Barry Bonds' personal trainer, a track coach and top executives of a San Francisco-area nutritional supplements lab were charged Thursday with running an illegal drug distribution operation.

The 42-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in San Francisco and obtained by The Associated Press alleges the scheme provided anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, EPO and other drugs to major league baseball and NFL players, as well as track and field stars.
 

The personal trainer for Barry Bonds told federal agents that he gave steroids to several baseball players, according to an affidavit that the United States Attorney's office made public Tuesday.

In releasing the documents via e-mail to The New York Times, the attorney's office inadvertently revealed that Yankees outfielder Gary Sheffield sent mail to the supplements laboratory that is being investigated as the source of the steroids. The documents do not allege that Sheffield used steroids.

He had already been identified as one of a number of professional athletes who testified before the federal grand jury investigating the laboratory, known as the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, or Balco.

But Sheffield's name is the first to come out in documents released in the six days since the grand jury handed up indictments against Bonds's trainer, Greg Anderson, and three other men, all on charges of illegally distributing anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of professional athletes...

\"Anderson initially denied `distributing' steroids, but acknowledged that he sometimes `gave' steroids to persons whom he knew,\" said one affidavit written by Jeff Novitzky, a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service. \"Upon further questioning, Anderson admitted that he had given steroids to several professional baseball players whose names I was familiar with from my review of other documents in this investigation.\"
 

Colorado pitcher Turk Wendell told The Denver Post that if his personal trainer had been linked to, and charged in, an alleged steroid ring, he wouldn't get the same treatment that Bonds has.

\"If my personal trainer, me, Turk Wendell, got indicted for that, there's no one in the world who wouldn't think that I wasn't taking steroids,\" the Rockies relief pitcher told The Denver Post. \"I mean, what, because he's Barry Bonds, no one's going to say that?

\"I mean, obviously he did it. [His trainer] admitted to giving steroids to baseball players. He just doesn't want to say his name. You don't have to. It's clear just seeing his body.\"

Bonds' retort from Giants camp in Scottsdale, Ariz.: \"I'm not going to comment on ignorance. Who's he?\"

\"Who's he?\"

Joe in Philly:
It's been reported that Bonds looks a bit slimmed down himself, actually. Not to the extent of Giambi, though.

i admit it is striking how much he's changed since he was a rookie with the pirates but that was a long time ago. his body had evolved from that when he joined the giants. with all the controversy and testing, with all the controversy and testing, if he was taking steroids wouldn't he have stopped and wouldn't his body mass have diminished?

On Thursday, Kent suggested to reporters that some of the game's past stars, like Babe Ruth, might have used performance-enhancing drugs but no one would have ever known because there was no testing back then. On Friday, Kent said he wasn't accusing Ruth or anyone of anything, he was merely making a point about earlier eras.

\"How do we know about then? Do we really know about then?\" he said. \"I think we're starting to understand and learn more facts about now, so everybody's trying to relate the records broken, the way ballplayers are bigger and badder and better than ever now, but how do we know about then?

\"We never really tested (until last year), so that was my reference. I apologize to all the Babe Ruth fans out there, but geez, I was just trying to make a point.\"

Certainly, amphetimines (\"bennies\" or \"greenies\") were used by players in the past (it was one of the \"shocking revelations\" in Ball Four), but that's different.

but if a player is very tired or hungover or ill, I think they definitely would

Major League Baseball's approach to steroids testing has been widely criticized as weak. MLB's labor agreement calls for random testing only, with the first positive test resulting in treatment only; a second would bring a fine or suspension. Only if a player tests positive five times would he receive a one-year suspension.

ung:

so is it \"the tailend\" of his career\"?  Yes I think so.  I certainly hope you know he won't last another 5 years.

 Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield, and who knows how many countless others talk constantly about their diets, and keeping track of proteins, carbohydrates, calories, etc., so it makes no sense to think that they would then take pills, injections or creams without knowing exactly what they were putting into their bodies.  

Munson Man:
Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield... talk constantly about their diets, and keeping track of proteins, carbohydrates, calories, etc., so it makes no sense to think that they would then take pills, injections or creams without knowing exactly what they were putting into their bodies.

With both the big names (Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield) and small names (Santiago, Bernard) being targeted by this scandal, it will be interesting to see if power numbers are down this year.  

MSUBulldog:
* Would you take steroids if you could lead MLB in homeruns and make $15 million per year?

Selig recently sent a directive to all 30 teams, telling them to decline comment on the BALCO case \"specifically\" and performance-enhancing drugs \"generally.\"  

He did not say that this year's testing program has all of the teeth of a putty knife.

Nevertheless, by the time people are finished learning what BALCO stands for, that could change.

Because the union is going to have to significantly soften on this issue, for the good of its members, if nothing else. A thorough drug-testing program with consequences, long-term, can only be beneficial to players. To all who would be alarmed if they started growing a third arm, at least.

One thing worth watching closely is that, like nothing else before it, this issue has the potential to severely crack the union. If you're clean -- and despite the cloud cast by the guilty, a lot of these guys are -- why would you quietly sit back and allow yourself to be pushed out of the game by some juiced-up competitor who comes into spring camp and steals your job?

Designated hitter Tim Salmon was stunned to learn Tuesday that ex-teammate Randy Velarde, an Angel infielder from 1996 to '99, was reportedly one of six major league players who received steroids from the Burlingame nutritional supplement lab that is at the center of a growing sports drug scandal.

\"That's kind of a shocker,\" Salmon said of Velarde, who retired after the 2002 season. \"He was so ripped as it was, that's surprising. But I guess the way things have gone the last few months, I should be less and less shocked. These kinds of things always seem to come back and get you one way or another.\" Velarde, a weight-room fanatic who had so little body fat he often wore a jacket in the clubhouse to stay warm, signed a three-year, $2.45-million deal before the 1996 season and hit .285 with 14 home runs and 54 runs batted in his first year in Anaheim.

But he injured his elbow while making a routine throw from the outfield before a spring training game in 1997 and sat out the entire season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ligament. While sitting out the first half of 1998, Velarde was so desperate to find something to boost his recovery from surgery that he tried using horse liniment, an oil used to strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments of racehorses. \"I figured if it works for horses, it ought to work for humans,\" Velarde said at the time.

Velarde returned to hit .261 in 51 games in 1998 and .306 with nine homers and 48 RBIs in 95 games in 1999 before being traded to Oakland. He spent 2000 with the A's, 2001 with the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees and 2002 with the A's. \"Randy was always a fitness freak — he was always in great shape — and I know what kind of effort he put in,\" Salmon said. \"It seems like guys use steroids as a shortcut, but he was not the kind of guy to do that. My guess is he looked at it for the healing aspect, because there is a healing element [to using steroids] that is beneficial. If that's the case, I can swallow this a little easier.\"