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A federal judge handed Bonds a sentence of 30 days of house arrest, two years of probation and 250 hours of community service on Friday – then delayed the sentence pending an appeal likely to take a year or more.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston also put on hold a $4,000 fine against Bonds for his obstruction of justice conviction arising from a grand jury appearance eight years ago.

Prosecutors wanted the home run king to spend 15 months in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella argued that home confinement wasn’t punishment enough, “for a man with a 15,000 square foot house with all the advantages.” Bonds lives on a nearly two-acre estate in Beverly Hills.

Parrella called the sentence a “slap on the wrist” and the fine “almost laughable” for a former baseball superstar who made millions of dollars during his career. Parrella had sought 15 months in prison, disagreeing with the judge’s conclusion that the crime was “aberrant” behavior for an otherwise law-abiding Bonds who has donated money and time to charities.

“The defendant basically lived a double life for decades,” argued Parrella, who said Bonds tested positive for steroids and amphetamines during his playing days. “He had mistresses throughout his marriages.”

Illston said none of that had any bearing on Bonds’ sentence. She agreed with a probation department report that called Bonds’ conviction and “aberration” in his life. She said she received “dozens” of letters in support of Bonds and discussing how he has given money and time “for decades” to charitable causes.

Illston also said she had to remain “consistent” and give Bonds a sentence similar to those meted out to two other figures convicted of similar crimes in the same investigation.

She also noted that most obstruction cases were more serious, and often involved violence being used against witnesses.

“This sentence is an appropriate sentence for a conviction where there is no victim,” said Stuart Slotnick, a former prosecutor now in private practice. “And many question the seriousness of the charges and the motivation for the prosecution.”

Well-wishers hugged the 47-year-old Bonds in the hallway outside the courtroom after the hearing was over. He declined to speak in court.

A jury convicted Bonds in April of purposely answering questions about steroids with rambling non sequiturs in an attempt to mislead a grand jury investigating sports doping in December 2003. Bonds’ trial jury failed to reach a verdict on three other charges accusing Bonds of lying when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and when he denied receiving injections from someone other than his doctor.

Prosecutors in September dropped those deadlocked charges, giving up on another trial.

His lead attorney, Allen Ruby, said Bonds will formally file a “notice of appeal” Friday.

Major League Baseball’s career home runs leader, Bonds is the highest-profile defendant – and the last – to come out of the government’s investigation of the steroids distribution ring built around the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, founded by Victor Conte.

Besides the seven-time MVP, 10 people were convicted of various charges. Six of them, including track star Marion Jones, were ensnared for lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court. Others, including Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges.

Bonds was one of two former baseball superstars to stand trial in doping-related cases this year. The trial of pitcher Roger Clemens was halted after just two days in July because prosecutors used inadmissible evidence. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton has set a new trial for April 17.

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Legal analysts expect Illston to follow most of the probation department’s suggestions and “downward depart” from federal sentencing guidelines calling for 15 months to 21 months in prison when the last of the defendants directly connected to the investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative is sentenced Friday.

The analysts, Bonds attorneys and the probation department all cite Illston’s sentencing of cyclist Tammy Thomas and track coach Trevor Graham as the more appropriate guidelines to follow in considering Bonds’ punishment. Thomas and Graham were convicted of similar crimes. Thomas was sentenced to six months of home detention after a jury convicted her of perjury for denying she used steroids. Graham received a year’s home arrest after a jury convicted him of lying to a federal agent about his relationship with a steroids dealer.

A jury convicted Bonds in April of purposely answering questions about steroids with rambling non sequiturs in an attempt to mislead a grand jury investigating sports doping in December 2003. Bonds’ trial jury deadlocked on three other charges accusing Bonds of perjury for allegedly lying when he denied taking performance-enhancing drugs and receiving injections from someone other than his doctor.

Prosecutors in September dropped those deadlocked charges, foregoing another trial.

Prosecutors are asking for a prison sentence of 15 months and note that baseball’s career home runs leader has never accepted responsibility for his actions.

“Bonds’ pervasive efforts to testify falsely, to mislead the grand jury, to dodge questions, and to simply refuse to answer questions in the grand jury makes his conduct worthy of a significant jail sentence,” prosecutors wrote the court last week.

