So let me get this straight, the guy with the most to gain by giving up Bonds, the ultimate "stay out of jail free card" in this entire investigation, again refuses to do so. This after giving up virtually everyone else of lesser value. (ie: Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, et al). Makes perfectly logical sense.
And the authors of "Game of Shadows" continue to pick and choose what "evidence" consider "fact" and what they consider "fiction".
Quote: Lance Williams, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who has written "Game of Shadows" with Mark Fainaru-Wada using the federal interviews to detail Bonds' alleged steroid regime, discounted Conte's denial.
"He did not come to court and challenge the drug agent and say, 'You lied,' " Williams told USA Today. "The guilty plea was pretty convincing to us that everything was true. Our belief is that he's doing this because he feels bad that he gave all of those people up."
OK, whatever. Hand these guys a Pulitzer Prize.
When one of these authors appeared on ESPN when this story first broke, he defended the use of Bonds' ex-girlfriends testimony, even though she has since contradicted some of it on Geraldo's show, by saying, and I quote " Why would his girlfriend lie?" If you read the excerpts and believe that it's true, you can only conclude, why wouldn't this woman lie? He treated her like shit it appears. Who among us would want to be judged by the character reference provided by an ex-spouse or girlfriend? Has this guy ever been laid? Has he not heard of the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorned?" I would guess the answer to be NO to both questions. But let's just hand them a Pulitzer prize for their "most excellent journalism".
And how about the treatment of Greg Anderson? If the excerpts are to be believed, why in Hell wouldn't this guy have turned on Barry? He apparently treated him like dog shit also. And yet, when he was interviewed by the prosecutors he ends an interview with the famous line "I don't want to go to jail". And these prosecutors can't close the deal and get him to roll over on Barry? Have they not watched any cop shows on TV? This guy was begging for a deal. And yet he goes to jail rather than rat out on Bonds? This Bonds guy must be a real prince.
Conte and Anderson would both rather do time and have the weight of the IRS and the DOJ on them for the rest of their lives apparently. Most of the "evidence" in the excerpts, it seems, could have been acquired by dumpster diving behind the BALCO prosecutors office. Yes, the selective leaking of testimony to make the story appear however the author's like it is Pulitzer Prize winning work. That's according to the brethren, print media and their cousins in the electronic media. Many of whom have previously disclosed their outright hatred for Bonds.
Let's remember that this BALCO grand jury evidence was convincing enough to the grand jurors to result in only two of the initial forty two charges resulting in convictions. Two for forty two? I think I could hit two for forty two against Major League pitching. And the grand jurors heard and saw all of the evidence directly. They did not have to rely on cherry picked excerpts. And they were able to see and hear the testimony of the person's subpoenaed live and in person. They were able to judge believability by the person's voice and mannerisms, not just words on a piece of paper. And still only 2-42. Good evidence.
This issue is now in the forum that the Bonds-haters want it to be, the Court of Public Opinion not the Court of Law. You can say what you want and the standards of evidence and fairness that would apply in a Court of Law are meaningless. You can mislead at your own pleasure, just as all in the media who perpetuate the "If theses charges are untrue, why doesn't Bonds or his people sue the authors for defamation. Surely these guys know that as a Public Figure, people can virtually say or rewrite whatever they want about a public figure and the chances of prevailing in the defamation suit are virtually nil. And I'm sure these journalists are properly trained by our institutes of higher learning to at least CYA in this regard.
When I hear a Frank Deford's or Rick Reilly's commentaries re: Bonds I can honestly say I have not heard such venom and vitriol in a voice since Ron Goldman's father during the OJ trial. I mean who pissed in these guys' Wheaties? Bonds did I guess when he publicly called out the media to clean up their own houses first. Called them all liars, as I recall.
We're well past the witch hunt stage at this point and have gone directly to lynch mob mentality, with all that entails. And it looks and sounds ugly and racially motivated and wrong. And all who reflexively deny that race has anything to do with this has got to have his or her head in the sand (or some posterior orifice).
Don't give me this baloney about protecting the sanctity of records. The barn door has long closed on that. You'd sound more honest if you said you were trying to protect Madonna's virtue.
We have the Weapons of Mass Destruction motivation for going into this steroid mess to begin with, the "kids are using in droves and we've got to protect the kids". Recent reports suggest that kids are reporting steroid use at about the 3% level. The experts then conclude that the number is really closer to 5-6%. OK, I'll accept 5-6% even, but it doesn't seem to be a growing problem or epidemic, like the media and Congress would lead you to believe. Not like drinking or on-line gambling or Poker (ESPN's new sport).
We have owners, who include President Bush by the way, who profited by the use of steroids by their players and looked the other way when it was right in front of their faces but now are gleefully throwing the same players under the bus now that they don't have any use for them any more. Or looking the other way while the media does it for them. Very classy behavior. Real stand-up guys. These so-called leaders, who will gladly hold others accountable to high standards but will deflect same when it's applied to themselves.
