As a bristly superstar and baseball’s home run king, Barry Bonds
infuriated a lot of people in his illustrious career. And one came
back to haunt him Wednesday in his trial on federal perjury
charges. In the first direct testimony that the Giants slugger was
deep into steroids, Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend who became
part of Bonds’ inner circle for nearly 10 years before they had a
falling out, testified for more than five hours as one of the
government’s star witnesses.
SAN FRANCISCO
As a bristly superstar and baseball’s home run king, Barry Bonds infuriated a lot of people in his illustrious career. And one came back to haunt him Wednesday in his trial on federal perjury charges.
In the first direct testimony that the Giants slugger was deep into steroids, Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend who became part of Bonds’ inner circle for nearly 10 years before they had a falling out, testified for more than five hours as one of the government’s star witnesses.
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Hoskins said he learned of the ballplayer’s steroid use as early as 1999, once saw Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson and Bonds go into room and Anderson emerge holding a syringe, and heard Bonds complaining steroid shots “hurt his butt.”
Hoskins returns to the witness stand Thursday morning for more grilling by Bonds’ lawyers, who are trying to discredit him in the eyes of a jury considering the four counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice that Bonds faces for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury in 2003 about using steroids.
For the jury, Hoskins’ testimony is either a firsthand account of someone so close to Bonds he had the run of the San Francisco Giants locker room and handled his cash payments to mistresses. Or it is the vengeful distortion of a greedy former friend who abused his access to a famous star by cheating him out of money and wound up cut off from a spigot of wealth.
Once Hoskins is finished testifying Thursday, prosecutors are expected to call anti-doping expert Larry Bowers, Giants equipment manager Mike Murphy and perhaps Bonds ex-mistress Kimberly Bell early next week.
A bit fidgety and speaking in a soft whisper, Hoskins told the jury he remains loyal to Bonds, despite suggestions he has plotted with the government to craft his downfall. He said he fretted about the steroid use so much he taped a conversation with Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, to take to the San Francisco Giant’s father, Bobby, to get him to intervene.
“Barry is a very good friend, a very good person and the best baseball player there is ever going to be,” Hoskins told an often incredulous
Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lawyer. “That’s why in 1999 and 2000, I was trying to stop him from taking steroids, because I thought it was bad for him.”
During his testimony, Hoskins said Bonds asked him in 1999 to meet with Bonds’ orthopedic surgeon, Arthur Ting, about one steroid and its potential side effects. Ting is also on the government’s witness list.
Hoskins, who said Bonds complained steroids shots gave him a “sore butt,” also recounted seeing Bonds regularly retreat with Anderson into a bedroom during various spring trainings, presumably to receive steroid injections; he testified he never saw the injections, but once saw the trainer emerge with a syringe.
Prosecutors allege Bonds received various forms of steroids from Anderson, who is now in jail for refusing to testify during the trial.
Finally, the jury heard a recording Hoskins secretly made of a conversation with Anderson in the Giants locker room at some point in 2003. In it, the trainer is discussing various steroids issues, including how to inject them properly and how he had been relying on steroids such as “the cream” and “the clear” that could not be detected in drug tests.
The tape, however, is imperfect, scarcely audible at times and with scant direct mention of Bonds, although the inference can be drawn that
Anderson is discussing his star client. As Anderson talks about the dangers of always injecting steroids in the same place, Hoskins is heard asking: “Is that why Barry didn’t just shoot it into his butt all the time?”
“Oh no — I never just go there,” Anderson replies. “I move it all over the place.”
Ruby, Bonds’ lawyer, spent hours pecking away at Hoskins’ account, suggesting that he recorded the conversation with Anderson to extort Bonds shortly after the ballplayer had cut off their business relationship. The evidence showed that Bonds severed ties with Hoskins in the spring of 2003 because he believed Hoskins was ripping him off in a sports memorabilia business, including cutting deals for Bonds’ autographed baseballs without permission and forging his name.
Bonds later went to the FBI to investigate the allegations, but Hoskins was never charged and defense lawyers say he cut a sweet deal in exchange for his cooperation.
Hoskins told the jury he recorded the Anderson conversation to prove to Bobby Bonds, himself a former star player, that Barry was using steroids; Barry Bonds and Anderson had denied it to Bobby Bonds, according to Hoskins.
Hoskins testified he did not play the recording for Bonds’ father because by that time he was seriously ill, and died later that year of cancer. But Ruby scoffed at the claim that the tape was for Bobby Bonds, pressing Hoskins about it just being a ploy to dig up dirt on Bonds and asking why it wasn’t just erased when he decided against playing it for the ailing father.
“I just stashed it away,” Hoskins countered, referring to Bobby Bonds’ illness. “That was the last thing I was thinking about, the tape.”
Ruby also pressed Hoskins on statements he made to federal investigators in 2005, when he was given immunity. Among other things, a report on that meeting said Hoskins told the feds he saw Bonds injected with steroids, and that he could help them with the steroid case.
Hoskins denied saying those things in his testimony.
— Story by Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News