Bonds will have 14 days to file his intention to appeal his conviction after sentencing Friday.

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In between, the federal government spent millions of dollars and untold staff hours obtaining the convictions of 11 people. Six of them, including track star Marion Jones, were ensnared for lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court. Five men, including Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from their BALCO connections.

The investigation in general – and the pursuit of Bonds in particular – ignited a debate over whether the government’s long involvement was the best use of public resources.

More than seven years after he testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO, Major League Baseball’s all-time home runs leader was convicted on just one of four remaining counts against him. And the jury deadlocked on whether Bonds lied about taking performance enhancing drugs.

Now, federal sentencing guidelines suggest a prison term of between 15 months and 21 months. But federal probation officers are recommending that Bonds receive no time, citing his charitable work, the nature of the crime and his otherwise spotless criminal record. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has sentenced two other BALCO figures convicted of similar crimes to probation and house arrest.

Was it all worth it?

“It absolutely was,” said MacGregor Scott, the former U.S. attorney for Sacramento, now in private practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. “It brought a focus and awareness to the steroids issue that wasn’t there before.”

Scott said prosecutors had to go after Bonds once they concluded he lied to the grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and said he allowed only doctors to inject him. Dozens of other athletes testified truthfully, Scott said.

“There aren’t two sets of laws, one for Bonds and one for everybody else,” Scott said. “The grand jury is the bedrock of the criminal justice system in the United States.”

The probe did lead directly to former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell’s in-depth investigation of drug use in Major League Baseball and his seminal Mitchell Report, which in turn prompted MLB and its players’ union to strengthen their steroids policy.

Yet the relatively short list of convictions leaves some, perhaps most notably the BALCO founder himself, unimpressed.

“Obviously, the BALCO case brought about a greater public awareness regarding the rampant use of drugs at the elite level of sport, which is a good thing,” said Victor Conte, the BALCO founder and president – who spent four months in prison after pleading guilty to steroids distribution. “As the BALCO case comes to a close, I don’t think it was the highest and best use of the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars that were spent on the case.”

Bonds will have 14 days after his sentencing to file a notice of appeal.

The trial itself ended ambiguously in April about three weeks after it began.

The jury concluded Bonds purposely evaded responding during testimony to a grand jury investigating steroids distribution in sports with a rambling non sequitur to a question about drug injections, and the jurors convicted him of obstruction of justice. But they couldn’t reach a unanimous agreement on the heart of the case, deadlocking on three charges alleging Bonds lied to the grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs and testifying that no one other than his doctors ever injected him.

Prosecutors in September dropped those charges, foregoing another trial and declaring the one conviction showed the value of the Bonds prosecution.

The government’s lead investigator, Jeff Novitzky, said Bonds first came to his attention during his weekly Monday night raids of BALCO’s trash during the summer and fall of 2002. Novitzky, who was with the Internal Revenue Service then and is now a Food and Drug Administration investigator, said he found a magazine article quoting Bonds as crediting BALCO with helping him pump up and increase his power.

Novitzky gathered more evidence connecting Bonds to BALCO during September 2003 raids of the lab and the home of Greg Anderson, Bonds’ personal trainer at the time. Three months later, Bonds was called before the grand jury and granted immunity from prosecution so long as he testified truthfully.

Despite the jury’s mixed verdict, prosecutors still insist Bonds lied.

“The evidence at trial demonstrated that Bonds went into the grand jury with the intention of providing false statements and obstructing the grand jury’s efforts to get to the truth in the BALCO matter,” prosecutors wrote the judge last week seeking a prison sentence of 15 months for the former San Francisco Giants slugger. “Without truthful testimony, the judicial system simply cannot function properly in its mission-to get to justice.”

In recommending that Bonds serve a term of house arrest, probation and community service – but no prison time – the federal probation department called Bonds’ conviction an “aberration” and cited his “significant history of charitable, civic and prior good works” as reasons for the judge to “downward depart” from federal guidelines.

The department’s report is confidential, but was cited in part by Bonds’ lawyers last week in arguing for probation and volunteer work. Earlier this year, Bonds announced he would pay for the college education of the two children of Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who remains hospitalized after the highly publicized opening day beating in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium.

