Steroids out of the 'Shadows', By: Rebecca Harlow
Chronicle reporters expose Barry Bonds, BALCO in new book
April 12, 2006
With the Stanford game rained out, baseball fans got a special treat at the Bookstore last night, where Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams spoke and autographed copies of their new book “Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports.”
The book, which documents the discovery of steroid use of prominent baseball players such as Barry Bonds and the Giambi brothers, has created international buzz and reached #13 on the Amazon bestsellers list only a week after publication. The authors, San Francisco Chronicle reporters, converted a series of newspaper articles into a story of corruption and cheating.
The authors have appeared on the Letterman and Today shows, and made the trek to Stanford after Williams’ daughter, a Stanford grad, encouraged her father to appear at the Bookstore.
Sitting before a standing-room only crowd, the authors told stories of anonymous tips, drug cocktails and a colorful cast of characters that almost seemed too fantastical to be true.
“Victor Conte can only be described as a mad scientist-dope dealer,” Williams said of the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the manufacturer of nutritional supplements based in Burlingame, Calif., which is at the center of the scandal.
“I think Victor Conte was the most fascinating character involved,” Fainaru-Wada said. “He always wanted you to know just what he could do. My relationship with Victor was fascinating, maddening, exhilarating, and anxiety-riddled. He knew how to pull everybody’s strings — at least he could pull my strings. He was convicted and served four months in prison and when he got out, my anxiety went through the roof.”
Conte notwithstanding, the most recognizable face in the scandal is obviously Bonds, the Giants slugger who may be just a season away from breaking Hank Aaron’s career home-run record. His personal trainer Greg Anderson admitted to giving Bonds designer steroids from BALCO, which helped him put on huge muscle mass and power his way into the record books.
“Barry Bonds is outrageously larger than life,” Williams said. “He is absurdly self-absorbed and as cynical as they come. It’s a rare event for Barry Bonds to do something for someone else. It’s just not how he’s wired.”
Displeased by the allegations and his portrayal in the book, Bonds sued for a restraining order to prevent the authors and publishers from making profits from the book, going to court on the publication date. The motion was dismissed and the Hearst Corporation, the parent company of Chronicle Books, has counter-sued on the grounds that the frivolous lawsuit had the effect of violating its First Amendment rights.
Barry originally said he was just not going to read the book,” Williams said. “And then he sued us. I guess he got madder. I am a cautious person. I had never been sued and I planned never to be sued. And this suit is not even defamation, but consumer fraud — honestly, I’m a little insulted.”
Though the BALCO scandal is the book’s focus, it is but one example of heavy steroid use in the major leagues. In his book last year, Jose Canseco asserted that 80% of players were on the juice. The authors believe that this is an exaggeration, but guess that the number is somewhere around 20 or 30 percent.
“In 2003, Major League Baseball implemented a drug-test policy which was anonymous and, if a large number of people came up positive, would then become more strict,” Fainaru-Wada explained. “It is really an IQ test, not a steroid test. The guys knew what was coming and if you managed to fail the test, there was something wrong. Even so, five to seven percent of players failed — that’s more than two full teams. And if that many guys are failing this test, there must be a lot more who are doping.”
Indeed, steroid use is a widespread problem in professional and even amateur sports. The BALCO scandal centered mostly on baseball, but football players and athletes in track and field have also been implicated. The authors explained that the ability of the drug companies to create undetectable steroids, such as those Bonds used, allows them to distribute the drugs almost with impunity.
“The thing that BALCO has shown us is that the cheaters are a step ahead of the testers,” Williams said. “I think it’s going to be that way — at least that’s my soap-boxing opinion — until the scientific advance that puts the testers ahead of the cheaters. It’s just a cat-and-mouse game. You see, especially with the Olympians, the ones who want to cheat are incredibly creative. They are very motivated.”
In addition to the unfair, and illegal, advantage steroids give athletes, the drugs can do serious damage to a person’s health. For several drugs, the dangers are still unknown.
“Some of the BALCO drugs were not designed for humans, so there have been no tests on their effects,” Williams explained. “They were made to be given to cows in the feedlot. These steroids can cause joint problems, heart problems, tumors — they are just not good for your health.”
“The health risk comes from the fact that these guys are cocktailing an array of substances which have not been tested or approved and were not all designed for human consumption,” Fainaru-Wada added. “And they are doing it at doses beyond medically-prescribed levels. Some of these drugs do have medical value, but at far lower doses.”
Although BALCO has been exposed and Major League Baseball has hired former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids, the problem has moved well beyond the diamonds of the MLB.
“We know it is a serious problem in the professional sports like baseball, football, and track and field,” Williams said. “We know that college players and high school players are increasingly using it. The evidence is mostly anecdotal, but it makes perfect sense. Young athletes model their behavior on these elite athletes that they want to become. And if Major League Baseball decides to tolerate steroid use, kids know that. And they do it because they think it will make them a star.”
The Mitchell investigative panel hopes to uncover other abusers and makers, like Bonds and BALCO are alleged to be, but Fainaru-Wada and Williams question the next step.
“Your home run king is a drug cheat,” Williams said. “So what do you do now?”
