Bonds indicted for perjury and obstruction

[iluvlamp]

The strawman arguments being made are really telling. Is it a coincidence that steroid use in high schools, and even middle schools, has increased since these roided out freaks? This isn't and shouldn't be a question about what sport. Baseball, football and track are to blame. But this POOR BARRY crap will not fly. He Lied and you know it. Know what else? He cheated on his wife. Know what else? He most likely has cheated on his taxes. (probably these charges will be forthcoming. Of course I suppose tax evasion is also no big deal). Hmmmm... may be a pattern. Of course, I did not have sexual relations with this post.

 

Wake up and let's get all these jokers!

[danzig6767]

If Bonds goes to jail or gets some punishment from the law it will be because he was more interested in carrying out his silly charade that he didn't knowingly take steroids over telling the truth while under oath even though he knew he could get in real trouble for this lying. The thing that's as crazy as his lying to the feds while under oath is that it's not like his lying was going to prevent some surprising news to get out, 95% of people already know/think he did the steroids. Barry was potentially risking trouble with the law to stop news from getting out that most everyone already new existed.

 

Bonds admitting to the feds and it then coming out publicly that he did roids would be like Keith Richards saying he's done some drugs. Wow, what a shocker, who would have figured.

[iluvlamp]

Danzig, right! He was offered immunity if he just told the truth. He did not. Jason Giambi told the truth and , as far as I can see, he is not facing prison time. The BALCO blanket works in weird ways.

[Tbadder]

It's not a red herring at all. It's called policing your employees. It's called investigative reporting. It's called eye-witnesses that didn't have the moral fiber to break the code of the dressing room. Baloney. There was tacit approval everywhere--just as there was wwhen greenies were out of control in the late 50s and 60s.

[Thurston Fluff]

I don't think it is a large assumption. I'd just say: look at the stats. HAS anyone else hit 73 homers in one season or 762 total homers before?

 

Answer: No.

 

Nobody else was going to hit 73 home runs in one season, or 762 total, drugged or not, simply because nobody else did.

 

By this reasoning no one would ever break any record. By defenition a record is something no one else has done. Yet somehow we see records broken all the time. How does your reasoning account for that. BTW there is this guy named A-Rod who very well could break it. There is also this Guy Named Prince who hit more homeruns at a yonuyger age than any other player. Both of those guys have a very legitimate chance of breaking one of those records. After all Bonds never hit 50 until after he turned 35.

 

 

It's not a red herring at all. It's called policing your employees. It's called investigative reporting. It's called eye-witnesses that didn't have the moral fiber to break the code of the dressing room. Baloney. There was tacit approval everywhere--just as there was wwhen greenies were out of control in the late 50s and 60s.

 

You asserted others should have blown the whistle without one shred of evidence they had any actual physical evidence agianst any one in particular. Policing employees requires cooperation from employees. I doubt you will find many employees willing to let their employers root around in medicine cabinet. Investigating requires legal authority. Who are these eyewitnesses that didn't come forward? Was it Bud? Was it an owner? You can't just lump everyone together and say they were all guilty because someone somewhere had actual real tangible evidence against someone in particular and didn't come forward. If you wish to accuse poeple of that do what Bud, the owners ect. would have to have done. Give me names, times and specifics of when they supposedly failed to address specific allegations agianst specific people. If not then your arguement is baseless.

You may note that Bud did in fact impose steroid testing in the minor leagues before the majors did. He did that because he could without union approval. That approval was a nonstarter for the union until the governement stepped in and sort of forced it's hand on the issue. I believe he could have done it earlier to be honest. I'm willing to give him some amount of slack since at the time he was busy trying to save the competetive balance of baseball.

Why is it so hard for you to accept those who actually cheated are the ones who are to blame?

[Tbadder]

How naive is that? Geez. Yeah everyone of these guys took roids in a complete vaccuum. Bucket O' Laughs my friends.

[milwaukeesportsfan]

I've been out of the loop for the last few days up in the great northwoods, and this is the first I'm seeing of this. All I have to say is, Hallelujah! Let justice be done! Throw the book at him. Barry is realizing that lying to the media and lying to a Federal Grand Jury are two completely different things. You see, in the Criminal Justice system, they have this little thing they like to do where they make you put your hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, and if you don't and you get caught, YOU GO TO PRISON! Barry gambled when he thought that the government could not build a case against him, and he lost.

[RobertR]

Getting an indictment is one thing, and even though there is a pretty good cause for it, gettting a conviction in the case of Bonds is likely to be much tougher than the 19 out of 20 quoted above. For one thing, perjury is a much tougher thing to prove, especially if Greg Anderson didn't roll. For another, Barry Bonds has a lot of resources at his disposal. It's very likely his defense team will have more money and resources than the prosecutors. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't come close to trial for another year, and who might be in the Federal attorney's office then?

 

Obviously, money doesn't mean everything, Martha Stewart is a perfect counter-example, but I'm willing to bet that this roller coaster ride isn't even close to over.

 

Robert

[dadofandrew]

I do not see a conviction to be forthcoming. As said, you have to prove it, and perjury is not easy to prove.

[Thurston Fluff]

How naive is that? Geez. Yeah everyone of these guys took roids in a complete vaccuum. Bucket O' Laughs my friends.

