Barry Bonds Wins Major Battle

Baseball's all-time home run champion Barry Bonds won a big legal victory Friday when a federal appeals court ruled that evidence the government says would prove he lied about using steroids is inadmissible in court. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in a divided opinion, said the government cannot use urine samples and other evidence in its perjury case against the former baseball star. Barry Bonds was indicted in federal court in December 2008 of making false statements to a grand jury, denying that he knowingly took steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
The government alleges BALCO helped supply Barry Bonds with steroids and drug-masking substances. BALCO was accused of covertly marketing tetrahydrogestrinone -- known as "the Clear" -- a then-undetectable performance-enhancing steroid.

Steroids were allegedly commonly used from about 1995 to 2003 with the allegedly full knowledge of Major League Baseball's commissioner and owners. Steroid use was banned by MLB in 2003. Some owners allegedly even cut players who didn't use it! Use of steroids were not against MLB rules at that time. MLB only wrote rules forbidding steroid use after it became public knowledge that so many players were using it. If it's not against the rules, and owners push it, and other players that are having more success due to using, I don't think you can blame any player for trying to be competitive. The commissioner, owners, managers, coaches should share in the blame. So the crime is lying; and if we are going to prosecute everyone who lied we would have to fire every member of congress and every CEO of every major corporation in the U.S.

So it's all about public relations work to keep a good image. No lawyers are going after Mark Maguire. In fact he even has a job as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The saddest thing about the whole situation is that Bonds was arguably the best baseball player in the game before all this. Now, he will only be remembered for the steroid scandal.

I think it is a waste of time and money that the U.S. Department of Justice is worried about professional sports steroid use when major corporations are causing death and destruction because of unsafe operating practices.

Barry Bonds simply could not have gotten away with taking banned substances without the tacit approval of MLB. And MLB allegedly turned a blind eye to what players were allegedly doing because it reinvigorated ticket sales in a sport that had been losing public interest. Billions of dollars were at stake in TV negotiations, also. Mark McGwire's home-run blitz was said to have "saved baseball" and Bonds was simply carrying on that tradition. MLB is a huge commercial enterprise. When MLB turned a blind eye toward Barry Bonds' dramatic physical changes and unprecedented ability to hit the long ball, it knew exactly what it was doing.