Bonds’ lawyers quote an unidentified nurse writing in a letter to Illston that Bonds often visits sick children at the University of California, San Francisco’s Benioff Children’s Hospital. He paid for the 2009 renovation of what is now the Barry Bonds Family Foundation Playroom, which he visited in June.

“Barry Bonds is a hero to us at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital,” the nurse wrote. “I consider being a character witness for Barry Bonds a privilege.”

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Bonds, 47, was convicted in April of obstructing a grand jury’s sports doping investigation with an evasive answer. Prosecutors dropped three other perjury counts after the jury deadlocked on those charges, which accused Bonds of lying to the grand jury when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Federal sentencing guidelines for conviction on the charge recommend a prison sentence between 15 months and 21 months. But Bonds’ lawyers cited an investigative report prepared by a federal probation officer for the judge that also recommended a sentence of probation.

The lawyers said they disagreed, however, with the probation report’s recommendation that Bonds spend an unspecified time under “location monitoring,” a form of house arrest.

In their motion, Bonds’ lawyers said the probation department cited Bonds’ “significant history of charitable, civic and prior good works” as a major reason for leniency. The probation officer also noted that Bonds’ conviction appears “to be an aberration when taken in context of his entire life,” according to the lawyers.

“The behavior for which Mr. Bonds is to be sentenced relates to his obstruction of justice conduct before the grand jury,” lawyers quoted the probation officer as reporting in the sentencing recommendation. “The sentence to be imposed should not be about steroid use and how this use impacts his stature.”

The lawyers said the probation officer recommended probation because other sports figures convicted of similar charges stemming from the same sports doping investigation also avoided prison.

Juries convicted cyclist Tammy Thomas of perjury for testifying she never used steroids and former track coach Trevor Graham for lying to investigators about his involvement with a steroids dealer. Both were sentenced to periods of house arrest, which is considered a form of probation.

Former professional football player Dana Stubblefield pleaded guilty to lying to investigators and was sentenced to probation.

Prosecutors were expected to submit their sentencing recommendations in Bonds’ case this week. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 16.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds wants another turn at bat in the federal case against him in San Francisco.

The slugger’s attorneys filed a motion Wednesday asking a judge to change Bonds’ obstruction of justice conviction to an acquittal or schedule a new trial.

He was convicted of obstructing a grand jury’s steroids investigation by giving an evasive answer during questioning in 2003. The trial ended in April with a mistrial on three perjury counts and a conviction on the single obstruction count.

Bonds’ lawyers argue he was unfairly convicted of “unauthorized rambling” in discussing being a celebrity child when asked whether his trainer ever injected him with a syringe. The lawyers insist that Bonds answered the question directly during further questioning.

A July 1 hearing is scheduled to consider the latest motion.

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In a Black Planet/NewsOne poll conducted after the guilty verdict was handed down in the Barry Bonds trial, 84 percent of respondents unanimously believe that the former Giants star knowingly took steroids during his career.

Sixteen percent of respondents polled believe Barry never took performance enhancing drugs.

The poll, which had 325 respondents, was surprising considering how a large portion of the African-American community felt Bonds was being unfairly persecuted.

While they may have felt a trial was too much to pursue, we now know it doesn’t mean that many of them didn’t believe Bonds cheated his way to the home-run record.

The conviction carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, but many legal experts expect Bonds to avoid jail as there was a hung jury on the three perjury charges.

Do you agree or disagree with the Black Planet/ News One ?

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Barry Bonds Trial Stories

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SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice but a jury failed to reach a verdict on three other counts that the home run king lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he specifically denied that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone.

Following a 12-day trial and almost four full days of deliberation, a jury could not reach a unanimous vote on three of four counts, a messy end to a case that put the slugger in the spotlight for more than three years.

Bonds sat stone-faced through the verdict, displaying no emotion.

The case also represented the culmination of the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids ring. Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department will have to decide whether to retry Bonds on the unresolved counts.

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In 1913, the government hid behind the Mann Act to prosecute a powerful, prominent black man it felt needed to be taught a lesson. Now the government has invested eight years and millions of dollars to go after another prominent, powerful black man with a vigor that suggests there is more in play than the altruistic goal of protecting the integrity of a grand jury.

