The off-the-field stories surrounding Major League Baseball have been featured in the media quite prominently lately, sometimes overshadowing the opening week of action. It’s all thanks to Barry Bonds, who’s quite unloved by the fanbase, to say the least. It’s probably not the type of publicity that MLB is seeking though as Bonds, baseball’s home run king*, is currently involved in a perjury trial relating to his steroid use.
According to the testimony of Kimberly Bell on March 28, a former mistress of Bonds, he admitted to her that he used steroids and they had a negative effect on his body parts and health. And unlike Seinfeld’s pal George Costanza, who blamed his penis and testicle shrinkage on being in a cold swimming pool, Bell said Bond’s testicles shrunk due to his steroid use.
She said that his testicles eventually formed into an unusual shape and Bonds asked if she believed others would notice the changes that were visibly taking place to his body. She also said that he suffered from a variety of other ailments such as hair loss, acne, and impotence.
Bell testified that Bonds admitted to using steroids when she asked him about an elbow injury that he was having problems with. Bell also told the court that Bonds’ mood and demeanor changed dramatically and he often told her he’d cut her head off and dump her in a ditch.
According to Bell, Bonds told her that his elbow’s tendons and muscles were growing at an advanced rate because of the steroids and the joint couldn’t handle it, causing it to blow out. All of this is contrary to what Bonds told a grand jury back in 2003 when he testified that he never took human growth hormones and/or steroids, at least not with his knowledge anyway.
However, the 46-year-old was charged with perjury and has pleaded not guilty to the charge. He testified that he took things that Greg Anderson, his trainer gave him, but these were just items such as vitamins, flaxseed oil, creams, and protein shakes. Anderson was sent to jail just last week by a judge after he said he wouldn’t testify in a case which is related to performance-enhancing drugs in the world of sports.
When Bonds played for the San Francisco Giants he smashed the baseball home run record when he hit 73 back in 2001, a single-season record that hasn’t been broken and might never be with the steroid era now over. Then in 2007, when he was in his last MLB season, Bonds broke the 33-year-old record set by Henry Aaron for career home runs and retired with a total of 762 dingers. However, not many people take these records seriously, as Bonds set the records with the help of performance-enhancing drugs.