With so many major news stories breaking all over the diamond these days, everyone is admitting to something, no one is admitting to nothing, and something is nothing. Got it?
MS-NBC blares out the headline:
Schilling rips Bonds, says he admitted 'roid use'
'He admitted to cheating on his wife . . . on his taxes . . . and on the game'
Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling suggested that it's a travesty to the national pastime that Barry Bonds is about to break Henry Aaron's home run record, the Boston Globe reported Tuesday.
On the WEEI’s "Dennis and Callahan" radio show, Schilling was asked if fans should "hold their noses" while watching Bonds’s pursuit of the all-time record. Bonds is 11 from tying the all-time record of 755.
“Oh yeah. I would think so. I mean, he admitted that he used steroids,” said Schilling, according to the Globe. “I mean, there’s no gray area. He admitted to cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes, and cheating on the game, so I think the reaction around the league, the game, being what it is, in the case of what people think. Hank Aaron not being there. The commissioner [Bud Selig] trying to figure out where to be. It’s sad...
MS-NBC then goes on to tell us that Bonds never admitted to using steroids. Not so fast.
Barry Bonds did divulge to his girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, that he used anabolic steroids, among other things. From a Fox interview:
Kimberly, before you tell us about your relationship with Barry Bonds, what evidence, if any, do you have of his alleged steroid use?
RIVERA: Describe that would you Kimberly?
BELL: Some of the changes included everything from acne on his back to a great deal of bloating that he was very concerned about that other people would notice.
RIVERA: What do you mean concerned about? Did he mention to you he was afraid the fans or his teammates might notice a change in his body?
BELL: Absolutely, yes. And he wanted to know if I thought it was obvious. And that if I thought that other people would be aware of it...
APHRODITE JONES, AUTHOR: What is interesting about that is that Barry Bonds changed his behavior with Kimberly Bell. She is with him from 1994 through 2003. And it wasn't until he allegedly admitted to her that he used steroids that his behavior started to change. And he became much more aggressive, much more controlling and became somewhat physical toward her in a way that was frightening to her and threatening to her.
RIVERA: But wait a second, Kimberly, I didn't hear you say that Barry admitted using steroids. Did he admit, specifically, to using them to you?..
JONES: He told Kimberly Bell that he used steroids, because he had an arm injury, Geraldo. And he used it, in his words, not the way everybody else used it, that he wasn't shooting anything up. Kimberly, perhaps, you can say it exactly the way Barry told you.
BELL: The way he explained to me was that what he was using was helping him recover quicker from his injuries. And that as a result of that it caused the muscles and then the tendons to grow at a faster than the joint could handle.
RIVERA: All right. So he never used, specifically, the word steroids?
BELL: Oh, no, he used the word steroids. He said this was something everybody was doing.
That's an 'admission'. In a court of law, such testimony would be called hearsay, however, technically Curt Schilling is correct.
What did Bonds say to the Grand Jury? The Chronicle puts it this way:
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.
Bonds, the obsessive work-out nut admitted to using the clear under his tongue, and rubbing the cream on his skin; just that he didn't know he was being poisoned by steroids.
Yes, Bonds never called a press conference to announce he used 'roids with HGH, and to announce he cheated on the wife and on his taxes, and is overall a jerk. However, Bonds is quoted as admitting to steroid use. Bonds' longtime friend and portrait painter, said Barry wasn't quite honest with the IRS. Thus Schilling's remarks are a bit off the mark; however the spirit of his remarks, while not a bullseye, did hit the target.
Despite Schilling's remarks, Bonds has never admitted to using steroids. The most serious suspicions are raised in the book "Game of Shadows," written by two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle who covered the BALCO steroid case.
The media reports now will obfuscate further the admissions, and denials, and counter-denials...
GREAT post. Makes me love to hate him even more.
From the Nation: We misspelled his name 'Kurt' for a couple hours. That's better than our post on Orlando Cepeda where it took us a week before we figured out he was arrested in NoCal not Socal....We need some roids....
Posted by: Sooze | 05/08/2007 at 16:15
In a case against Bonds, the admission of using steroids to his girlfriend would actually not be hearsay at all. FRE 801(d)(2). So for the puposes of Novitzky, Bonds has admitted steroid use.
From the Nation: Interesting point. I thought hearsay on the stand meant statements by witness A about statements said by person B (person B cannot be cross-examined). Then there are 75 exceptions.
Of course not being a lawyer.....I am blowing smoke.
Good point!
Posted by: Softie | 05/09/2007 at 10:36