Barry Bonds

Download or read book Game of Shadows written by Mark Fainaru-Wada and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the summer of 1998 two of baseball leading sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, embarked on a race to break Babe Ruth’s single season home run record. The nation was transfixed as Sosa went on to hit 66 home runs, and McGwire 70. Three years later, San Francisco Giants All-Star Barry Bonds surpassed McGwire by 3 home runs in the midst of what was perhaps the greatest offensive display in baseball history. Over the next three seasons, as Bonds regularly launched mammoth shots into the San Francisco Bay, baseball players across the country were hitting home runs at unprecedented rates. For years there had been rumors that perhaps some of these players owed their success to steroids. But crowd pleasing homers were big business, and sportswriters, fans, and officials alike simply turned a blind eye. Then, in December of 2004, after more than a year of investigation, San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams broke the story that in a federal investigation of a nutritional supplement company called BALCO, Yankees slugger Jason Giambi had admitted taking steroids. Barry Bonds was also implicated. Immediately the issue of steroids became front page news. The revelations led to Congressional hearings on baseball’s drug problems and continued to drive the effort to purge the U.S. Olympic movement of drug cheats. Now Fainaru-Wada and Williams expose for the first time the secrets of the BALCO investigation that has turned the sports world upside down. Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroid Scandal That Rocked Professional by award-winning investigative journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, is a riveting narrative about the biggest doping scandal in the history of sports, and how baseball’s home run king, Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, came to use steroids. Drawing on more than two years of reporting, including interviews with hundreds of people, and exclusive access to secret grand jury testimony, confidential documents, audio recordings, and more, the authors provide, for the first time, a definitive account of the shocking steroids scandal that made headlines across the country. The book traces the career of Victor Conte, founder of the BALCO laboratory, an egomaniacal former rock musician and self-proclaimed nutritionist, who set out to corrupt sports by providing athletes with “designer” steroids that would be undetectable on “state-of-the-art” doping tests. Conte gave the undetectable drugs to 28 of the world’s greatest athletes—Olympians, NFL players and baseball stars, Bonds chief among them. A separate narrative thread details the steroids use of Bonds, an immensely talented, moody player who turned to performance-enhancing drugs after Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals set a new home run record in 1998. Through his personal trainer, Bonds gained access to BALCO drugs. All of the great athletes who visited BALCO benefited tremendously—Bonds broke McGwire’s record—but many had their careers disrupted after federal investigators raided BALCO and indicted Conte. The authors trace the course of the probe, and the baffling decision of federal prosecutors to protect the elite athletes who were involved. Highlights of Game of Shadows include: Barry Bonds A look at how Bonds was driven to use performance-enhancing drugs in part by jealousy over Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 1998 season. It was shortly thereafter that Bonds—who had never used anything more performance enhancing than a protein shake from the health food store—first began using steroids. How Bonds’s weight trainer, steroid dealer Greg Anderson, arranged to meet Victor Conte before the 2001 baseball season with...

Download or read book Love Me, Hate Me written by Jeff Pearlman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From acclaimed sports writer and bestselling author Jeff Pearlman, a searing and insightful look into the life and career of Barry Bonds, one of the most celebrated, contradictory and controversial sports figures of our time No player in the history of baseball has left such an indelible mark on the game as Barry Bonds. In his twenty-year career, Bonds has amassed an unprecedented 7 Most Valuable Player awards, 8 Gold Gloves, and more than 700 home runs (and counting), an impressive assortment of feats that has earned him the consideration as one of the greatest players the game has ever seen. Equally deserved, however, is his reputation as an insufferable braggart, whose mythical home runs are rivaled only by his legendary ego. From his staggering ability and fabled pedigree (father Bobby played outfield for the Giants; cousin Reggie and godfather Willie are both Hall of Famers), to his well-documented run-ins with teammates and his alleged steroid abuse, Bonds inspires a like amount of passion from both sides of the fence. For many, Bonds belongs beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in baseball’s holy trinity; for others, he embodies all that is wrong with the modern athlete: aloof; arrogant; alienated. Drawing on extensive interviews with Bonds himself, members of his family, former and current managers, teammates, opponents, trainers, outspoken critics, and unapologetic supporters alike, Pearlman reveals, for the first time, a wonderfully nuanced portrait of a prodigiously talented—and immensely flawed—American icon, whose controversial run at baseball immortality forever changed the way we look at our sports heroes.

Download or read book Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman written by Steven Travers and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003-04-10 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barry Bonds: Baseball Superman is the biography of the game's first four-time Most Valuable Player. In 2001, Bonds broke the greatest record in sports, the all-time single-season home run record held over the years by Babe Ruth, Roger Maris and Mark McGwire, and arguably had the greatest season in baseball history. There is no doubt that for most fans, Barry Bonds is a man of mystery. Author Steven Travers documents the superstar's 2001 campaign as Bonds defied the very bounds of conventional logic and perfected the art of long-ball hitting. Travers also describes Bonds's childhood in Riverside, California, the hometown of his father, Bobby; his successful high school career in the Bay Area, and his All-American career at Arizona State. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Download or read book Barry Bonds written by John Bloom and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2004-12-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of the left fielder of the San Francisco Giants who was a three-time winner of the National League's Most Valuable Player award and who is recognized as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history.

Download or read book Bagels, Barry Bonds, and Rotten Politicians written by Burton S. Blumert and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2008 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burton Blumert was an entrepreneur who knew not only all that there is to know about precious metals but also about politics and economics. He offers his wide-ranging insights in this funny, charming, and also learned collection of essays from many years of writing. David Gordon finds that this book is full of insight: "Burt’s writings on politics are by no means confined to praise or condemnation of particular people. He grasps the essence of issues that most others fail to see at all." Blumert was among the closest friends of Murray and Joey Rothbard, having helped him during in his professional life many times. You will find here fascinating stories of their life together. There are also movie reviews, fiction and non-fiction reviews, commentary on media talking heads, observations on various mass insanities, and a contrarian take on virtually all conventional wisdom. This is an enjoyable book that helps you see the world through the eyes of an observer thoroughly steeped in the Rothbardian world view. "As a writer, as you will see from this book, he is a talented satirist who can teach the truths of liberty and life while making you laugh out loud. Most of all, he has shown how the Mises-Rothbard dream of drawing together commerce and ideas can be achieved." Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Download or read book This Gracious Season written by Josh Suchon and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Barry Bonds, 2nd Edition written by Ross Bernstein and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most spectacular professional baseball players of all time, Barry Bonds has broken more records and achieved more sports goals than any other player in the history of the game, despite never having won a world series. Follow this amazing athlete’s life from his childhood as a baseball prodigy to major-league record-breaker.