Barry Bonds Indicted for Perjury
November 15, 2007 by Sal Marinello
Filed under The Healthy Skeptic
Barry Bonds has been indicted for lying to the Grand Jury that was impaneled to hear evidence in the Balco Labs when he told them that he did not knowingly use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Looking back on how Bud Selig and the league acted during the home stretch of Bonds’ illegitimate chase of Hank Aaron’s record, you have to wonder if Bud and friends knew that this indictment was inevitable.
So on November 15, 2007 Barry Bonds is indicted for committing perjury. Part of the indictment reads as follows, “During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes.”
This is a huge statement in that for the first time there is an acknowledgement that Bonds tested positive for anabolic steroids. We know that Bonds tested positive for using amphetamines, but we’ve never gotten word about any failed steroid tests before. And given that there’d be no drug test other than one administered by Major League Baseball, it’s safe to say that baseball and Bud Selig have known for quite a while that Bonds was dirty.
Looking back on how Selig acted during the final days of the pursuit of Aaron’s record and baseball’s under whelming response to Bonds when he broke the record you have to figure that this day was coming. The powers that be probably decided that there was nothing they could do at the time to suspend or punish Bonds during last season, and figured that once he was indicted the arguments over asterisks and Bonds’ stats and records would become moot.
People in baseball knew that Bonds had failed a test and that as a result he would face criminal charges, and that in the end the home run record and all of Bonds’ accomplishments would be viewed in the light of someone who lied about taking steroids, failed a drug test and was indicted for – and maybe even convicted of – perjury. Suspending Bonds or making formal statements about the illegitimacy of his numbers would never have had the impact that this indictment has had.
In the coming days, weeks and months as this story continues to unfold my bet is that we’ll learn that baseball knew a whole lot more than they led us to believe.
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