The prosecution, regardless of the verdict, was a colossal misuse of time and money aimed, it seems, at making an example of a larger-than-life figure whose greatest sin was being an unlikable home run king.

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“The defense rests,” Ruby told the eight-women, four-man jury before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston released them for the day.

The panel was ordered to return Thursday to begin deliberating after hearing closing arguments and the judge’s instructions on how to consider the evidence submitted during the 11-day trial.

Illston began the session by tossing out one of the charges pending against Bonds. Prosecutors asked for the dismissal after Illston made it clear she was planning to throw it out anyway.

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The dismissed charge accused Bonds of lying to the grand jury when he denied taking the designer steroids dubbed “the clear” and “the cream” prior to the 2003 season. Bonds admitted taking those steroids in 2003, but said his personal trainer misled him into believing they were legal supplements.

None of the prosecution’s witnesses tied Bonds to use of the designer steroids before 2003.

Still, it was a limited victory for Bonds. He faces the same punishment if convicted of any of the four charges remaining.

“The dismissal is one less bullet to dodge on the liability side,” said defense attorney William Keane, who represented track coach Trevor Graham when he was accused of making false statements. “If Mr. Bonds is convicted on one or more of the remaining counts it will not have much of an impact on his ultimate sentence.”

Bonds is still charged with three counts of lying to the grand jury and one count of obstruction. Legal analysts say Bonds likely faces a realistic maximum of about 15 months in prison if convicted, but likely would be sentenced to about a year of house arrest. That’s the same punishment elite cyclist Tammy Thomas received for lying to the same grand jury when she denied taking steroids.

The judge on Wednesday also ruled that the jury will be allowed to consider testimony that Bonds’ testicles shrank, which prosecutors claim is a side effect of steroid use. Bonds’ attorneys sought to bar consideration of that testimony after Bonds’ former mistress Kimberly Bell admitted that she exaggerated the degree to which Bonds’ testicles shrank when she testified before the grand jury.

The judge also turned down Bonds attorneys’ request to toss out the testimony of Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi and three other former athletes as irrelevant. None of the players testified directly about Bonds. Instead, they told the jury that Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, supplied them with steroids and human growth hormone and detailed instructions on how to use them.

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The greatest hitter of his era threatened “to cut my head off and leave me in a ditch,” she said. “More than once.”

She said Bonds told her “he would cut out my breast implants because he paid for them.”

As for the Arizona house he had helped pay for, “he told me he would burn it down.”

Bonds’ federal trial resumed Monday with nearly daylong testimony from his former mistress, who said the slugger attributed a 1999 elbow injury to steroids use. She also discussed how Bonds became verbally abusive and said that his physique changed, offering a lurid description of his shrinking testicles, back acne, scalp hair that fell out and chest hair that turned gray. Such mental and physical symptoms are associated with steroid use.

Prosecutors allege Bonds lied when he told a federal grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.

Bell met Bonds in 1994 and testified that from 1999 to 2001, “he was just increasingly aggressive, irritable, agitated, very impatient.”

In testimony similar to that of former Bonds business partner Steve Hoskins last week, she said that in at least two different years at spring training, she saw Bonds and personal trainer Greg Anderson “go into a bedroom off the kitchen and close and lock the door.”

She said Anderson “would always have a little satchel with him.” She saw those scenes played out multiple times.

Prosecutors claim Anderson, who has been jailed for refusing to testify, repeatedly injected Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs.

Dressed in a gray pantsuit and white shirt, and with deep lines under her eyes, Bell answered 72 minutes of prosecution questions and was pressured during 4 hours, 15 minutes of questioning from the defense, who tried to portray her as a gold digger, a scorned former lover, a liar and the instigator of a mortgage fraud scheme.

Defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas brought up an interview Bell gave Playboy and a television appearance on Geraldo Rivera.

“You have taken many opportunities to disparage Barry Bonds … in the most vulgar ways possible?” Arguedas said in a question that was more a statement.

“Did you go on Howard Stern’s radio show?” Arguedas continued. “Does he do anything that isn’t vulgar?”

