Barry Bonds, former outfielder and stick supreme, for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the San Francisco Giants, was indicted on November 15, 2007 on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice as it relates to the government investigation of BALCO.
Barry Bonds was convicted in April of 2011 of misleading a grand jury in 2003 by giving an evasive answer to a question about injectable drugs. Bonds recently, and unsuccessfully, attempted to have the charges dismissed. Bonds sentencing is scheduled for December 16th.
There is a win for Barry today, though. It has been announced that federal prosecutors will drop the remaining perjury charges against Bonds. Now, Bonds will no longer have to stand trial on accusations that he lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he testified that he did not knowingly receive human growth hormones or steroids from Greg Anderson, his trainer at the time.
Bonds is currently facing a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison although federal guidelines are recommending 15 to 21 months in jail.
My quick and dirty on this topic? I could not possibly care less about Bonds or anyone else’s steroid use. Barry Bonds is one of MANY in multiple sports to (allegedly) use HGH or steroids and I still don’t care. The use of federal dollars and congressional time to indict and convict athletes for steroid use in an example of everything that is wrong right with the country. What could we accomplish if we spent that time and money on things like education, homelessness and job creation? But that’s just not as important.
Anyway, Barry has gotten a bit of a reprieve for his alleged illegal activity. Great. Now we can go back to watching our other steroid using athletes play professional sports.