A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court heard arguments from lawyers and prosecutors for Barry Bonds on whether the prosecutors should be allowed to use positive steroid drug tests as evidence at perjury trial of Bonds.

Bonds was indicated in 2007 on charges that he lied before a grand jury about his use of performance enhancing drugs during BALCO investigations.

From Nytimes.com:

The prosecutors are appealing a ruling in February by United States District Judge Susan Illston, the judge presiding over Bonds’s perjury case, that excluded the drug tests from 2000 and 2001, as well as doping calendars and logs. The judge said the evidence could not be authenticated without the testimony of Bonds’s former trainer Greg Anderson, who spent more than a year in prison refusing to cooperate with the government’s investigation.

At issue on Thursday was whether the evidence could be authenticated without Anderson’s testimony. Prosecutors want James Valente, a former executive at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, to testify that Bonds authorized Anderson to have the samples tested. The defense said that drug tests are often wrong because of forgeries and lies, and that secondhand information from Valente should not be admissible.

Peter Keane, a professor at Golden Gate University School of Law, remarked that the government has a “stiff climb” since appeals courts are generally reluctant to overrule a trial judge ruling on evidence admissibility, especially before a trial.

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The trend of big names in baseball getting accused for use of steroids is continuing with Sammy Sosa being the new name. The baseball slugger was identified by the New York Times as having tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003.

This continuing trend is bothering sports officials and fans equally and there could be just hopes that this long-staged drama ends soon.

From Sportsillustrated.CNN.com:

Sosa’s entry into the Hall of Fame was very much in doubt even before Tuesday. The weight of circumstantial evidence and buzzing among baseball people in and out of uniform always did engender heavy suspicion, even before his 2005 demureness in front of Congress. Naivete would be in order to think someone who corked bats and competed passionately for individual records and glory against Barry Bonds and McGwire in an age with no enforceable drug rules in place would draw a self-imposed line at using steroids — just as his body transformed into a hunk of musculature.

At the age of 28, Sosa was a career .257 hitter who slugged .469 and who hit one home run every 19.4 at-bats. He was a decent enough player. But over the next six years — from 1998 through 2003, the last year you could juice without penalty — Sosa hit .302, slugged .635 and hit one home run every 10.6 at-bats. He hit more home runs in those half dozen years than Hank Greenberg, Gary Carter or George Brett hit in their entire careers. He became one of the all-time greatest sluggers ever, or so we were led to believe.

To the baseball fans and community, the news of Sammy Sosa getting involved with steroids is not a shocker to say in the real sense as many other eminent names have already fallen and identified in the trap of steroids.

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The use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are considered cheating in sports. These substances may give athletes the unfair advantage over competitors, who usually work mostly through their own efforts.

Some famous athletes fell from grace because of steroids use. Here are a few of them:

Marion Jones, a former world champion in track and field, won five medals during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. She was recently released from a six-month imprisonment from March to September 2008 for admitting guilty to a perjury charge. She lied in two grand juries about her steroid use. Her name was also linked to the BALCO scandal and all her medals and winning records were stripped away from her.

Just like Marion Jones, Barry Bonds was also involved in the BALCO scandal. The seven-timer MVP awardee is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time. However, he spent his 2008 baseball season without any activity.

Many athletes think that they could just get away with it. Many athletes are not stopped from taking anabolic steroids to improve their overall performance.

However, once they are caught, their careers are over or it may suffer from never-ending criticisms. Fans may even lose trust and confidence in the athlete and in the game.

From Test Country:

Steroid use in sports is cheating in the eyes of sports authorities. That is because the use of anabolic steroids and other similar drugs enhances the performance of an athlete and gives the athlete an unfair advantage over others working mostly through their own efforts. It violates the honor-bound code that sportsmen are supposed to follow.

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Reggie Jackson, a two-time World Series most valuable player, has said that there is no room for baseball players who used steroids during their playing days to make an impression, in the hall of fame.

Jackson, who played Major League Baseball from 1967-1987, is one of the best baseball players ever and presently holds the 12th position on the all-time list for maximum home runs with 563 to his credit.

Some of the players who have outplayed him in the rankings had confessed to taking steroids in the past and the list includes big names, namely, Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds.

From Bloomberg.com:

“It bothers me,” Jackson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in New York. “A lot of Hall of Famers are very offended by it. I am starting to get affected and I am hoping that those guys that get caught don’t get into the Hall of Fame.”

Jackson, who played for the New York Yankees from 1977 to 1981 and now serves as a special adviser to the team, also said that he misses the old Yankee Stadium. The Yankees moved this season from the ballpark that was home to 26 World Series championship teams, including two of his own, to their new venue across the street.

