Barry Bonds Indicted for Lying to Grand Jury

[dickay]

If there is in fact positive tests expect a plea bargain at some point before this is over. Just as every other athlete in these situations they will not go for the jugular and will settle on a lesser penalty for Bonds coming clean and telling exactly how the Balco ring and maybe others operated. Should that happen, I think baseball has some tough decisions regarding Bond's statistics and records.

Bondsies career however, is probably over unless this indictment is based on untruths and is quickly thrown out. Should that happen, and not in the manner of the 'its the gloves don't fit, you must acquit' type of defense, I agree that the public may in fact begin to show some sympathy for Bonds...although not much.

[ohms_law]

Bondsies career however, is probably over unless this indictment is based on untruths and is quickly thrown out. Should that happen, and not in the manner of the 'its the gloves don't fit, you must acquit' type of defense, I agree that the public may in fact begin to show some sympathy for Bonds...although not much.

Yea. Regardless of weather or not he ever continues to play, his entire legacy is ridding on this court case now. I have to admit that my interest is a bit piqued to see what (if anything) they have as evidence. My understanding is that perjury charges are never easy to see through, and that's got to be especially true in a case where the defendant is like Bonds.

[HoustonGM]

Baseball doesn't have any tough decisions to make regarding statistics and records. They turned a blind eye to the issue until it was too late.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/

UPDATE III: According to a source with knowledge of the Mitchell investigation, baseball’s investigators were given the names and dates of the positive tests mentioned in this indictment. These names are the same as those asked to testify in the initial hearings and include both current and former players. In the 2003 Survey, 96 players failed the test for a list of banned substances substantially smaller than the current banned list.

96 players positive for drugs from a substantially smaller list than is currently used.

Steroid use was rampant, and if we're going to strike records from some players, positive test or not, then we're going to have to strike the records of this entire era. The entire era is tainted. If you think otherwise, you're fooling yourself. Baseball let it go on, and it's now shaping up and attempting to stamp out PED use. It's too late to correct what happened in the 90's. The statistics are still part of the history of baseball, and they all should stand.

[ohms_law]

Well, yea. That's been my stance from the get go.

[boomer74]

Baseball should have had testing earlier but I don't agree with people who say baseball did not have testing or a rule agianst it so its ok. They don't need to put a rule in for something that is Illegal to begin with. Bonds broke the law and is gonna get caught in his web of lies.

[ohms_law]

We're not saying that it's OK. What we are saying is that it's not fair to punish a person retroactively for something that wasn't against the rules. Weather or not steroid use was illegal at the time (which is debatable as well), baseball didn't outlaw it's use. This is the same principle as is enshrined in regular US law, where you can't prosecute someone for an offense that was not illegal at the time of the crime.

[Reade]

our esteemed leader has his finger

I would like to tell him where he could stick that finger of his.

Steroid use was rampant, and if we're going to strike records from some players, positive test or not, then we're going to have to strike the records of this entire era. The entire era is tainted. If you think otherwise, you're fooling yourself. Baseball let it go on, and it's now shaping up and attempting to stamp out PED use. It's too late to correct what happened in the 90's. The statistics are still part of the history of baseball, and they all should stand.

I agree 100%. MLB is just trying to cover its butt now. Alot of this stuff started earlier than the 90's though, **** LaRussa was letting players do it as early as 1982-83, guys like kittle, luzinski, baines.

[boomer74]

We're not saying that it's OK. What we are saying is that it's not fair to punish a person retroactively for something that wasn't against the rules. Weather or not steroid use was illegal at the time (which is debatable as well), baseball didn't outlaw it's use. This is the same principle as is enshrined in regular US law, where you can't prosecute someone for an offense that was not illegal at the time of the crime.

They don't need to put a rule in for something thats ILLEGAL! Did you see football have rules agianst Dog fighting? No of course not...Your saying its ok he did it because he did not break baseball rules....if you take steroids your breaking the law. Period! I don't know where our country went wrong with thinking that sports rules are above our own laws of our country and states. Whats next...a player shoots another player on the field to score....I can see it now. His defense is that it was not in the football rules that he could not shoot the opponent.

