Every time you go to a baseball game you see something new. And that was certainly true at AT&T Park on Monday night.
Now that United States of America v. Barry Lamar Bonds has been pushed back until at least the summer, baseball's all-time home run champ has let it be known that he would like to play this season. For the second year in a row, Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, has reportedly contacted every major league team requesting that each consider his client. Bonds is said to be willing to sign for the major league minimum, $400,000, a steep discount from his most recent salary of $15.5 million. Nonetheless, every team has passed.
Baseball slugger Barry Bonds won't be headed to court Monday after all.
On the eve of Barry Bonds' long-awaited perjury trial, federal prosecutors have called a risky audible that may delay the trial for months.
By his statistics alone, Barry Bonds would be considered one of the greatest players to ever walk onto a baseball field.
On a day when Alex Rodriguez faced the media to answer questions about his admitted steroid use, Barry Bonds learned that potential jurors in his upcoming perjury trial cannot be asked their opinion of Rodriguez. Prosecutors had objected to the relevance of potential questions about Rodriguez on grounds that he bore no relationship to the legal charges against Bonds. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston agreed on Tuesday to exclude such questioning.
The federal judge presiding over the perjury trial of Barry Bonds wasted no time Thursday in letting her feelings be known on the admissibility of some key evidence and seems poised to deliver a blow to the government's case against the former San Francisco Giants slugger.
Baseball home-run king Barry Bonds repeated his longstanding not-guilty plea to federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice Thursday ahead of a hearing on his upcoming trial.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston unsealed hundreds of pages of court filings in the Barry Bonds' perjury case on Wednesday. Taken together, the documents appear to strengthen the government's case that Bonds knowingly used steroids.
A federal judge unsealed documents Wednesday in the perjury case against baseball home-run king Barry Bonds, including steroid test results and notes from his personal trainer.
Every time you go to a baseball game you see something new. And that was certainly true at AT&T Park on Monday night.
Now that United States of America v. Barry Lamar Bonds has been pushed back until at least the summer, baseball's all-time home run champ has let it be known that he would like to play this season. For the second year in a row, Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, has reportedly contacted every major league team requesting that each consider his client. Bonds is said to be willing to sign for the major league minimum, $400,000, a steep discount from his most recent salary of $15.5 million. Nonetheless, every team has passed.
Baseball slugger Barry Bonds won't be headed to court Monday after all.
On the eve of Barry Bonds' long-awaited perjury trial, federal prosecutors have called a risky audible that may delay the trial for months.
By his statistics alone, Barry Bonds would be considered one of the greatest players to ever walk onto a baseball field.
On a day when Alex Rodriguez faced the media to answer questions about his admitted steroid use, Barry Bonds learned that potential jurors in his upcoming perjury trial cannot be asked their opinion of Rodriguez. Prosecutors had objected to the relevance of potential questions about Rodriguez on grounds that he bore no relationship to the legal charges against Bonds. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston agreed on Tuesday to exclude such questioning.
The federal judge presiding over the perjury trial of Barry Bonds wasted no time Thursday in letting her feelings be known on the admissibility of some key evidence and seems poised to deliver a blow to the government's case against the former San Francisco Giants slugger.
Baseball home-run king Barry Bonds repeated his longstanding not-guilty plea to federal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice Thursday ahead of a hearing on his upcoming trial.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston unsealed hundreds of pages of court filings in the Barry Bonds' perjury case on Wednesday. Taken together, the documents appear to strengthen the government's case that Bonds knowingly used steroids.
A federal judge unsealed documents Wednesday in the perjury case against baseball home-run king Barry Bonds, including steroid test results and notes from his personal trainer.
The last 36 hours have offered much insight into the diversity of evidence that prosecutors will use to demonstrate that Barry Bonds used steroids. It is now known that prosecutors possess test results that link Bonds to additional types of performance-enhancing drugs than previously known, that Bobby Estalella, a teammate of Bonds in 2000 and 2001 who has admitted to steroid use, will testify that he has first-hand knowledge of Bonds using steroids, and that Jason Giambi and Jeremy Giambi will testify that the former personal trainer they shared with Bonds -- Greg Anderson -- developed doping calendars for them. It thus appears that prosecutors possess an impressive array of physical, testimonial and circumstantial evidence that is poised to confirm widespread suspicions about Bonds and steroids.
