on by performance enhancing drugs.
But since then, MLB’s had a major image problem, and that image problem grew worse, much worse, when the surly misanthropic Bonds vaulted past Ruth and eventually Hank Aaron to wrest MLB’s career home run record.
Now MLB is trying to USE Congress to convince the American people that “only 5% of the players, at most, used performance enhancing drugs over the previous decade.”
THAT is utter nonsense.
The FACT is that performance enhancers WORK, just check Bonds and Clemens out!
Other players know that and they know that the regimen these guys were on weren’t near the mega-doses that, say, WWF wrestler’s use.
Bottom-line MLB wants to quiet down the fan base with a “Congressional Seal of Approval” and move on, even if current future players continue to use better and better drugs with better masking agents.
The theme going forward seems to be, “just don’t make it too obvious.”
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