FanHouse Greg Anderson

The list of prosecution witnesses in the government's case against Barry Bonds includes one NFL player: New England Patriots special teams captain Larry Izzo.

Izzo, who has played for the Patriots since 2001, will reportedly testify that he received performance-enhancing drugs from Bonds' friend and personal trainer Greg Anderson in 2003. He will apparently not testify that he has any specific knowledge of Bonds' steroid use, but building the case that Anderson distributed steroids is part of the government's effort to prove that Bonds lied to federal investigators about his own involvement with performance-enhancing drugs.

Surprisingly enough, tonight's Dugout is not a parody of Watchmen! It's about how a lady is going to testify that she watched trainer Greg Anderson inject Barry Bonds with steroids, thereby proving that he purjured himself in a court of law and must be sentenced to imprisonment. Commissioner Bud Selig has gone as far to say that he'll suspend Bonds for a few games during the 2009 season! This story keeps getting crazier and crazier, folks!

Oh, and before I forget, I couldn't for the life of me find a picture of alleged butt-watcher Kathy Hoskins, so portraying her in tonight's strip will be Cathy from the Cathy comics.

In case you have not been reading for the last year, the Dugout part of The Dugout can be found after the jump!

It looks like Barry Bonds has more than just a failed urine test to worry about when his perjury trial gets underway on March 2nd. According to ESPN, Bobby Estalella, a former Giant who admitted using steroids provided by Bonds' trainer Greg Anderson, is prepared to provide "significant testimony" to back up the government's claim that Bonds knowingly took steroids.

Estalella admitted using the same substances, as well as human growth hormone, during the same BALCO investigation that led to the Bonds statements being questioned by federal prosecutors. He's reportedly able to provide first-hand knowledge of Bonds' steroid use, something that would be quite damning to Bonds' case.

You may remember back in 2001 when Barry Bonds was in the midst of his chase of the single-season home run record, there was a lot of talk about his possible steroid use. (If you don't remember, then how was your trip to Antarctica, anyway?) There was also a quote from Bonds at the time in which he said that baseball could test him every day and he'd never test positive. Of course, considering that we sit here eight years later and there still isn't a reliable test for HGH, that doesn't exactly say much.

What does say something is a report that appeared in the New York Times early Thursday morning. In what could be an incredibly big blow to his defense in his upcoming perjury trial, the paper is saying that authorities have some urine samples from Bonds that tested positive for steroids.

But, alas, he can't. Or, at the very least, he doesn't want to. Because that would mean addressing the Mitchell Report's assertion that Brian Sabean knew what Greg Anderson was doing in the Giants' dugout -- and that Sabean allowed him to stay there anyway. It's a charge that reinforces what many of Bonds' defenders have held all along: Barry Bonds may have cheated, but he did it with his organization's blessing. It's hard to refute these days.

Today, Sabean finally addressed the thing, but not really:

"Right now, things are so hyper-sensitive, I think we just have to let the process work itself through," Sabean said recently of further investigation into his and owner Peter Magowan's handling of Bonds and Greg Anderson. "Believe me, at the right time, I'll have plenty to say. This isn't the time for that."

"I understand the hype around this," Sabean said of the Mitchell report and its repercussions. "You know me pretty well and understand that I have thick skin about these things. But it's the gravity of the situation that's making it clear that it's time to let the system and the process play out."

San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami laments the fact that the lingering Bonds issues still surround the Giants, and I feel his pain. To some degree, we're all tired of talking about Barry Bonds. Bonds talk is the one surefire way to make my eyes glaze over. If someone brings up Barry Bonds anywhere within 300 feet of me, I immediately put on my headphones and crank Can. I understand.

The problem is that Sabean doesn't deserve to have this issue go away. For all the nastiness Bonds has taken over the past, oh, four years or so -- he's getting indicted, for chrissakes -- it sure doesn't seem fair to let Sabean off the hook for abetting the slugger. This issue won't die, not anytime soon. Nor should it.

(HT: BBTF)

OK, so it's the players that take the steroids, but it's the culture that fosters them. Case in point: Giants general manager Brian Sabean was told by Giants athletic trainer Stan Conte that Greg Anderson's presence in the Giants locker room -- Anderson was a part of Barry Bonds' infamous entourage -- had led to at least one player asking Conte about steroids. What did Sabean do? Um ... nothing. From page 125 of the report:

Sabean confirmed in his interview that Conte's recollection of their conversation was accurate. He also acknowledged that he did not raise the issue with Bonds or Anderson. Instead, he asked Conte if he knew anyone who could "check out" Anderson. Conte said that he knew a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and Sabean suggested Conte call the agent to check into Anderson. The DEA agent later told Conte that he did not find any information about Anderson. Conte relayed this to Sabean.

Sabean told me that he believed that if Anderson was in fact selling drugs illegally the government would have known about it. So when he received the report from Conte, Sabean did not report the issue to anyone in the Giants organization or the Commissioner's Office, he did not confront Bonds or Anderson, and he did not take any steps to prohibit Anderson from gaining access to Giants facilities. Sabean said that he was not aware at the time of the Major League Baseball policy that required him to report information regarding a player's drug use to the Commissioner's Office.

Sabean explained that he was in a very difficult situation regarding disclosure of this information because, as a result of the clubhouse culture in baseball, he felt he could not risk "outing" Conte as the source of the information. He said that if he had insisted on Anderson's ouster from the clubhouse, Bonds would have vigorously objected, just as he did when the Giants tried to bar Harvey Shields in response to the later (February 2004) mandate from the Commissioner's Office barring personal trainers from restricted areas.

