Perhaps the only reason we even know that Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Sammy Sosa failed drug tests back in 2003, is because federal prosecutors working on the BALCO case seized the records and urine samples from baseball's testing program, including the information that linked test results to individual players. Their investigation was only supposed to cover the 10 specific players linked to BALCO, including Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield (who have never been publicly linked to "the list"). They took it all and now they've been scolded for it.

The player's union sued and yesterday the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco (i.e., dirty hippies) ruled that the seizure was illegal and therefore prosecutors may not use the evidence in court, in the BALCO case or any future trials. It could still go to the Supreme Court—since there are larger issues at stake about searching electronic records—but if they reject the case or uphold the ruling, the samples and the data may finally be destroyed.

Too late to save the players who have already been named, of course, and since the list has already been seen by numerous lawyers, rumors and revelations will continue to persist. And all so the Justice Department could nail Barry Bonds on a perjury charge. (Which happened six years ago, by the way, and they still haven't prosecuted him.) So this has been a great use of everyone's time.

Appeals court bars feds from using pro baseball players' steroids test results [San Jose Mercury News]

Via The New York Times comes this fascinating tidbit:

Russoniello said that since he took over as United States attorney, in 2007, he has developed a greater appreciation for the Balco investigation and how the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes can influence teenagers.

"Stan Musial was my hero when I was a kid, and he smoked cigarettes," Russoniello said. "I smoked cigarettes. Did I smoke cigarettes because of him? Well, there was not anything that he did to deter me from smoking cigarettes."

So there you are, folks: the intellectual underpinnings of the government's pursuit of Barry Bonds. Stan Musial and his Chesterfields didn't do anything to deter little Joey Russoniello from smoking. Sheesh. Between this guy and failed athlete Jeff Novitzky, our war on steroids is beginning to feel more and more like a very long, very expensive therapy session.

Legal Experts Don't See Conflict in Bonds Lawyer's Advisory Roles [New York Times]

Here's a little throwback piece of paraphernalia from 1987, a year when Barry Bonds was wiry and still able to fit inside a 7 1/2 " batting helmet. This was also the year of the ubiquitous brown-bordered baseball card from Topps which everyone has 45 different versions of. Unfortunately, all of them are probably worth less than this wristband.

*****

Good morning. It's Tuesday. Dog will hunt.

Barry Bonds was welcomed back to AT&T Park with open arms last night as the Giants took on the Dodgers. He hung out in the clubhouse, chatted with Mays and McCovey, spent a few minutes in the press box, then was greeted with wild applause as he took his seats in the owner's box. Yes, he sat next to managing general partner Bill Neukom during the game. A preliminary testing of the water before offering the home run king a new contract? Don't hold your breath. (That Giants lineup is pretty tough to crack.)

It's a little strange to see baseball's persona non grata treated like a conquering general enjoying his well-earned retirement. Especially since Bonds isn't actually retired and would surely love to be playing again. But since no one will give him a contract, including the one organization that still shows him so much love, he'll just have to go on playing the lovable former player. I'm not that suits him.

As for the TV interview, here's a reacp: Bonds was only a jerk to sell tickets and Mike Krukow doesn't pay that much attention to baseball.

'Barry' chants echo at AT&T Park for Bonds and Zito [USA Today]
Barry Bonds is at the game tonight [SF Gate]
Bonds chats with the Giants' announcers [MLB]

Believe it or not... there was some sort of legal delay! Prosecutors and defense attorneys have asked for more time to argue about pee cups and their wish has been granted so the trial will not start until late July at the earliest. At that point, it will be delayed again and it will go on like this until everyone is dead or Barry Bonds gets elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran's Committee, whichever comes first.

The crime that he is accused of committing happened six year ago, by the way. We will never be rid of this.

Barry Bonds case delayed well into summer [AP]

The object of attention on Wednesday was one of the government's expert witnesses on steroids, Larry Bowers, who is the senior managing director of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and an accomplished chemist.