When Arguedas repeated: “Did you say vulgar things about Barry Bonds?” Bell answered: “Please refresh my memory.”

With that, Arguedas took a break to talk with Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lead lawyer. After a few moments, Arguedas told the court: “We’re going to decline that opportunity to go into the gutter. No more questions.”

At the start of the day, Giants equipment manager Mike Murphy testified that Bonds’ hat size increased from 7 1/4 to 7 3-8 in 2002. Murphy said that while Willie Mays and Willie McCovey needed larger hats, their increases did not happen until after they had retired as players.

Former Giants head athletic trainer Stan Conte is to testify Tuesday along with former AL MVP Jason Giambi, brother Jeremy Giambi and Randy Velarde, other players linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which ran a steroids distribution ring.

While there were empty seats in the court room last week, the wood benches were filled for Bell’s testimony and about a dozen people waited on line outside for one of the approximately 50 seats available to the public.

Bell testified Bonds revealed his steroids use to her only once, between 1999 and 2000 at her apartment.

“He had an injury on his elbow and it was a big lump on his elbow,” she said. “It looked really awful, and he said it was because of steroids. … somehow it caused the muscle and the tendons to grow faster than the joint itself could handle.”

Bonds had left elbow surgery on April 20, 1999, and was on the disabled list until June 9. He holds the MLB records for home runs in a career (762) and a single season (73).

Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey D. Nedrow, Bell said Bonds told her “he didn’t shoot it up every day like body builders did.”

“That’s how they were getting ahead, that’s how they were achieving, by using steroids,” she quoted Bonds as saying. She went on to say this was the period “when Mark McGwire was breaking records.”

Dressed in a dark blue suit, light blue shirt and blue-and-silver patterned tie, Bonds alternately watched Bell on the stand, scribbled notes and whispered to one of his defense attorneys, Allen Ruby. A few times, Bonds put on reading glasses.

Bell met Bonds briefly outside Candlestick Park on July 3, 1994, when she was introduced by Kathy Hoskins, a former personal shopper for Bonds who also is expected to testify.

“He said: ‘Damn girl, you’re fine,’” said Bell, who occasionally dabbed at tears.

She attended a barbecue the next day at Bonds’ mother’s house, and Bonds arrived with Bobby Bonilla. From there, they shared a romantic relationship that continued even after Bonds married Liz Watson, who became his second wife in 1999.

In anticipation of defense attempts to discredit Bell, Nedrow asked about an interview and nude photograph shoot she did with Playboy that appeared in 2007.

“I was trying to put my life together,” she testified. “Maybe it wasn’t the best decision.”

Bell testified that Playboy agreed to pay her $100,000, but sent the money to her agent, David Hans Schmidt. Schmidt committed suicide in 2007 while under investigation for allegedly attempting to extort the actor Tom Cruise and Bell said she saw little of the Playboy payment – “about $17,000 or $18,000.”

While Ruby cross-examined the first four witnesses, Arguedas spent most of Monday trying to portray Bell as a jilted woman who had broken off her previous relationship on the day she was to be married.

When Bonds told her in 1998 that he was going to marry Watson, Bell said the player told her “you can come see me on road trips.” Bell testified that after Bonds married, he told her there were “girlfriend cities and wife cities” and that she wasn’t allowed to travel with him to New York, Montreal and Atlanta.

Bell said she went instead to San Diego, Houston and Miami. She recalled bitterly how Bonds told her to find her own way home from after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when commercial airlines were shut down and Bonds was on the team charter.

“Barry abandoned me in Houston after 9-11,” she said.

Arguedas ran through a litany of financial benefits Bell received in “this position you had, as the girlfriend for road trips.” Bonds bought her several cars and paid the down payment for her house in North Scottsdale, Ariz. Arguedas repeatedly brought up forms Bell signed in which she said it would be her secondary home, trying to portray Bell as a liar.

Arguedas also quizzed Bell about an e-mail she sent to Bonds’ website in April 2004, almost a year after their breakup on May 23, 2003. Bell said she listed all the women she knew that Bonds was sleeping with: a model in New York, another woman in Las Vegas and “the stripper from Phoenix.”