[ohms_law]

1) Steroids weren't a controlled substance until 2004, when the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was passed.. So, if a player received a steroid substance from a doctor, with a prescription, then the player didn't do anything legally wrong. It's actually still that way today, there's simply more over site on steroid prescriptions.

2) Michel Vick wasn't suspended specifically for Dog Fighting. The NFL has a weak union and the commissioner has much broader authority. Roger Goodell was able to and did suspend Vick under the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy, and mostly due to his gambling affiliation.

3) No one is saying that sports rules are more important than federal or state law. Their completely separate entities, as they should be.

4) The example about one player shooting another is just silly.

[mtg712]

*********************** the ****/heck out of him. i hope his inmate number is *****.

[HoustonGM]

Baseball should have had testing earlier but I don't agree with people who say baseball did not have testing or a rule agianst it so its ok. They don't need to put a rule in for something that is Illegal to begin with. Bonds broke the law and is gonna get caught in his web of lies.

It doesn't make what they did okay, but it means that baseball has no authority over the situation. For illegal things, the law takes care of it. For people that get charged/convicted of crimes, teams are allowed to suspend players for it, etc. It wasn't okay, but neither was letting the situation happen to reap the benefits, and then later doing soemthing about. MLB let it go on. Statistics cannot be taken away. They're a factual record of what occurred on the baseball field. End of story.

They don't need to put a rule in for something thats ILLEGAL! Did you see football have rules agianst Dog fighting? No of course not...

If a baseball player is charged with a crime, and especially if they're convicted, their team can suspend them or what have you. The MLB cannot take action against players that aren't even charged with a crime, and that have not tested positive. They cannot go back to a time when there were no testing procedures and punish players for doing something that was illegal, but not against the MLB rules. The statistics stand. Let the justice system handle people that break the law. Let the MLB handle people that break the rules of baseball. Furthermore, even with broken rules, statistics cannot be wiped away. They document what occurred on the baseball field. If cheating means that the statistics don't count...well...let's just say there wouldn't be much of a statistical record of baseball anymore.

Nobody is saying that baseball players taking steroids is okay. If they break the law, they should be punished for it. ALL I am saying is that the statistics cannot be wiped off the books.

[Reade]

Oh by the way, WHO really freakin cares, I'm so tired of talking about Bonds

[CatKnight]

Nobody is saying that baseball players taking steroids is okay. If they break the law, they should be punished for it. ALL I am saying is that the statistics cannot be wiped off the books.

Hm. Maybe, maybe not.

He can be banned though. What he did was far, far worse than what Pete Rose did. He can be barred from the Hall of Fame. That would be a great way to deal with a narcissistic creature like Bonds.

Oh, and lest I forget, there's one other thing we can certainly do.

*

[HoustonGM]

If we asterisk him, we must asterisk the entire era. It's a pointless exercise. The entire era was riddled with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Cheaters have never gotten their statistics asterisked. And yes, maybe using steroids helps your statistics more than other forms of cheating, but the asterisk's purpose is to show that the statistics are tainted with cheating. Therefore, it's only logical to asterisk all cheating-tainted records, regardless of whether it's steroids or spitballs or amphetamines (you know, those things that were probably used by over 3/4ths of the palyers in the 60s, 70s, etc.? Like Mickey Mantle, and Willie Mays, and according to some accounts, Hank Aaron?)

[ohms_law]

Yea, there are two aspects to this. Hall of fame eligibility/voting/induction, and the statistical record. The statistical record should never be adjusted, fixed, or asterisked. It's simply a historical record of what has occurred, and that should not be tainted. As for the Hall of Fame, that's a completely different story. For Hall of Fame induction we're talking about politics. If a player is to be "asterisked" in the Hall of Fame then he really shouldn't be there at all in my opinion. I guess that there's also the leader boards as well, but those follow the same principle in my view. There's the leaders in the statistical record, then theres the players who are officially recognized as being "the best" in any particular category. The two do not need to be identical at all. There's no reason not to acknowledge the fact that Pete Rose has the most hits in the history of the game for example; while at the same time there's no reason not to continue to acknowledge Ty Cobb as the best hitter ever, since Rose has been banned from baseball for life.