The New York Times reports today that federal prosecutors have obtained evidence linking Barry Bonds to additional types of performance-enhancing drugs than previously known. Bonds has already admitted using tetrahydrogestinone, better known as THG or "The Clear," and "The Cream," which is a composition of testosterone and epitestosterone, but he insists he did not know they were steroids. He instead contends that he simply took whatever his former trainer, Greg Anderson, gave him while assuming that the substances were benign, such as flaxseed oil. Today's news indicates that prosecutors intend to show that Bonds used other steroids as well and, presumably, that he lied about them while under oath.
So, I made it to Las Vegas for the winter meetings, and I've already seen Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Valentine and a cocktail waitress who looks almost exactly like Elizabeth Hurley. I did not see them together, alas, but the winter meetings have only begun. There's plenty of time for Vegas and baseball to collide.
If you are about my age*, then you grew up as a baseball fan with three statistics and only three statistics. There was batting average. There were home runs runs. And there were RBIs. That was it.
Oh, it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when. Not in March or April, maybe, and probably not in May or June. But as the trade deadline approached, some team was going to look at the market, realize that they were going to need to give up three or four quality prospects to acquire a good outfielder, and realize at that price it was worth signing ... Barry Bonds.
Barry Bonds, whatever you think about him, still makes baseball sense for just about any team. The home runs. The RBIs. The walks. The threat of all of that. Bonds' baseball-bashing oeuvre is, even his most ardent critics have to admit, pretty impressive. If somebody is searching for an impact bat, none is bigger than the one Bonds carries.
New Yankees Boss Hank Steinbrenner is said to be at least open to the idea of bringing embattled and unemployed superstar Barry Bonds to the Yankees. However, other top club decisionmakers are less enamored of the idea, people familiar with the Yankees' thinking say, after the team's top brass met in Tampa to discuss Bonds and other potential targets.
The Hall said Tuesday recent talks with fashion designer Marc Ecko, who bought the souvenir for more than $750,000 last September, had "unfortunately reached an impasse"
Barry Bonds has pleaded not guilty to 15 felony charges of lying to a federal grand jury about his performance-enhancing drug use
The new indictment against Barry Bonds was expected and does not represent a major turning point in the government's case against him.
Today brings Barry Bonds another day closer to his retirement, a retirement of his own making. Each day he is out of baseball makes him another day older, another day removed from seeing live pitching, and another day looking less wanted than gingivitis.
All-time home run king Barry Bonds is at home in one of the fanciest sections of Beverly Hills, Calif., waiting for word about a job, and some might say that isn't such a terrible price to pay. Those folks say he shouldn't complain for even one second. But people who know him say he desperately wants to play baseball and still can't believe no one wants him.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston has deemed the federal government's indictment against Barry Bonds to be duplicitous, meaning that it has unlawfully charged Bonds with two or more distinct offenses in a single count. Each count should allege only one distinct offense, such as one instance of perjury rather than multiple instances.
It's not hard to understand why the Tampa Bay Rays would be interested in signing Barry Bonds. The Rays are a little bit like the quiet kid who shows up at school after summer vacation with his hair dyed pink -- it might be an awful look, but at least it gets him noticed. Hardly anyone ever pays attention to Tampa Bay, including the residents of the greater Tampa/St. Pete area, judging from the club's attendance figures, so what better way to make a splash than to sign an automatic newsmaker like Bonds?
There's an elephant in baseball's living room. With pitchers and catchers due to report in less than three weeks, most teams have finished building their 2008 squads. There are still a fair number of available free agents, but most are old, infirm, or otherwise unproductive. There is one glaring exception, the last big name free agent who remains unsigned: Barry Bonds.
When Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992, his campaign posted the now-famous slogan "It's the economy, stupid!" in its headquarters to keep the candidate and everyone around him on point about what the electorate truly cared about. And it worked.
With his baseball career in question, all-time home-run leader Barry Bonds is looking forward to starting the New Year off right.
As Max Robinson stood before a group of Howard University students and alumni in 1988, he implored them to never, ever lose their credibility and integrity because as a journalist, he said, "In the end, that's all you've got."
Barry Bonds's day in court dawns cold and windy, but the air smells good, like justice.
Home-run king Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday to charges related to accusations he used performance-enhancing drugs and lied about it to a grand jury.
Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty Friday to charges he lied to federal investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs
We have seen, you have to think, the last of Barry Bonds on a baseball field. Who would touch him now? Who would hire a tainted slugger mired in legal quicksand, facing a high-profile trial with a chance of a decent-sized prison term at the end of it? Who would fork over millions of dollars for an aging and bitter pariah who, even if he clears all those legal hurdles, may yet get stomped on by the big boot of baseball's commissioner?
The day may come that the bars of a prison cell clank shut behind him, and you wonder if, even then, Barry Bonds will admit to the terrible mistake that changed his life. It isn't the error of using performance-enhancing drugs that will have finally done him in, but the fateful miscalculation of lying to the federal government about it.
CNN.com readers say Barry Bonds should face charges. But they also want to know where the feds were before Bonds packed baseball stadiums and crushed pitch after pitch to become baseball's home run king.
A federal grand jury indictment on Thursday charged Barry Bonds, baseball's record home run hitter, with perjury and obstruction of justice and accused him of testing positive for performance-enhancing steroids.
The federal government has brought charges of perjury and obstruction of justice against the game's all-time home run king, Barry Bonds. Please take a moment to answer a few questions on this latest development.
With criminal charges hanging over him, he may still want to play. But teams will avoid signing the troubled slugger
Baseball's all-time home-run leader, Barry Bonds, was indicted Thursday on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying under oath to a federal grand jury looking into steroid use among pro athletes.
The number 762, which today looks very much like the final number, is an asterisk unto itself.
1. How serious are the charges against Bonds?
If convicted, the all-time home run king could face as much as 30 years for perjury and obstruction of justice
Also in this column: • Joe Torre update • Forty million for Rivera? • Barry Bonds to Japan? • More news and notes
The media tour took her earlier in the day to The Howard Stern Show, where the subject of performance enhancement centered on the bedroom as opposed to the baseball field. Inside Edition and Reuters filled the bill on the previous afternoon. Geraldo was scheduled for the weekend. This is Kimberly Bell's life for the moment, a minor figure in a major story about baseball and steroids. For Bell, though, it is a much smaller tale. It is the story of woman who fell in love with the wrong man: Barry Bonds.
Also in this column: • Another meltdown for Bradley • A-Rod rumor season in full swing • Four-man MVP race in the NL
Barry Bonds' record achievement on Tuesday night was historical and perhaps even inspirational, just like Hank Aaron graciously said up on the big board in San Francisco afterward. It was also uncomfortable and unhappy for most folks who follow baseball.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared Wednesday Barry Bonds Day in the City by the Bay, following the Giants slugger's hitting his 756th home run Tuesday night.
San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds became baseball's home run king Tuesday night, crushing career homer No. 756 to pass Hank Aaron.
He didn't hit them out with a syringe. Say what you will about Barry Bonds and his chemically enhanced assault on the home run record, but keep in mind the cream and the clear and whatever other performance-enhancing drugs he might have used were not some kind of magic potions. He's not at 756 home runs, and counting, just because he found the right pharmacy.
With a mighty swing of his black maple bat, in front of a raucous and all-forgiving home crowd at AT&T Park, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds became baseball's home run king Tuesday night, crushing career homer No. 756 deep into the stands in right field to wrest the most hallowed record in sports from Hank Aaron.
Barry Bonds has surpassed Hank Aaron as the all-time Home Run King and owner of the most coveted record in sports. Please take a moment to answer a few questions on this historic event.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds had just unloosed a wickedly hard swing Tuesday night, the ball already lining its way deep toward the stands in right-center field and into its place in baseball history, when he dropped his bat, thrust both fists into the cool night air and stood, tall and unmoving, for all the world to see. Immediately, we all were forced to deal with a question that we've been wrestling with for years.
San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds became baseball's home run king Tuesday night, crushing career homer No. 756 to pass Hank Aaron.
It was a simple act by a beleaguered man, one that brought together a country while dividing it, one that ended a vigil just as it began another. The 755th home run of Barry Bonds's career was not especially different from hundreds that came before. He kept his right shoulder in, waited on a fastball as it sliced high over the plate and, in one tight, powerful motion, redirected the baseball some 380 feet into the twilight sky, where it crashed off a concrete facing in the leftfield bleachers at Petco Park in San Diego and caromed into a forest of upraised arms below. The details have been recorded: the pitcher who gave it up (Clay Hensley), the date (Aug. 4, 2007, 21 years after Hank Aaron hit his 755th) and the reaction from the 42,000-plus fans (a standing ovation by most, boos by some). What it means, and how it makes us feel -- that is more complicated.