The defense derided the science and studies that Bowers and the government cited that allege steroid and human growth hormone use by Bonds would have been witnessed by a former girlfriend, teammates and others in the form of physical symptoms: shrunken testicles, male pattern baldness, and a giant skull and fingers.

As to allegations about Bonds' testicles, the defense claimed a failure of proof. Alleging that Bonds' former mistress Kimberly Bell had pressed a legal claim against the slugger and shopped a book about their relationship, Ruby noted that no medical evidence had been introduced to support her claim to "have noticed that Mr. Bonds' testicles became smaller."

Visual inspection apparently won't do. Ruby noted that a "layperson" would have difficulty detecting diminished testicles "even by touch."

But just how do we know for sure until we try? "Mrs. Goldberg ... are these the balls you saw loitering outside of the victim's apartment on the night in question?"

If mere defense motions a full month before the actual trial begins are going to be this humorous, please sign me up for a season pass to the real thing.

Defense Objects To Bonds' Testicles Evidence [Yahoo Sports]

Call him Kennsaw "Mountain" Selig.

From USA Today:

"It was against the law, so I would have to think about that," Selig told USA TODAY's Christine Brennan in his first comments since Rodriguez's admission. "It's very hard. I've got to think about all that kind of stuff." Rodriguez would be the first to serve a suspension without testing positive during the penalty years.

Selig said he also is considering reinstating Hank Aaron as baseball's home run king in the record book. Barry Bonds broke Aaron's record of 755 home runs in 2007 but is scheduled to stand trial March 2 on charges he lied to a federal grand jury about performance-enhancing drugs. "This is breaking my heart, I don't mind telling you that," Selig said.

However, only hours after making the comments, Selig seemed to lose his nerve. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Reached later Thursday, Selig said he would not comment further on the matter involving Aaron or Alex Rodriguez, who admitted using performance-enhancing substances. Selig told USA Today that Rodriguez might be suspended for his actions.

Bob DuPuy, baseball's president and chief operating officer, said in an e-mail to the Journal Sentinel this morning that he had not seen the Selig comments. But he added that, in previous comments, Selig has said the issue of rewriting baseball's record books is a "slippery slope and that no one should get their hopes up."

Yeah, sorry for suddenly growing a spine there, people. I'll have that immediately removed.

UPDATE: Selig has issued a statement. No plans to punish Rodriguez at this time.

Selig Might Make Aaron The Home-Run King [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]
MLB Commissioner Selig Considers Suspending A-Rod [USA Today]
Selig: A-Rod Has 'Shamed The Game' [NBCSports]

The Smoking Gun provides 14 pages of the schedule on its site today, with day-to-day calendar entries labeled with notations such as "clear," "cream," ".25G," and, most disturbingly of all on Feb. 17, 2002: "Death To Smoochy, 7:15, AMC Cinemas Broadway."

From the Smoking Gun:

The calendars contain the initials "BB" and "BLB," which investigators believe refer to Barry Lamar Bonds. The calendars, seized from Anderson during the execution of a search warrant at his home, contain notations for "cream" and "clear," apparent references to the two designer steroids for which BALCO became notorious.

From Yahoo Sports:

The documents also include a transcript of a taped conversation between Bonds' personal trainer and personal assistant discussing injecting the slugger, plus a list of current and former major leaguers, including Jason Giambi, who are scheduled to testify for the government at Bonds' upcoming trial.

The former San Francisco Giant is charged with lying to a grand jury when he said he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. His trial is scheduled for next month.

Meanwhile, the Smoking Gun also has a story on Mike Bogdan, the Baltimore FRBI informant responsible for igniting the whole baseball steroids investigation.

Barry Bonds Doping Calendars [The Smoking Gun]
Major League Snitch [The Smoking Gun]

That's huge.