“I never really saw the new stadium when they were building it,” Jackson said. “I hung out at the old one. I had a difficult time leaving it. The last day I went out with a couple of friends and we walked around the stadium and I sat in the center field block with the fans and others and got a little teary-eyed.”

In an interview with the Bloomberg Television in New York, Jackson said that baseball greats like him who never used steroids to gain an unfair advantage feel offended to be ranked lower than those who cheat the game and fans by taking steroids.

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It seems like the strecthing of Barry Bond’s trial period did not bring any good news for the star. Bonds’ legal troubles could bring him down both in contracts and public popularity. Despite displaying some of the best offensive talent in baseball history and breaking record of Hank Aaron’s most home runs, Bonds failed to win the hearts of baseball fans just because of his current legal problems.

According to SportsNation view Aaron still held the position as the home run king, though no team approached to sign the aging slugger. Bonds would be a great replacment over the other designated hitters, but most of the teams seem to be unwilling to deal with him in the current scenario.

However, these concerns are somewhat irrelevant in front of Bonds’ actual legal problems. But it doesn’t mean that the situation will not have an adverse effect on his celebrity quotient as Bonds’ trial period can coincide with the MLB season. It possibly becomes a distraction for the entire game season.

Barry Bonds was booked under the charge of giving false satement to a federal grand jury about using performance enhancing drugs and in this matter trial period was going on and on. According to the latest court hearing, the trial period would now start in July.

From ESPN:

In some ways, it seems Barry Bonds has been convicted in the court of public opinion. Despite putting up some of the best offensive seasons in baseball history and breaking Hank Aaron’s hallowed home run record, SportsNation still thinks of Aaron as the home run king, and no team has made overtures to sign the aging slugger. Bonds would immediately be an improvement over the vast majority of American League designated hitters, but teams seem to be unwilling to deal with the circus he represents.

However, these concerns are somewhat petty in the face of Bonds’ actual legal problems. Under indictment for the charge of lying to a federal grand jury about using performance enhancing drugs, Bonds’ trial could start in July, just as the MLB season is heating up. It promises to be (at the very least) a distraction, possibly consuming the entire summer news cycle.

Will Bonds be convicted? Could one of baseball’s greatest be serving time in jail? Would you want your team to pick him up, despite the risk?

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Drug tests conducted among athletes in international sports may not be accurate, according to Swiss researchers who are asking for the temporary suspension of ongoing drug testing of foreign athletes. This inaccuracy would be due to ethnic differences that had not been taken into consideration prior to administering the tests.

The British Journal of Sports Medicine published this study at the height of the steroid use in international sports. According to the said study the ratio of testosterone and epitosterone in the urine tells whether the specimen is positive for steroid content. The threshold for athletes is four and above. But it has been discovered that this threshold varies depending on the ethnicity. It has been proven that the gene UGT2B17 varies for every ethnicity. These variations affect the metabolic rate and consequently affects the rate of testosterone that comes out of the urine.

From The Los Angeles Times:

In the new study, Swiss researchers demonstrated the inaccuracy of using a threshold of four for everyone. They added steroids to urine samples from 171 athletes: 57 men of black African ethnicity, 32 of Asian ethnicity, 32 of Hispanic ethnicity and 50 Caucasians. The men were soccer players between the ages of 18 and 36. The researchers found a variation in the UGT2B17 gene in 22% of the athletes, including eight out of 10 Asian men.

Based on the genetic variations, the researchers recalibrated the thresholds for suspected doping for each group and concluded an appropriate threshold would be 5.6 for men of black African ethnicity, 5.7 for Caucasians, 5.8 for Hispanics and 3.8 for Asian men.

International sports stars like Barry Bonds, Major League baseball stars Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez now face the consequences of being involved in steroids use. Both Bonds and Clemens face perjury raps for allegedly lying about their steroid use. Rodriguez on the other hand had admitted that he used PEDs in 2001-2003 while with the Texas Rangers.

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Just a week ago, questions about the jurors on Barry Bonds’ trial was all over the news. Everyone back then was quiet confident that the perjury trial will be pushing through. Unfortunately, the prosecution had requested that the trial be moved due to lack of evidence. Their appeal on an evidentiary ruling will probably push the trial down a few more months. The trial is expected to be around June or July. There have been mixed opinions on the actions of the prosecution.

From Daily News:

Peter Keane, a law professor at Golden Gate University and a close observer of the BALCO trial, was surprised by the late-game delay, which he called “foolish.”

“A bush league stunt like this on the eve of the trial tells me they aren’t comfortable with what they got,” Keane says. “To pull a play like this makes them look like they don’t know what they are doing.”

At issue is Anderson’s refusal to testify, despite extraordinary pressure placed upon him by prosecutors, who declined to comment on their decisions.

