[Wolf] BLITZER: Do you believe Barry Bonds used steroids?
[Bob] COSTAS: Absolutely. There is no conclusion other than that, that any reasonable person could possibly reach. If you gave him the benefit of every doubt, there is no longer any doubt to give him the benefit of. Absolutely he did.
BLITZER: Here’s a reasonable person who was on our show last week, Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, who said this. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIE BROWN, FMR. SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR: It’s difficult to disprove a lie. I believe he has not used steroids because, one, he says so, and number two, he has taken every possible test and he has passed every test.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: What do you say to Willie Brown?
COSTAS: With all due respect to Willie Brown, who is a charming man, that is nonsensical. People who are guilty of things say they didn’t do it all the time. He has passed every possible test, baseball had no significant tests until 2003. And then they upped it in subsequent years. Most of the juicing that Barry Bonds did, which is specifically incredibly detailed in the book “Game of Shadows,” took place prior to that, as did his greatest seasons.
And he maintained some of the benefit into 2003 and 2004. So the fact that he took and passed tests later in his career, tests which still have holes in them, and there are no tests for HGH, and other possible designer steroids, proves very little.
BLITZER: What about the argument that he has made that, you know, he doesn’t know — he may have inadvertently taken some steroids, but he never deliberately steroids?
COSTAS: Yes. That’s what he told the grand jury. And even if you leave that aside, as has been detailed elsewhere, there were other performance-enhancing drugs that there is credible evidence that he used. Plus, it is incredible to believe that someone who was as meticulous as Barry Bonds is known to be about his workouts and about every aspect of nutrition would just blithely take something, put it under his tongue, rub it on his body, and not know what it was.
I agree with much that Mr. Costas states — not only the statistics, just look at the pictures of Barry before 1995 and after 2001.
Nevertheless, I have a real problem with relying on a book that uses illegally leaked grand jury testimony.
p.s. — I wonder if Bonds will make the 3,000 hit mark?
Thank you, Bob. We do not need Barry to be convicted by a court of law before we can make reasonable and meaningful judgments about the ballooning of his body and of his stats. Even if much of [i]Game of Shadows[/i] was illegally leaked, there is much that was not. They did first-rate investigative journalism, connecting the dots between Balco, Conti, Anderson and Bonds.
Mark my words: the real story will eventually be how a sports-crazed public and those in the media who aid-and-abet it (e.g., ESPN) willfully believed the living lie right before their eyes for the sake of a cheap thrill. ESPN is especially guilty for they have blurred the lines between journalistic integrity and product promotion. The move effortlessly between these two stances within any given story–especially when it comes to Bonds–and have made huge sums of money on it. It is sad, but baseball is much diminished by what has taken place in its recent history.
I am once again amazed at how Costas cuts through the fluff to the heart of the issue for a game he clearly loves to call.
I used to wonder if baseball could come back after the strike/lockout that killed the World Series. It did, but only at the cost of the homerun derby and some playoff moments that were either dramatic (Cubs melt down after fan touches ball) or euphoric(Red Sox win Series). Now we see what fueled the homerun derby and made possible some of those playoff moments.
Once again, I’m left wondering if baseball can recover from its own self-inflicted wounds.
I also wonder how large the asterisk will be next Bonds’ name when all this is done.
I’ve seen Bob Costas interviewed on the subject before and he wears his emitions on his sleaves much more than the transcript shows.
I quite honestly don’t understand the difference between Barry Bonds and the marks that Sosa and McGuire put 8, 9 years ago. I think that MLB turned a blind eye to for sooo long (in the name of selling tickets and reviving the game after the lockouts of the early 90’s) that it is quite disingenuous to feign any suprise when records are broken. I’m shocked, shocked to find that there are performanceenhancementdrugsbeingused in baseball.
If baseball really wanted to purge steroids from its system, they would have banned them 15 years ago — not 4 years ago. If MLB wanted to be taken seriously, they would have an independent and impartial commisioner — not a MLB team owner.
That’s all I gotta say about that.
*
(Bonds will always be an asterix to Hank Aaron)
If Bonds hadn’t had to play in Candlestick Park for 7 years he would have probably reached the 850 mark by now. All you non-Giants fans – bugger off.
Bonds deserves our contempt because he lied and there are many besides Costas who know this. When I think that he might be headed for the Hall of Fame, I shudder. This is so American: Do the very worst things you want, as long as you play to celebrity, you are home free. LM