So let's see here. We've got a GM that was told, on numerous occasions, about the disruptive and illegal activities going on his locker room, and despite a league policy requiring him to report the behavior, he does nothing! And then, as if to make it better, says he wasn't aware of his reportorial duty. I'm not unethical ... I'm just stupid! Promise!

This is what culture means. Barry Bonds took the steroids and broke the records, but at some point Bonds' enablers -- the very people signing his checks, the people afraid that any sign of wrongdoing would bring the whole castle down around them -- need to be held just as accountable as anyone in uniform.

Read FanHouse's complete coverage of the Mitchell Report.
Sorry, No Photos

Now that Greg Anderson is fresh out of jail, you would hope maybe he would want to shout to the high heavens, do some filibustering in front of Congress or perhaps attend a few open mic nights at his local coffee shop to read some poetry. You know, flex the vocal chords a bit. I'm hoping he's getting to do all those things. Because, if and when Barry Bonds goes to trial, he's keeping his yapper shut.

If Bonds goes to trial on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, Anderson could be called on again to testify -- and face a return to prison if he again refuses to cooperate.

According to Anderson's attorneys, he'll do it again if confronted with the same dilemma.

Anderson could be charged with criminal contempt if he refuses to cooperate with the government if Bonds goes to trial on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. That would mean a criminal trial of his own and an even longer prison sentence than the civil contempt charge that sent him to prison for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds.

But Anderson's defense team told the New York Daily News that he won't turn on Bonds.

"He's never going to testify," his lead attorney Mark Geragos said, according to the Daily News.

"He didn't like it there," added Paula Carny, a member of Anderson's defense team, according to the Daily News. "But all any of us have is what we believe is who we are and our word and integrity."

You know what? Greg Anderson is a true bro. He's got Barry's back no matter what. He's Broseidon King of the Brocean. He's Vincent Van Brogh, a legendary broartist in his own time. I hope they are both enjoying a brotein shake in sunny California together right now. Preesh, bro, preesh.

Last week, in his essential daily Debriefing, MJD broke out his Jump to Conclusions mat to answer questions about the NFL season. I feel like I unwittingly borrowed it when I posited that Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds' trainer, must have finally given in to prosecutors before they indicted the inflated slugger. Anderson had been in prison for a year after refusing to testify against Bonds.

In that time, prosecutors said time and again that the case couldn't go forward without Anderson's testimony. So, yesterday, when the case finally did go forward and Anderson was swiftly released from prison, it seemed like a pretty safe bet that the two events weren't entirely coincidental. While it wasn't coincidental --.Anderson was released because with the indictment handed down there was no cause to keep Anderson in jail -- it wasn't because of anything Anderson did.

It turns out that the central evidence being used against Bonds are drug tests he allegedly failed. Bonds has never, so far as we know tested positive for steroids in tests administered by Major League Baseball but BALCO, the drug lab that started this whole dance, did test its clients. Bonds first visited them in 2000 and the records of those tests may have been seized with other BALCO records when the Justice Department raided them as part of the 2003 investigation. The same investigation that led to the grand jury testimony in which Bonds is accused of perjuring himself.

Among the many questions that will be answered in the days, weeks and months to come is why did the federal government choose to indict Barry Bonds today? It has been almost four years since he testified to the grand jury investigating BALCO and more than two years since they began investigating him for perjuring himself during that testimony. They do not want to lose this case, obviously, and would not have gone forward with an indictment unless they had a pretty good idea they were going to earn a conviction on the charges.

When I heard the news my initial reaction was that Bonds' trainer Greg Anderson had tired of sitting in jail while his employer walked free. Anderson has always been the guy who could definitively say whether or not Bonds knowingly took steroids so if the government had a confidence boost he was the most likely supplier. Then I saw this line in the AP's story.

Shortly after the indictment was handed up, Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was ordered released after spending most of the past year in prison for refusing to testify against his longtime friend.

That certainly seems like a convenient bit of timing, doesn't it? I have no idea if Anderson flipped but he's the smoking gun in this case and has been from day one. I wouldn't be bowled over if the next couple of days brings news that Anderson has decided to sing.
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The recent news of BALCO attorney Troy Ellerman getting sentenced to prison for two and a half years was making me wonder what was new in the federal investigation of Barry Bonds. Particularly, I was wondering whether or not Bonds would be indicted prior to breaking the home run record. Considering Bonds is at 753 and only three away from breaking Hank Aaron's record, he'll most likely break the record within the next few weeks. That is crucial for Barry given light of the most recent news. As Steroid Nation has pointed out, T.J. Quinn in the New York Daily News is reporting that the grand jury investigating Bonds has been extended six months and that they are close to an indictment.

The grand jury investigating Barry Bonds has been extended for another six months, several sources familiar with the government's case have told the Daily News, and the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco is confident it will have enough evidence to secure an indictment once it resumes in September.

"They seem to feel they have a strong case," said one source, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Another source said he believed prosecutors could secure an indictment if they sought one now, but that they would rather take the additional time to strengthen it. The grand jurors have not met for at least three weeks and have been instructed that they will not reconvene until September. Bonds is being investigated for perjury and tax evasion.

"If the case is 90% now, there's no reason not to go for 100%," the source said. "They aren't just waiting around for Greg Anderson."