Not until after Anderson formally lodged his refusal on Friday did prosecutors notify the U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston that they will appeal her recent decision to exclude a pile of evidence unless Anderson can validate it under oath.

That body of material includes doping calendars and positive drug tests, but without interpretation from Anderson, Illston says, the evidence is “classic hearsay.”

In the defense of the prosecution, they will be having a hard time convincing the jurors without the said urine samples which tested positive for anabolic steroids. No one could link these samples to Bonds except Anderson himself. Since Anderson still won’t testify, the samples are rather useless. Maybe the prosecution still needs time to convince the trainer to cooperate. Regardless of the reason, the prosecutions decision to delay the trial makes them look back and rather unprepared.

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US District Judge Susan Illston is a very familiar name in the Barry Bonds perjury trial. A few weeks ago, she announced that she will be excluding the samples that would have been used by the prosecution to prove that the athlete had been using steroids. Just last week, she ordered that the forms that will be filled out by the potential jurors in the court trial be kept from the public. The prospective and trial jurors were made to answer a 60-question form which involved some questions on their beliefs, religion and other personal information. These jurors have been following the progress of the trial and of Bonds’ steroid use scandal for quite some time now. They will soon be facing defense and prosecution lawyers and Illston herself in order to explain their answers to the forms. After that, a total of 14 jurors will be chosen— twelve main ones and 2 alternates. Recently, the media has begun trying to convince the court to make the data on the jurors public as they see that there is no need to keep these information from the press.

From The Associated Press:

The Associated Press, ESPN, Hearst Corp., The New York Times Co., ABC-subsidiary KGO, KNTV Television Inc., NBC subsidiary KNBC-TV, The Los Angeles Times, the Medianews Group and Sports Illustrated publisher Time Inc. filed court papers seeking public access to the forms.

Media company lawyers argued that the questionnaires should be considered part of the jury-selection process, which is required to be done in open court. The lawyers noted that neither Bonds’ lawyers nor federal prosecutors have asked the judge to seal the documents.

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Federal prosecutors on the Barry Bonds case have brought in more witnesses to testify against the former Giants catcher. While Greg Anderson, Bonds’ former trainer still doesn’t want to show up in court, several close friends of Bonds will be used as government witnesses to testify that the athlete had indeed used anabolic steroids in his career.

Among the list of witnesses are Kathy Hoskins and her brother Steve Hoskins, both childhood friends of Bonds. The defense was already aware that Steve would be testifying although they have just recently learned of Kathy’s participation. Kathy used to be Bonds’ assistant and personal shopper, and had traveled with him in several occasions.

From San Francisco Chronicle:

And for the first time, prosecutors said they have a witness who says she saw Bonds being injected by Anderson - Hoskins, who is also the sister of Bonds’ former longtime business manager, Steve Hoskins, another key government witness.

In 2003, Steve Hoskins secretly tape-recorded a conversation in which Anderson described the regimen of undetectable drugs he was giving Bonds, the government says.

In Friday’s filing, prosecutors did not assert that the injection Bonds allegedly received from Anderson contained banned drugs. Nevertheless, the claim is significant, because in his testimony before the grand jury that investigated BALCO, Bonds said he had never received an injection of any kind from Anderson, saying he had received injections only from doctors.

Kim Bell, Bonds‘ former girlfriend will also be standing in as a witness although the defense has claimed that she would be doing it in order to publicize her tell-all book. Bell claimed that Bonds admitted to her that he had been injecting with anabolic steroids and that she had also noticed steroid side effects including back acne and shrunken testicles.

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First there was Roger Clemens who was charged with doping. Then there was Barry Bonds who was charged with doping and lying, and was probably taken by surprise when his supposedly destroyed urine sample resurfaced and yielded positive results. And now there is Alex Rodriguez, the baseball superstar who is now under public judgment because the documents that listed supposedly confidential test results in 2003 were found along with his positive steroid test. You think that the rest of the 104 listed positive should be the only ones scared. Apparently, that is not the case. Even those that tested negative back then could be subject to some re-analyzing. Remember Bonds testing negative at first then positive after a few years? The feds might be considering the same in this case.

From Daily News:

Even those who tested negative could be subject to re-testing as a result of the Players’ Association’s failure to destroy the spreadsheet with the names of those who tested positive.

There are believed to be 525 negative urine samples in the hands of the government in addition to the 104 positive samples.

After the testing process was completed in 2003, union officials had the right to destroy the documents that connected names to actual urine samples. Sources close to the union defend its inaction, saying it would have been improper to destroy urine samples and test documents because they were potential evidence in the ongoing BALCO probe.

The laboratory that did the tests should have destroyed the samples whether positive or negative. It didn’t though and now we have 525 urine samples to analyze with more modern tests. That could mean over a hundred more Barry Bonds.

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