Proof of What We Already Knew...

Arguably one of the biggest stories in sports happened last night. Barry Lamar Bonds was indicted on 4 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. As you all know, perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law. While obstruction of justice refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials.

AH! investigators/computer hackers got into the government mainframe, altered the proxy and TCP/IP settings and uncovered the classified documents. Actually, it's public record and you can find the actual indictment here.

Most of us thought that Bonds would never get caught. If he did take steroids there is no way he would be dumb enough to keep taking them. He could coast on his natural talent (we all believe he had some natural talent) and break Hank's record. Then he would ride off into the sunset and it would all be guesses and speculation.

Enter BALCO. (Bay Area Laboratories Co-Operative) That's where they got this information, so says the government in a 10-page indictment lodged Thursday against the 43-year-old Bonds.

From the indictment "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 professional athletes." Specifically the indictment says that they have a positive test for anabolic steroids in Bonds' system in November of 2000.

Now if you know your MLB steroid controversies you know that Major League Baseball didn't implement their testing program on until 2003. In 2000, Bonds hit 49 home runs which was a career high. And we all know what happened the next season, he hit the major league-record 73 home runs. That was probably just a coincidence.

This wasn't newly uncovered information though. They knew about these records when Bonds testified under a grant of immunity before a federal grand jury in San Francisco. He was asked about these tests that had a number instead of a name on them, but another document matched that number to a "Barry B". He insisted that he still never took steroids.

This according to attorney's close to the case is where it might not be an open and shut case. The problem is what is known as chain of custody. Because evidence can be used in court to convict persons of crimes, it must be handled in a scrupulously careful manner to avoid later allegations of tampering or misconduct which can compromise the case.

Victor Conte, BALCO founder and convicted felon had this to say, "No test result has any body's name or initials. All steroid test results performed at BALCO were a number only. Now there were different ledgers with initials and different things that are certainly subject to challenge, but there is no type of steroid panel test result with the name Barry Bonds on it." Obviously, BALCO is a stand up organization that has nothing to hide.

Hope this helps put things in perspective. Barry's guilty, he cheated, and soon every one's going to know it.... oh wait, we already did.