“This is the guy who you described as having penile dysfunction,” Arguedas said. “That’s a lot of action.”

Bonds covered his mouth in an apparent attempt to suppress a grin.

“I don’t know what he was doing with them,” Bell responded. “I can only imagine.”

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Steve Hoskins said that when he saw Bonds and his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, coming out of the master bedroom he assumed Anderson had injected the star player with steroids. He testified that he saw the two disappear into that room “once or twice” at each spring training over three consecutive years beginning in 2000.

He also told the jury of eight women and four men that, a year earlier, Bonds had ordered him to research the benefits and side effects of a steroid after the slugger had undergone elbow surgery.

Hoskins was a childhood friend of Bonds’ and traveled with him as an assistant until 2003. Hoskins testified that Bonds’ significant weight gain concerned him so much that he secretly recorded a conversation with Anderson about steroids so he could convince Bonds’ father, Bobby Bonds, that his son was using the drugs.

Bobby Bonds, a former baseball star himself, was suffering from cancer in 2003. Hoskins said he made the recording in front of Barry Bonds’ locker in March of that year “to show Bobby actually what really was going on.”

“That was the only way to prove it to him,” Hoskins said.

Portions of that recording were played for the jury in federal court Wednesday afternoon.

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Athletes Behaving Badly

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At one point on the recording, Anderson is heard discussing what prosecutors allege are designer steroids he supplied to Bonds. Says Anderson: “But the whole thing is … everything that I’ve been doing at this point, it’s all undetectable.”

Soon after the material was played for the jury, Bonds’ attorney Allen Ruby went to work trying to erode Hoskins’ credibility. Ruby accused Hoskins of planning to extort Bonds after the player severed business ties with Hoskins during a March 27, 2003, meeting. Bonds accused Hoskins of forging his name on memorabilia.

Under cross examination, Hoskins said he did sign Bonds’ name on occasion – but only with Bonds’ permission. Hoskins also said he secretly recorded conversations with Bonds’ doctor and business lawyer. Hoskins said his recording of Dr. Arthur Ting was made in late 2003 or 2004, in hopes of dissuading Bonds from using steroids.

“I was trying to tell Barry how bad the steroids and drugs actually were,” Hoskins said. “I was trying to convey to him from Dr. Ting and others how bad they were.”

Hoskins denied he was planning to extort Bonds with the Ting recording – after Ruby pointed out that Bonds and Hoskins had parted ways as business partners by the time of the recording and weren’t getting along.

“I would want to help Barry then and would want to help Barry now,” Hoskins said, noting he has since lost the recording of Ting.

Hoskins also said he recorded a spring 2003 conversation he had with Laura Enos, Bonds’ business lawyer, to protect himself. Enos was at the meeting where Hoskins signed a document severing his business ties with Bonds.

In Wednesday morning testimony, Hoskins said he initially served as a kind of valet when Bonds began playing with the San Francisco Giants in 1993, lugging equipment to the ballpark and running personal errands for the slugger.

Under questioning from federal prosecutor Matt Parrella, a jittery Hoskins testified that in 1999 Bonds ordered him to look at the pros and cons of the steroid Winstrol.

“He said ‘find out what this steroid does and what the side effects are and is it good or bad,’” Hoskins said. Bonds told him to consult Ting, Bonds’ personal surgeon who is also scheduled to testify for the government.

The order came after Bonds had elbow surgery early that season, which caused him to miss seven weeks.

Bonds, the all-time major league leader in home runs with 762, is accused of four counts of lying to a federal grand jury and one of obstructing justice for testifying in 2003 that never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs.

In opening statements Tuesday, Bonds’ lead attorney acknowledged that Bonds did indeed take steroids but claimed that Anderson misled him about what the substances were.

Hoskins also testified that he occasionally gave cash payments in the thousands of dollars to two women Bonds was dating during his playing days with the Giants.

Hoskins said he also paid Anderson on behalf of the player. Prosecutors allege that the trainer supplied Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs.

Hoskins was called after the government’s lead sports doping investigator, Jeff Novitzky, finished testifying on the third day of trial.

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Earlier today, Barry Bonds’ former personal trainer Greg Anderson was found in contempt of court for refusing to testify in Bonds perjury trial.

