TOP 10
Notable drug scandals
Doping & drug infractions that rocked the sports world
July 27, 2006
 Barry Bonds smacked 73 homers during the 2001 season to break baseball’s single-season home run record. But the cloud of suspicion surrounding him now has prompted many to call for the iconic asterisk to be attached to that mark. (Associated Press) |
Baseball: from andro to The Clear
Baseball, more than any other North American pro sport, has had to deal with the whispers and allegations of steroid-use among some of its top players.
The cloud of suspicion has hovered over no player more than San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, mostly prompted by his physical change from wiry speedster into a hulking Hercules.
Bonds has never tested positive for steroids and continues to deny ever taking banned performance-enhancing substances. He has long attributed his altered physique and increased hitting power to intense off-season weight-training regimes.
But explosive allegations of steroid-use by baseball's single-season home run king reached a whole new level in March 2006 with the release of the bestselling book Game of Shadows.
Authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle, conducted a two-year investigation that included interviews with more than 200 sources, as well as court documents, affidavits filed by investigators, confidential memoranda of federal agents (including statements made to them by athletes and trainers) and grand jury testimony.
The book alleges that Bonds sought out steroids after the 1998 season in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in their home-run record chase. It connects Bonds with the controversial nutritional supplements company Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) and its founder, Victor Conte.
It also alleges that Bonds, who shattered the single-season home run record in 2001, used a host of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004.
That's when Major League Baseball introduced a stiffer mandatory drug testing policy, in reaction to years of controversy over the allegations.
The U.S. government also took notice. Several big leaguers were summoned to appear before a federal grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003, including Bonds, and New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi.
In 2005, many high-profile players were subpoenaed to testify before the U.S. Congress about steroid usage in baseball. Among those who testified were McGwire, Sosa and Jose Canseco.
Earlier, Canseco had tossed more fuel on the fire by writing a supposed tell-all book about his own steroid use. He made claims that a large percentage of baseball players used the drugs.
McGwire also had to deal with whispers when he went from the svelte American League rookie of the year in 1987 to the ball-bashing home run king who broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record in 1998.
McGwire attributed his growth to a combination of hard work and an
over-the-counter testosterone-producing pill called androstenedione
or andro, a then-legal nutritional supplement that has since been banned
by Major League Baseball.