 

I ask you to give me an actual time when someone you accused of "knowing" what was going on had real evidence but didn't follow up on it. Obviously you couldn't or you wouldn't have to resort to lines such as that. Give me real evidence any of the people you accused knew of actual wrongdoing by someone in particular and didn't follow up on it. If you can't please at least refrain from trying to redefine what I actaully said. I never said they did it in a vacuum. What I said is you were blaming people without giving one shred of evidence they had actual, tangible, evidence pertaining to actual offenders. All I'm asking you do do is back that claim up. I don't want to put words in your mouth but, to me, you seem to be suggesting players took steroids in full sight of owners, managers, GM's the media and Bud Selig. Somehow that sounds more naive than suggesting players do these things only around people they trust not to tell.

[PeaveyFury]

I do not see a conviction to be forthcoming. As said, you have to prove it, and perjury is not easy to prove.

 

In a high profile case like this, I'd be absolutely stunned if they made and indictment without an air-tight case.

[Fatter than Joey]

In a high profile case like this, I'd be absolutely stunned if they made and indictment without an air-tight case.

 

Yeah I agree 100% -- The prosecution is going to know exactly what they are up against in making perjury stick.

[Thurston Fluff]

In a high profile case like this, I'd be absolutely stunned if they made and indictment without an air-tight case.

 

Yeah I agree 100% -- The prosecution is going to know exactly what they are up against in making perjury stick.

 

I hope that's the case and they aren't just grandstanding. I'd hate to think the justice system would do that but sometimes it's hard to tell anymore.

[RobertR]

I do not see a conviction to be forthcoming. As said, you have to prove it, and perjury is not easy to prove.

 

In a high profile case like this, I'd be absolutely stunned if they made and indictment without an air-tight case.

I'm sure the prosecutors thought that before the OJ case as well. And before the Chmura case.

 

It took them years to get an indictment which leads me to suspect that it's not quite as slam dunk as suspected. At the very least, I'm willing to wait to hear their actual evidence, but I still stand by my contention that Barry Bonds is not your average defendant and getting an indictment and getting a conviction against someone with his resources is not the same thing.

 

Heck, if the election swings to the Democrats next November, none of the prosecutors involved may end up taking the case to trial.

 

Robert

[Tbadder]

I didn't accuse anyone of anything. My god man, remember when the first before and after pictures starting coming out. The lithe Barry turns into Godzilla Barry. Clemens is suddenly barrell-chested, with thighs two-hams-across. On and on, players are getting ripped. Trying to find pitchers who threw in the mid and upper 90s used to be rare. The reversing of generational trends like players getting better into their mid-thirties and even forties occassionally. On and on...

 

Where were the trainers? The medical people who report to management. If LaRussa knows who was an alcoholic and who wasn't on his team, why not 'roids? Baseball has had a long history of collusion, and I don't think it's far fetched, that more people knew and suspected than will ever be known because baseball was in the middle of a resurrgence.

 

Look in my job if someone is suspected of drug use it's incumbent on me to invesitgate because I'm in a position of stewartship, of taking care of the whole person, etc. Maybe MBL did internal studies. I'd like to know that. Some are saying that the 'roids problem could've gone back as far as the 70s. It doesn't take that long in my book unless you're incredibly naive. What Selig is guilty of is poor stewartship, and poor judgement. I didn't accuse him of knowingly turning a blind eye. But if it did come out, which it won't because he's too powerful and connected, I'd be the least surprised person in the world.

 

No, this whole issue is gonna turn into a fox hunt--so be it. I believe that's the human compunction and I've got no problem with it because it's rather humorous and entertaining. I especially love guys who are all indignant and greater than thou. Who stand up when it's easy and beat their chest--those guys are a riot--I really do appreciate them. But nobody is gonna turn that cold, accessing glare on management or the players union or MLB policies, and I think that's unfortunate.

 

I guess I'm just asking for the whole story. Everyone who gets caught is gonna bleed for this. I'd just like everyone who contributed wittingly or unwittingly to get their repuation tarnished a bit. It's good for the soul to be humbled publicly from time to time.

[Thurston Fluff]

I actually do blame the union quite a bit for this problem. In that respect I agree there is blame to be shared. The union stonewalled an issue that many of it's own members disagreed with. The media has some blame I guess because they could have gone harder after the steroid issue during the homerun chase. I think we did see some things start to come out like the Andro issue with McGuire. They are not keen on lible suits so they wouldn't go too far with accusing actual people unless they had real evidence. That evidence was not readily availdable until some of the users/dealers got caugt or at least identified and the cracks in the armor started to show. Ultimately though the person to blame completely without question is the person who used them. No matter what the environment or who enabled whom the person who did something he knew was wrong chose to do it with full knowledge he was doing something wrong. Blaming ancillary players does little to absolve them of that fact.

[TooLiveBrew]

The blame is shared equally, 50/50, between A-Rod & Ned Yost. And Andy Rooney.

[Tbadder]

Yeah, I find the players union particularly loathsome. I've always thought they had the financial health of the players at heart, but little else.

[Thurston Fluff]

http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gifGood debate Tbad. Now I think it's time to get together and sign Kumbaya.

[Tbadder]

Over Beer perhaps!