Bush's team had Canseco, Palmiero, Sosa and many other suspects by the way. Interesting how the man could see WMD half a world away that may not have been there, but couldn't see this steroid problem when it was right in front of his face and in his own clubhouse.
We have the continuing Racial Profiling Argument ("He looks like a user") perpetuated by the David Wells' and Turk Wendell's of the world. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Wells himself admitted in a recent interview by saying he would have "never guessed" that Palmeiro wasn't using while he was his teammate and yet it appears he was wrong. How can he spot a user from across country or across the diamond when he couldn't see one in his own clubhouse?
That's one of the problems in my mind with this recent hysteria. We have people who are anointing themselves steroid experts either by their use of steroids or the ability to Google the word "steroids". Heck, I could do either or both and I wouldn't be an expert.
Remember too, the "experts" postulated that mainly sluggers were juicing and ruining the game with their inflated hoe-run numbers. But what we're finding from early returns is that pitchers are getting caught as users at a rate virtually equal to sluggers. The absolute numbers are a 1.5-1 ratio of hitters to pitchers, but that is equal to the ratio of hitters to pitchers on most rosters, so the rate is virtually equal. In the recent issue of Street and Smith's Baseball, Mike Berardino of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel did an article titled "Mounds of Trouble" documenting this surprising development. He said 35 of the first 88 minor league suspensions went to pitchers, so the ratio was 1.2-1 hitter to pitchers at that level.
We still want to glorify the guys we like like Lance Armstrong and Roger Clemens and demonize those we don't like. Even when there is as much evidence or questions about one or the other. I still submit that if you truly believe Bonds is a user, you almost have to honestly admit that Lance Armstrong is a user. But few people do say Yes to both. A failed drug test, even though he and his supporters always submit the defense that he never failed a drug test, former teammates who have "testified" in the court of public opinion that he used. Why is the "evidence" of their testimony discounted so readily and others so readily accepted?
It's really unfortunate, the treatment of guys like Sosa and McGwire has taken a 180 degree shift from guys who saved the sport to guys who are now credited with ruining it.
I don't believe I've seen anything like it since the way this country treated the Vietnam veterans, who left as patriots, doing their duty to protect this country and save it from the scourge of Communism and returned to be spat on as baby killers and symbols of an unjust war. The parallels are eerily similar.
We lauded these guys for providing Norman Rockwell moments (McGwire) and were teary eyed when he broke Maris' record, with the nations', the medias and the Maris' approval I might add. And now we want to vilify them. Very nice.
And don't give me the clap-trap-crap I hear from some weak-assed media members, like a Rick Telander, who want to jump all over themselves saying they tried to warn us of the problem, but nobody listened. Baloney. When one media member poked into McGwire's locker and found Andro, the rest of the brethren pounced all over him for invasion of privacy. More likely for pissing on the parade that was the McGwire-Sosa homer chase.
This is what people wanted, "Chicks dig the Long Ball", this is what baseball owners wanted, to make us all forget that they canceled a World Series for crying out loud and it worked. The cash registers rung loud and clear. I don't hear any call whatsoever from Congress or anyone for the owners to disgorge themselves from profits obtained under a fraudulent basis. Revenues have nearly tripled from the stain of the canceled World Series. Remember that when you want to direct your venomous attacks in the future. You'll probably sound less disingenuous.
from espn.com
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2372623
Victor Conte continues to deny that he provided Barry Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs. Conte, who said when he went to prison in December that he had never discussed steroids with Bonds, much less given him any, reiterated that position to Friday's edition of USA Today. He admitted from prison that he had provided the cream and clear, two now-illegal steroids distributed by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, to Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson.
Conte, however, declined to clarify for USA Today whether Bonds could have gotten them from somebody else connected to BALCO. "My understanding was that it was for [Anderson]," Conte told the paper. "Understand that baseball didn't have any testing. They didn't need this highly undetectable stuff I was doing with Olympic athletes. They were in another world from me. My relationship with Barry Bonds was 100 percent about his nutrition, his younger brother's nutrition and about nutrition for his father."
Conte, who denied to ESPN.com in December that he had named athletes when BALCO was raided in 2003, again denied that a memo by federal investigator Jeff Novitzky indicating he had done so was false. "Much of the information in the memorandum of interview prepared by the federal agents ... was completely fabricated," Conte's told USA Today. "I filed a declaration under penalty of perjury with the federal court regarding what was actually discussed that day, and it clearly states that I did not make a confession to the agents."
Lance Williams, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter who has written "Game of Shadows" with Mark Fainaru-Wada using the federal interviews to detail Bonds' alleged steroid regime, discounted Conte's denial. "He did not come to court and challenge the drug agent and say, 'You lied,' " Williams told USA Today. "The guilty plea was pretty convincing to us that everything was true. Our belief is that he's doing this because he feels bad that he gave all of those people up."
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