Tag Archives: Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds

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Yesterday, a federal jury convicted former baseball star Barry Bonds of obstructing justice. Prosecutors accused Bonds of being overly evasive regarding whether he had been injected with anything by anyone other than a doctor. According to prosecutors, Bonds evasiveness hindered the grand jury’s 2003 sport’s investigation of BALCO, which is accused of supplying steroids to major league ballplayers. The jury nearly convicted Bonds on one of three perjury counts of lying about whether he had been injected by his former personal trainer, but deadlocked 11-1. Bonds also was accused of lying about using steroids and a human growth hormone.

Prosecutors are deciding whether to retry Bonds on the three deadlocked counts of perjury. Whether or not Major League Baseball’s all-time home runs leader faces jail time or a second trial is open to conjecture. But what isn’t open to conjecture is his use of human growth hormone.

I’ve lifted weights ever since I was a kid, first, to build muscle mass for sports, and second, just to stay in condition. I can tell you that no matter how many weights you lift or how many times you lift, your head size and foot size won’t increase. But human growth hormone can increase both head and foot size. The hormone, which is produced by the pituitary gland, normally stimulates bone and tissue growth throughout the body. However, if there’s too much of it, the body starts to develop an abnormal amount of flesh and bone. In an adult, very large doses of HGH can cause the skull to thicken and the forehead and eyebrow ridge to become especially prominent. Hands and feet also grow out of proportion with the rest of the body. When this glandular disorder occurs, it’s called acromegaly.

In their 2007 book “Game of Shadows,” authors Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada write about Bonds’ massive growth since he joined the San Francisco Giants prior to the 1993 season. Over the course of 14 seasons, Bonds’ jersey size increased from (42 to 52), cleat size (10 1/2 to 13), cap size (7 1/8 to 7 1/4), and shoe size (10½ to 13).

Those incredible––and abnormal––increases in size lead inevitably to the conclusion that Bonds used a growth hormone to enhance his performance. Thus, should his 762 home runs, and his 2001 single-season major league record for home runs of 73, be permanently expunged from the record books?

I, for one, certainly think so.

Performance-Enhancing Drugs and Sports

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Cycling and its most famous race the Tour de France have long been embroiled in doping scandals. American Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour title after admitting that he used performance-enhancing drugs. Landis has also accused many others in the sport of using drugs, including seven-time winner Lance Armstrong. Armstrong has maintained his innocence, though federal prosecutors continue to investigate the charges.

Major league baseball has been plagued in recent years with reports that potential Hall-of-Famers such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens used steroids to enhance their performance. A 2009 poll found that one in ten retired NFL players admitted to using now banned anabolic steroids while playing.

Doping charges have not been limited to the U.S. A major doping scandal is brewing in South Africa involving a former East German head coach who allegedly administered suspicious drugs to the country’s top sprinter.

Women have also been involved in doping scandals. Most recently, Nigeria’s Oludamola Osayomi, the women’s 100-meter champion in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, tested positive for the stimulant methylhexaneamine. A second Nigerian athlete, Samuel Okon, who finished sixth in the 110m hurdles, tested positive for the same drug. Nine Australian athletes also tested positive and are facing two-year suspensions. Sydney 2000 Olympic Games star Marion Jones has tearfully admitted that she used drugs.

Swimming has not been immune to drug scandals. French swimmer and two-time European champion Frederick Bousquet was recently handed a two-month ban following a positive test for the banned stimulant heptaminol.

Now comes the admission from Eddy Hellebuyck, the men’s winner of the 2003 Twin Cities Marathon, that he took injections of the banned substance EPO, which increases endurance. He was forty-two years old when he easily won the race, breaking away from a pack of runners at the twenty-three mile mark. He is the only Olympic-caliber American marathoner to have been found guilty of a major doping violation, according to Runner’s World.

Despite the expanded testing and repeated warnings, athletes in many sports continue to risk their careers and their health in order to maximize their performance. With the London Olympics less than two years away, it will be no surprise if even more athletes find themselves banned from competition for using performance-enhancing drugs.

Three Strikes

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Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez. Three gifted players thought to be locks for baseball’s Hall of Fame have been accused of taking steroids or performance enhancing drugs.

On Monday, after word leaked out about a 2003 positive test, Rodriguez, the New York Yankees third baseman, admitted that he used steroids for a three-year stretch from 2001-2003. Rodriguez hit 156 home runs during that period, including 57 in 2002, the most he’s ever hit in one season.

Roger Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, is being investigated by a federal grand jury on allegations he lied to Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. His trainer alleges that he injected Clemens a dozen times with steroids and human growth hormone during the 1998-2001 seasons. During that span, Clemens won 67 games and lost 27. He won 20 games twice. In 1998, he was 20-6 with Toronto, and in 2001 he had a 20-3 won-loss record with the Yankees.

Barry Bonds, who set the all-time home run record, is scheduled to stand trial next month on charges of lying to a grand jury about using steroids. Bonds’s best seasons were from 2001 through 2004, between the ages of 36 through 39. Bonds hit 49 homeruns during the 2000 season. In 2001, while allegedly taking steroids, he hit 73 to break Mark McGuire’s also tainted single season record of 70.

More chips continue to fall in this ever-widening scandal. Today, former Baltimore Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada pleaded guilty to federal charges that he lied to congressional investigators about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Tejada, the 2002 American League MVP who now plays for the Houston Astros, faces up to a year in prison at a sentencing hearing set for March 26. 103 other players supposedly tested positive in 2003 but have not been identified.

One could certainly make a case that Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez are tremendously talented players even without drugs. Arguably, Rodriguez’s best season was in 2007 when he drove in 156 runs, hit 54 homers, batted .314 and had a .422 on base percentage with the Yankees. Unless proven otherwise, he wasn’t taking steroids then.

Steroid use in baseball was not declared illegal until the 2005 season. Still, I think some key questions need to be asked and answered. Should statistics or records count in seasons when players admittedly took steroids or other performance enhancing drugs? If Roger Clemens’ 67 wins were taken away during the three seasons he’s accused of using steroids, he would no longer be a 300 game winner, a real milestone in baseball and a sure ticket to the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds hit 208 homeruns during his alleged steroid use seasons of 2001-2004. Take those homeruns away from his 762-lifetime total and he no longer surpasses Hank Aaron’s or Babe Ruth’s totals. 

Should baseball retroactively take away the MVP, CY Young and Gold Glove awards from any player who confesses to, or is proven to, have taken steroids? And finally, should any of these or other obviously gifted players be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame?

What do you think?