Estalella, a teammate of Bonds' with the Giants in 2000 and 2001, was subpoenaed Thursday and is expected to tell all when Bonds' perjury and obstruction of justice trial begins in March. He's the witness that federal prosecutors have been looking for all along — Greg Anderson has been no help, despite frequent jail visits. Think of Estellela as the Frank Pantangili of this thing; hopefully the Corleones won't get to his brother before the trial. From the SF Chronicle:

Estalella, who was on the San Francisco Giants with Bonds in 2000 and 2001, is expected to testify to firsthand knowledge that Bonds used steroids, ESPN reported, citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the evidence. ESPN attributed knowledge of the subpoenas to two unidentified sources.

The book "Game of Shadows," by two Chronicle reporters, says Estalella received a drug schedule from Greg Anderson, Bonds' trainer, advising him to use human growth hormone, the steroids "the cream" and "the clear," and the female fertility drug Clomid.

The Bobby Estalella file:

• Played nine seasons in the majors, 1996-2004, for six teams, Phillies (1996-1999), Giants (2000-2001), Yankees (2001), Rockies (2002-2003), Diamondbacks (2004) and Blue Jays (2004).

• Career .216 hitter with 48 home runs and 147 RBI in 310 games.

• Signed by the Mets to a minor league contract before the 2006 season, but retired before the season began.

• Once hit three homers in one game, for the Phillies on Sept. 4, 1997.

Estalella admitted to using the "cream," the "clear" and human growth hormone provided Anderson, it was learneds through leaked grand jury testimony. Estalella also was named in the Mitchell report in 2007.

This won't be Bobby's show alone, though. Also expected to testify are former Giants Benito Santiago and Armando Rios, and Jason Giambi, who has had, of course, his own steroids adventures, and who accompanied Bonds and Anderson on a promotional trip to Japan.

In other words, as Ray Ratto of the Chronicle said: "One way or another, it's on, kids."

The government isn't fooling around, as evidenced when they raided the house of Anderson's mother-in-law on Wednesday. They want Barry's head on a platter, and they don't care how many Hummel figurines they have to break to obtain it. It all goes to prove, again, that Barry could have avoided all of this if he'd had walked a mile or two in Giambi's cleats, and copped to the whole thing early on. But pride goeth before the fall ... or in this case, goeth before the house arrest.

Feds Have Targeted Bonds Case [San Francisco Chronicle]
Report: Estalella To Testify Against Bonds [San Francisco Chronicle]
Estalella To Support Case Vs. Bonds [ESPN]

This is going to be a crushing blow to Indian pitchers Rinku and Dinesh. Some had speculated that Bonds might be in the clear on grand jury perjury charges when it was revealed that his use of the “cream” and the “clear” designer substances were not illegal at the time he used them.

But authorities preparing for his perjury trial say that they have other, more definitive evidence that Bonds took another, illegal form of steroids. According to the New York Times, "a person who has reviewed the evidence said that the authorities detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in connection with their investigation." The person spoke on the condition of anonymity.

So we're back to where we started. Bonds about to go to trial for lying to a grand jury about steroid use, and the rest of us fairly ambivalent to it all. Really, we just want to see he and Rickey Henderson both get signed by the Athletics. But this federal steroids case is nowhere near being over.

Meanwhile, the authorities continued their efforts Wednesday to gain Anderson’s testimony about Bonds’s suspected use of banned substances. Early Wednesday morning, 20 federal agents raided the home of Anderson’s mother-in-law, according to one of Anderson’s lawyers, Mark Geragos.

Bonds was indicted in November 2007, and the authorities have since targeted Anderson’s mother-in-law, Madeline Gestas, and Anderson’s wife, Nicole Gestas, in an effort to put more pressure on Anderson to testify. The authorities have focused on the finances of Madeline Gestas, a California businesswoman who has been the subject of tax liens. Nicole Gestas is also under investigation in connection with her own finances.

“Even the Mafia spares the women and children,” Geragos said in a telephone interview in discussing Wednesday’s raid. “The government is obsessed with trying to get Greg to testify about Barry, but he never will.”

It's too bad that a simple country lawyer like Gerragos, who shuns the spotlight and only wishes to return to his blue collar, pro bono clients, has to be paraded before the public like this.