SAN FRANCISCO -- You just don't get a better chance than this one. This was a fastball down the middle, a date with the bombshell blonde. This was finding Mr. Right, and discovering that Mr. Right has a boatload of Google stock.
Barry Bonds haters are comforting themselves with the notion that Bonds' hold on the home-run record could be short-lived. Alex Rodriguez is more than 100 home runs ahead of Bonds' pace at the same age, and if he doesn't break the record, there are a number of other candidates such as Albert Pujols waiting in line for their shot at the pi�ata.
SAN DIEGO -- Like a lot of the home runs Barry Bonds has hit in his career, there was no doubt about No. 755. Oh, there were certainly some doubts in the days leading up to it, with everyone from Cooperstown to Cupertino wondering why the heck he was taking so long to hit it. There were plenty of doubts about how the crowd would react to it, too, especially if it happened to come away from the Giants' home park. And Bonds, maybe the greatest slugger that baseball has ever seen -- or, some say, its biggest crook -- has been dogged by doubters on his quest of 755 for years.
Barry Bonds is having a hard enough time lately trying to set this home run record against the Brett Tomkos and Reynel Pintos and Dave Bushes of the league. He didn't need the Padres throwing 340-game winner Greg Maddux at him Friday night.
In the vernacular of baseball managers everywhere, Barry Bonds is scuffling a little bit right now. Or, if you prefer, in the vernacular of Dodgers fans, he's sucking.
LOS ANGELES -- Dave Roberts is a nice guy, one of the nicest in baseball. Articulate, thoughtful, a veritable whirlwind when it comes to being charitable, the Giants' centerfielder is always worth a listen.
With a throng of cameras and reporters surrounding him, Barry Bonds walks around the dugout looking for a bat before he finds a couple that work for him. Leaning on top of them, Bonds makes his way up the steps and on to the field for batting practice. A smile comes over his face as he hears a couple Dodgers fans chant, "Barry sucks!"
LOS ANGELES -- The people who thought they had tickets to see Ultimate Barry Challenge at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday must have been quite surprised to instead be presented with ... a baseball game.
A man wearing a white �number 7 �Michael Vick �replica jersey stood �defiantly in the gallery of a federal courtroom in Richmond last Thursday, as the �Atlanta Falcons' star quarterback pleaded not guilty to charges related to �dogfighting. �Whatever you think about the spectator, Shawn �Dodson of Lynchburg, Va., the man has a thick skin. As he left the courtroom following the hearing, the 33-year-old Dodson was jeered by pet owners and animal-rights activists and other wide swaths of the citizenry. "This is crazy," he said.
SAN FRANCISCO -- A 3-and-0 pitch from Florida righthander Sergio Mitre told you everything you needed to know about how important it is for Barry Bonds to keep history contained to his one safe house, AT&T Park. The Giants trailed, 1-0, in the second inning Sunday and Bonds, on the last day of a Giants homestand, was looking at four plate appearances to hit the two home runs necessary to become the all-time home run champion. He was not about to let one of those plate appearances go by without one more big, loopy, pull-conscious swing in the only place in America where he is not booed and ridiculed.
SAN FRANCISCO -- No one is ever going to think back on this summer and recall, with a dreamy sigh and a faraway look in the eye, the Great Home Run Chase of '07. When all is finally done -- and, yes, it will end, one of these days -- this won't even qualify as the Pretty Good Home Run Chase of '07.
SAN FRANCISCO -- You just knew, in the end, that Barry Bonds would not make this easy. Not for the fans that cry his name. Not for his teammates or the man that signs his paycheck. Not for anybody, really.
The train ride from my home in San Francisco to AT&T Park runs along what is known as the N-line, which is more commonly called the N-Judah. It can take as little as 25 minutes door-to-dugout, but Muni has been a mess lately. As I boarded a train Friday evening, I anticipated a grueling, crowded ride.
"The Boos Heard 'Round the World" could come as soon as Tuesday in Los Angeles.
