Giants' clam up on Barry Bonds

Giants' clam up on Barry Bonds

PHONEIX - San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds is under siege after it was revealed that he has been using performance-enhancing steroids for quite sometime now. This stunning revelation was made in a book called Game of Shadows by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams.

The book does make some serious allegations and describes how San Francisco Giants' organization blindly allowed Bonds to carry on with his nefarious activities. In 2000, Giants' trainers' asked the management to ban Bonds' three trainers from the Pac Bell.

"The Giants had unofficial background checks done on Bonds' trainers and learned that the World Gym (where Bonds was working out regularly) was known as a place to score steroids and that (his trainer Greg) Anderson was rumored to be a dealer," reads an excerpt from the book.

"But the club decided it didn't want to alienate Bonds on this issue, either. The trainers stayed." The sneaking suspicions that Bonds was on steroids began doing rounds in 1999 when he put on 25 pounds to emerge in better shape than eve before. The book also alleges that Giants' owner Peter Magowan to manager Dusty Baker did not evince any interest in fettering out the truth about Bonds.

Even today, these luminaries refused to make any statement and said that it was a legal matter. However, two members of Congress criticized the Major League Baseball for failing to look into the matter. Stung by this public reproach, MLB has promised to examine the matter. "I will review all the material that's relative," said Commissioner Bud Selig.

"I'm going to be very sensitive about this because you're playing with people's lives. ... I understand the concern of trying to pass judgment, but I'm just not going to do that until we know everything there is to know."

Sport and drugs are no strangers to one another. The whole issue came to limelight when Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal in the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Since then a variety of cases abound. In fact, Diego Maradona, arguably one of the best soccer players in the world was barred from the 1994 World Cup played in the US for using steroids.