In the book Game of Shadows — to be published on March 27 — San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams will make the case that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds has used steroids and human growth hormone since the end of the 1998 baseball season. To a select few who have been following Bonds and his rapid and substantial muscular growth over the past eight years, this book provides hard evidence that Bonds is dirty, something that some of us have known for years.
You can read the excerpt for yourself by visiting SI. You’ll learn how an attention-starved Bonds embarked on a drug regimen of massive proportion as a direct result of Mark McGwire’s record-setting 70 home run season. You can see for yourself the meticulous sourcing employed by these authors in order to come up with this portrait of a drug-fueled, drug-obsessed Bonds.
This book will have enormous repercussions both for Bonds and for Major League Baseball. The release of this book ensures that Barry Bonds will never break Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, and may not even break Babe Ruth’s record.
I do not think that Barry Bonds will play again.
This report is the last in a long line of evidence that indicates Bonds’ physique was developed through the use of steroids. And while his dwindling band of supporters will be loud in their opposition to those of us who call Bonds a cheater – among other things – the avalanche of evidence presented by the authors of this book will drown them out.
Without a doubt we will hear all of the usual nonsense with regards to the proof that these authors present in their book, and some will look to discredit the sources of their info, but this kind of dissent will quickly dissipate. The authors of this book – no doubt anticipating these kinds of criticisms and potential legal liability – have gone to exhaustive lengths to source their story.
If the authors are lying and this story is made up, then Barry Bonds should march into court as soon as his lawyers can get a hold of this book and file the largest libel suit ever filed. If these guys got it wrong, don't you think this would be a slam dunk case for some hotshot libel lawyer out there?
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
Sal, I am getting ready to read this and look forward to talking to you about it on Friday.
2 - DJRadiohead
Sal, interesting points raised in your article. The discussion to come from this book will be interesting.
3 - Biggest giants fan
barry will play, he didnt do anything wrong
4 - DJRadiohead
I think Barry will play this year and it will be his last year. I don't think he will drop before the year's end barring an injury.
5 - MCH
If it can proven that Bonds took steroids, what should the consequences be? Should he be banned from baseball or barred from the Hall of Fame? What about his statistics and MVP awards, any repercussions there?
6 - sal m
he'll never have his stats erased/asterisked or modified in any way, nor will his awards be taken away...he'll just have to live with the stigma...shoeless joe jackson still has his records in the book yet everyone knows what he did almost 100 years later...bonds and company will have this same kind of legacy.
7 - MCH
Sal;
Re Jackson, did you ever read the book "Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson"? Author David Fleitz presents a plethora of evidence that Jackson didn't really do (or not do) anything to help throw the '19 series, although he did accept $5,000 to participate in the scheme. He did lead all hitters in the series with a .375 average.
8 - sal m
I haven't read the book, but I am aware that Jackson seems to have been an unwitting dupe in the scandal...my point was that even before this knowledge came to light jackson's records weren't taken out of the books...
9 - MCH
Yeah, true, I understand...it will be interesting to see how the whole thing with Bonds plays out...it's a shame if he did what they say he did...I feel he was perhaps to the most naturally gifted, all-around baseball player of his generation...