Urine Samples Said To Link Bonds To Steroids [New York Times]
Feds Raid Home Of Bonds' Trainer's Mother-In-Law [SFGate]

Two things come to mind when I see this: One, who let Chris Mortensen fill in for the graphics intern? And two, West Virginia has a lousy offense. Look, I'm not against Bonds returning to the majors; I just wish he'd do it in a less confusing way.

Well, at least a portion of the graphic was correct.

This is Dead Week in the world of sports, and tensions are running high throughout the land. But that's no excuse for the boo-boo above. We'll keep you entertained the right way. Onward.

It seems that someone actually took the time to read the 30,000 pages of court documents that were made public from the rather extensive BALCO case and discovered an interesting little tidbit about the "Clear," the "designer steroid" at the heart of the investigation. Before 2005, the main ingredient in the "Clear"—tetrahydrogestrinone (THG)—was not illegal. It was unapproved for sale by the FDA, but it was not a banned steroid. So when Bonds said he didn't know if he took a steroid, well ... technically he didn't take one. And when you're on trial for perjury, "technically" is all that matters.

The story also implies that prosecutors would have known that fact, and made their questions to Bonds intentionally vague as a result. Perjury charges are notoriously hard enough to prove in a court of law, and if this latest report is true, the case against Bonds gets that much more difficult to win.

The most interesting part may be the reason why THG was not banned in the first place: Because there is no evidence that it actually did what it was supposed to. No one had (or has?) ever studied it, so for all we know, this entire brouhaha was over a drug that didn't even work. Awesome.

Bonds blockbuster: ‘The Clear’ was legal [Yahoo]

From The NY Times:

But last week’s news trickling out of the endless investigation of Barry Bonds has caused me to feel something for him I never thought possible: sympathy. And beyond just sympathy, outrage over what has turned from a prosecution into a venomous persecution of someone who, no offense to the pastime purists, is just a baseball player. And I am beginning to think that federal authorities in charge of the pending criminal case against him for perjury have exactly the same attitude many sports fans do — we don’t like Barry Bonds, and since we don’t like him, let’s teach him a lesson he won’t forget. Let’s ruin him, which the federal government is fond of doing in all too many instances.

Just for the record, Barry Bonds is not an axe murderer. He is not a rapist or a child molester ...

And on we go. Buzz is billed as a "guest columnist" with the piece, which amuses me for some reason. Can you imagine Buzz as a guest at your place? Complaining about the TV shows you watch, criticizing your kids, upbraiding your dog for not fetching his glasses ...

Sympathy For The Slugger [New York Times]

Rogge claimed certain IOC delegates took Bud Selig's crusade against performance enhancing drugs as a blight upon the sport and that softball got caught in a bad PR halo effect. He was careful to name Barry Bonds specifically. It was unfortunate, of course, but that might be what happened, in Rogge's words. You know, that Barry Bonds killed Olympic softball as well as baseball. And love. Barry Bonds killed love.

By the way, they're building a velodrome in Great Britain for 2012. Jus' sayin'.

(P.S. The video doesn't seem to be up on the NBC Olympics Web site or elsewhere. Let us know if you spot their arrival to the Nets.)

Early Thursday it seemed like the Yankees might have been interested in Bonds; but by Thursday night, the chances had been downgraded to "not even if you covered us in bees." B. Molina, who's hitting .288 with eight homers and 61 RBI for San Francisco, seems like a better bet.

Sources such as the New York Daily News are reporting that Bonds ending up in pinstripes is very unlikely. But still, the rumors will not die. Come on, Yankees; despite all the baggage he would bring to an already tumultuous clubhouse, you know you want him. And he's just a phone call away ...

Yanks Go Off Barry Bonds Market [New York Daily News]
The Meeting Is Over In Tampa [The LoHud Yankees Blog]
As Yanks' Officials Chat, Bonds' Name Comes Up [Philadelphia Daily News]