David Asks: Did Barry Bonds Take Steroids? [J. Mark English]

David's supposes in his most recent post was: Did Barry Bonds take steroids, more than likely, yes.

Not only is it more then likely, but its a fact!

From a December 3, 2004 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada write:

Barry Bonds told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by the Burlingame laboratory now enmeshed in a sports doping scandal, but he said he never thought they were steroids, The Chronicle has learned.

Federal prosecutors charge that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, distributed undetectable steroids to elite athletes in the form of a clear substance that was taken orally and a cream that was rubbed onto the body.

Bonds testified that he had received and used clear and cream substances from his personal strength trainer, Greg Anderson, during the 2003 baseball season but was told they were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by The Chronicle.

Barry Bonds admitted to using the steroid substances. He didn't go as far to say that he was knowingly taking steroids, but he does not deny that he used the very substances that had steroids in them.

Bonds yesterday in a post game press conference said to the cameras that the record he had just broken was not tainted. How can he say that when he knows now that the cream he used that was provided by BALCO contained HGH which is a form of steroids. That is a lie, and he may as well have been under oath so we can charge him with perjury.

The only defense of Bonds is that he used steroids in an age of heavy steroid use across all of baseball. To David's credit, he did mention this in his post. I'm also a subscriber to this defense.

Hopefully, we'll soon know the whole truth about the rampant use of steroids of the last thirty years in baseball. Its fitting after all, that Bud Selig was not in San Francisco yesterday, but instead was in a meeting with former Senator George Mitchell:

The baseball commissioner and some of his top aides are scheduled to meet with the chief steroids investigator later this week, a person with knowledge of the session said Tuesday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to discuss the meeting.

Mitchell said in May that his probe was in its "final phases," but he has not publicly stated a timetable for issuing his report.