For almost seven years, Anderson has refused to speak about his time training the Giants Hall of Famer. What’s even more shocking is the amount of jail time he’s put himself through to protect Bonds.

Do any of you find it surprising that Anderson has stuck by such a polarizing individual in Barry Bonds for so long? Do you think he’s receiving secret payments in return for his silence? Are you surprised a white man is defending a black man so vehemently?

What’s your take?

Click here to read an article written by Cleavie Wonder on Greg Anderson’s ultimate sign of friendship.

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Along with the swearing in of the jury and opening statements, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is expected to send the jurors out of the courtroom Tuesday so she can send Bonds’ former personal trainer Greg Anderson to jail.

Illston told Anderson on March 1 that she plans to have him kept in custody for the length of the trial if he follows through as expected on his vow of silence. Anderson’s attorney, Mark Geragos, said he will argue that Anderson can’t be jailed on contempt charges because he already served a little more than a year on similar charges after refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Bonds.

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After she dispenses with Anderson, the jury will be seated and instructed on how to consider evidence during the two-to-four week trial. They will also be admonished from discussing the case outside of court.

Bonds, the all-time leader in home runs (762) and homers in a season (73), is facing four counts of lying to a grand jury and one of obstruction for testifying that he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. He was indicted in 2007, weeks after he played his last game.

Bonds’ legal team has asked the judge to specifically order jurors to refrain from discussing the case on Twitter, Facebook, or through instant messaging and other popular communication tools.

Several cases nationwide have been derailed by mistrials or appellate reversals after jurors were discovered discussing ongoing trials on social network sites.

“In a high profile case such as this, we believe that in this era of ready access to the Internet and social networks it is of paramount importance to impress upon jurors in clear, direct and plain English the requirement that they comply with the Court’s prohibitions against independent research and/or disclosure from the very outset,” Bonds attorney Cris Arguedas wrote in making the request to the judge March 2.

The judge hasn’t indicated whether she will deliver that specific instruction.

Dressed in a dark suit and silver tie, the 46-year-old Bonds spent most of Monday speaking quietly with his attorneys and looking at prospective jurors as they underwent questioning.

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SAN FRANCISCO — Major League Baseball’s home-run king Barry Bonds begins his perjury trial today, eight years after testifying to a grand jury that he never knowingly took steroids or human growth hormone.

NBC reports:

The actual trial may not start for a week, but Monday the lawyers in the case will begin jury selection. Bonds is expected to be at the courthouse for the selection process.

On Monday, about 50 perspective jurors are expected to take questions from lawyers from both sides of the case. The jurors have already filled out a questionnaire, which will answer many of the issues the lawyers are interested in.

Bonds, who hit is 762nd home run in 2007, is not alone. Starting July 6, seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens also faces accusations of steroid use, and goes on trial in Washington on charges of perjury, and obstruction of Congress.

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They don’t portray Bonds in a flattering light.

Most of the messages show Bonds angrily inquiring after Kimberly Bell’s whereabouts. Prosecutors say the recordings and transcripts are evidence of Bonds’ steroid use because the drugs supposedly induce rage in some users.

Both sides on Wednesday also agreed on an 18-page questionnaire prospective jurors will be asked to fill out as Bonds’ perjury trial gets underway Monday. The 63 questions will help lawyers and the judge seat an impartial jury. It asks them if they attended San Francisco Giants games in the last five years, if they’ve heard about athletes abusing steroids and whether they “blog” and how often they “use the Internet.”

They also are asked: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Barry Bonds?”

While both sides have agreed to the wording of the questionnaire, they are sharply divided over whether the jury should hear the recordings Bonds left for Bell. Prosecutors want to play 11 of the voicemails for the panel.

Bell also is scheduled to testify that her relationship with Bonds was a stormy one marked by the slugger’s increasing verbal abuse. She also will tell the jury of physical changes she witnessed Bonds go through, such as male pattern baldness that prosecutors attribute to steroid use.

Bonds’ attorneys are seeking to exclude the recordings. They argue the material is irrelevant because there is no mention of peformance-enhancing drug use.

