NEW YORK -- Barry Bonds failed a test for amphetamines last season and originally blamed it on a teammate, the Daily News reported Thursday.
When first informed of the positive test, Bonds attributed it to a substance he had taken from teammate Mark Sweeney's locker, the New York City newspaper said, citing several unnamed sources.
"I have no comment on that," Bonds' agent Jeff Borris told the Daily News on Wednesday night.
"Mark was made aware of the fact that his name had been brought up," Sweeney's agent Barry Axelrod told the Daily News. "But he did not give Barry Bonds anything, and there was nothing he could have given Barry Bonds."
Bonds, who has always maintained he never has tested positive for illegal drug use, is already under investigation for lying about steroid use.
A federal grand jury is investigating whether the 42-year-old Bonds perjured himself when he testified in 2003 in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid distribution case that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. The San Francisco Giants slugger told a 2003 federal grand jury that he believed his trainer Greg Anderson had provided him flaxseed oil and arthritic balm, not steroids.
Under baseball's amphetamines policy, which went into effect last season, players are not publicly identified for a first positive test. A second positive test for amphetamines results in a 25-game suspension. The first failed steroids test costs a player 50 games.
Bonds did not appeal the positive test, which made him subject to six drug tests by MLB over the next six months, according to the Daily News.
"We're not in a position to confirm or deny, obviously," MLB spokesman Rich Levin told the Daily News.
According to the newspaper, Sweeney learned of the Bonds' positive test from Gene Orza, chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Orza told Sweeney, the paper said, that he should remove any troublesome substances from his locker and should not share said substances. Sweeney said there was nothing of concern in his locker, according to the Daily News' sources.
An AP message for Sweeney was not immediately returned late Wednesday.
The Giants are still working to finalize complicated language in the slugger's $16 million, one-year contract for next season -- a process that has lasted almost a month since he agreed to the deal Dec. 7 on the last day of baseball's winter meetings.
The language still being negotiated concerns the left fielder's compliance with team rules, as well as what would happen if he were to be indicted or have other legal troubles.
Borris has declined to comment on the negotiations. He didn't immediately return a message from the AP on Wednesday night.
The 42-year-old Bonds is set to begin his 15th season with the Giants only 22 home runs shy of surpassing Hank Aaron's career record of 755.
Bonds, considered healthy again following offseason surgery on his troublesome left elbow, has spent 14 of his 21 big-league seasons with San Francisco and helped the Giants draw 3 million fans in all seven seasons at their waterfront ballpark.
After missing all but 14 games in 2005 following three operations on his right knee, Bonds batted .270 with 26 homers and 77 RBIs in 367 at-bats in 2006. He passed Babe Ruth to move into second place on the career home run list May 28.
It figures...out of all the people that likely tested positive for amphetamine use last year, why is his name the one that leaks out when it's not supposed to? It's certainly no coincidence, I'll tell you that much. Bonds should not have been publicly identified here.
Major League players have taken speed for four or five decades, and it only becomes news if Bonds name is on it ... The Hypocrisy continues.
It doesn't excuse his behavior if it's true.
True, if Bonds did knowingly take amphetamines as the article suggest, he was in the wrong. However he accepted what he did, took 6 more tests that came up negative, and moved on. There was no punishment for violating the rule, and the positive tests were not even supposed to get out. This should have been over and done with. It sounds like this year's testing on this drug was more of a feeler on how many players were actually doing it, before it actually counts next year. I also suspect that if Bonds got caught for doing it many others probably did, too.
Wr is right about the hypocrisy, though. This is the same drug that has been openly available in clubhouses over the last few decades, and everybody surrounding baseball knew that tons of players were on the stuff. It was just a fact of life in the baseball world. This didn't change until the 2006 season. But you just know that a Bonds positive test (which really wasn't a very big deal at all, as he didn't miss any games, and wasn't punished in any way), will unfairly create a media firestorm around this guy, once again. In fact, just looking around the internet, it's already become the #1 sports story on all the front pages tonight (and you can even detect a slight bias agaist Bonds in that AP article). Nobody will mention that his name shouldn't even have come up as part of the testing procedures, nor will they mention the large possibility that many other players also tested positive for the same drug. Just because some "unnamed source" decided to bring up Bonds' name, it certainly doesn't mean they're weren't others. Barry Bonds is what sells, though. And for the record, this won't effect any perjury charges agaisnt him, despite the article bringing it up.
Perhaps he is, as Courtney Love said about Kurt Cobain, a 'gobbler'? Running around taking stuff out of people's lockers? I can hear Sweeney now 'Dude, where's my "vitamins", you didn't take any of those did you?'
If somebody in baseball is leaking this crap, he should have to do a cage match w/ Barry when he retires. It seems like a load of hooey that baseball can leak stuff like this about players when 'the agreement' is that test #1 is 'anonymous'.
AcidRock23 wrote:If somebody in baseball is leaking this crap, he should have to do a cage match w/ Barry when he retires.
Take out his knees and he'll be down for the count.
I can't believe he automatically blames it on someone else. Well, I guess I can believe it. Is it Sweeney's fault that Bonds stole something from his locker and put it in his body? Maybe Sweeney held him at gun point until he took the pill. Yeah, that's probably what happened.
Last edited by teddy ballgame on Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have no particular opinion on Bonds, but I will pose this question. Is there some point that where all the controvercies he has been involved in and that fact that from what I read the the guy is just a big weenie, that it cancels out the fact that he was (is?) a great player?
He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him. He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him. He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him. He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him
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mweir145 wrote:It figures...out of all the people that likely tested positive for amphetamine use last year, why is his name the one that leaks out when it's not supposed to? It's certainly no coincidence, I'll tell you that much. Bonds should not have been publicly identified here.
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by Havok1517 » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:37 am 
Is it Sweeney's fault that Bonds stole something from his locker and put it in his body? Maybe Sweeney held him at gun point until he took the pill. Yeah, that's probably what happened.