Barry Bonds doesn't even own Major League Baseball's career home run record yet -- heck, at this pace, we're talking ... what, May of 2008 or so? -- and already we're wondering if Alex Rodriguez can snatch that baby away from him some day.
Barry Bonds did not hit a home run today, but then you already knew that. Because, had Bonds jacked No. 754 this afternoon, the sheer force of the accumulated media vying to inform you of this fact might have toppled you where you stood. Television, laptop, cell phone, Blackberry; the electronic messengers of BondsWatch bleet and scroll and refresh until their dirty deed is done. There is no escape, either. If ESPN could find a way to send Pedro Gomez to your door to personally deliver the news, it probably would. He might even bring you a cool fleece.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Bruce Bochy has so much power, it's almost comical. His Giants are in last place in the NL West, yet with seven small words spoken in his slow drawl, he can take the air out of the entire room:
In a manner that can only be described as "grudging," Bud Selig on Tuesday did what he should have done three months ago, ending discussion of whether he would attend Barry Bonds' pursuit of the all-time home run mark with a press release and a flight to San Francisco. As is his wont, Selig put his personal feelings ahead of the game's best interest, choosing to issue a release that neither honored Bonds nor the moment, and put the controversy that surrounds Bonds -- his alleged use of performance-enhancing substances -- front and center.
NEW YORK (SI.com) -- The man credited with creating the performance-enhancing drug known as "the clear" said in an HBO Sports interview that Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield took the drugs provided to them by BALCO, reports the New York Times.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was at home watching Barry Bonds and the Giants play when he decided he needed to be at the ballpark to see San Francisco slugger break Hank Aaron's career home run record.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The boos from his own fans stressed out Roger Maris so badly that his hair fell out in clumps. Hank Aaron was so unnerved by death threats that he hired bodyguards, bought a pistol and refused to ride in convertibles.
Before the week is out, the words "Barry Bonds" and "trade deadline" will challenge "iPhone," "Beckham" and Deathly Hallows among the ridiculously over-hyped items that most make you want to strangle yourself with Larry King's suspenders.
Get the number right. If there's one thing that will be running through Duane Kuiper's mind when Barry Bonds hits home run No. 756, it's making sure he doesn't screw up the number.
Barry Bonds has not hit a home run in a couple of days -- man, is this guy a slacker or what? -- so we now must prepare for the real home stretch. Bonds probably won't play Sunday here in Miller Park, since it's a day game after a day game and there's evidently some union rule about 43-year-old sluggers with leaden legs getting too much sunshine on weekends. Even if he defies the accepted protocol and plays Sunday -- Bonds does defiance pretty well, if you haven't noticed -- he probably won't play much. Let's put it this way: He won't play too much.
The boos rise up through the opened roof into a clear Wisconsin sky, a hearty mid-America let-him-have-it kind of greeting. But as deep-throated as they get -- and, for a second or two early in Friday's game, it's practically boisterous here at Miller Park -- they lack a real conviction. After the first pitch, the razzing dies out and the good people of Milwaukee sit and watch, just like a lot of baseball fans all over the nation, waiting for Barry Bonds to do what he's no doubt destined to do.
Barry Bonds knows it's real now.
In another world, Barry Bonds' chase for Hank Aaron's home run record would be the story of the century, the cementing of a legacy and perhaps the most triumphant achievement in the history of sports.
FANTASY MAILBAG
In a black sea of hot asphalt, hard by Area 10 of the Turner Field parking lot, a fittingly modest monument to a people's king rises from rivulets of Georgia heat. On this spot, in what was the Braves' bullpen at old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, landed the 715th home run in the career of Henry Louis Aaron. Here too stand facsimiles of the outfield fence and the bullpen wall, on which there is a sign that makes no mention of the major league home run record or Babe Ruth, whose 53-year claim as the alltime home run king passed that night to a poor dry-dock laborer's son. Or as Vin Scully so eloquently told his radio listeners, "A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an alltime baseball idol."
In the weeks and months ahead -- maybe just days, if Barry Bonds goes hog wild -- we will all witness a historic confluence of events in Major League Baseball, the likes of which has never been seen in the game. A new career home run record, the first in more than 30 years, will be set, courtesy of Mr. Bonds. A player will join the ranks of the still-elite 500 home run club and, maybe not long after that, another will slam his way into the 600 club. A pitcher will notch career win No. 300. All of this could come in the second half of this season.
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