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“However lamentable the fact may be, the use of profane and angry language between paramours is an everyday occurrence,” defense lawyer Dennis Riordan wrote in a filing with the court.

Riordan said he would argue for inclusion of all voicemails Bell recorded and kept. Riordan hinted that if the voicemails were allowed at trial the defense would argue that Bell’s sexual history, rather than steroids, was “the cause of any emotionally fraught language on the recordings.”

Prosecutors last week released transcripts of the 11 voicemails they hope to play for the jury and additional voicemails Wednesday “for the court’s convenience in light of the briefing on this matter.”

Prosecutors don’t provide dates of the messages. Bonds and Bell dated from 1994 to 2003.

A few of the recordings showed a playful and caring Bonds calling Bell his “little spark plug” who brings “a lot of bright stuff to my life.” He leaves several similar messages around a Valentine’s Day.

“Hello? I’m working out right now, but I’m calling you to wish you a happy, happy, happy, happy Valentine’s, ’cause you worth all that and all them wishes. Love to you baby, peace.”

Another shows him complaining about his inability to drop by her apartment because his Porsche broke down and his wife and children need the other car, a Mercedes.

“Just chill and I’ll catch up with you,” he says.

But many others are darker and abusive. He calls her a “slut” in one, and uses more graphic language in others.

“You better reach out and page me once in a while or you’re up to something other than that,” he says in one of the few angry voicemails devoid of profanity. “Girl, I ain’t playing.”

Bonds also, at one point, admonishes Bell: “don’t forget to erase your messages, later.”

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San Francisco — Federal prosecutors have cut the number of felony charges Barry Bonds faces from 11 to five.

In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors filed their third revised indictment against Bonds, who is scheduled to stand trial March 21.

In the new indictment, they reduced from nine to three the number of charges alleging Bonds lied under oath when he testified that he never knowingly took performance enhancing drugs.

Read more at Bay Area News

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Bonds spoke just outside the San Francisco Giants’ clubhouse before Game 1 of the World Series against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday night.

“I love being home. I love being here,” he said.

When asked if he’d like to do more than just cheer on his former team in the future, Bonds said he would be interested in becoming a hitting coach in the future.

“I have a gift and sooner or later I have to give it away,” Bonds said. “I have to share it. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity here.”

Bonds broke McGwire’s single-season home run record with 73 in 2001 and went on to surpass Hank Aaron’s career mark of 755 in his final season in 2007. The seven-time NL MVP hit 762 career home runs.

McGwire, who retired in 2001, returned to the game this season, back in uniform as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. The team announced earlier this week that he would be back for a second season.

Before the start of his first spring training as a coach, McGwire ended years of denials and a self-imposed exile by admitting that he had used steroids and human growth hormone on and off for a decade, starting before the 1990 season and including when he broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998.

Bonds, 46, has also been accused of taking steroids. He is scheduled to go to trial in March on charges that he lied to a federal grand jury in 2003 when he denied knowingly taking steroids.

Bonds, who has never officially announced his retirement, still holds season tickets in San Francisco but has made infrequent visits back to his old ballpark. This was his third trip this season. He came back in April for a reunion of the 2000 NL West champions and last week to throw out the ceremonial first pitch during the NL championship series against Philadelphia.

While there are only a handful of Giants left from his final season in 2007, Bonds said he knows most of the players and has enjoyed watching the team make the postseason for the first time since his departure.

He said it would mean a lot to the city if the Giants could win their first World Series title since moving to San Francisco in 195

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Wouldn’t it be GREAT if A-Rod came out of the closet?

Pause: I’m NOT suggesting that New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez is gay; I’m just hoping that he is. Pause again: and I’m not hoping for personal reasons… well —pause — yes I am.

See, I wasn’t old enough to completely understand the dynamics of the situation, but I was quite alive back in 1974 when Henry Aaron was poised to end Babe Ruth’s then 51 year reign as Major League Baseball’s all-time home run leader (Ruth took the lead back in 1921 with 162 homers; when he retired in 1935, his mark was at 714), the great Hank Aaron actually received death threats from people that didn’t want to see a Black man break what they perceived to be rightfully a white man’s record.

Can you imagine that? Some fools threatening your life because you’re doing your job well? Well, I’m sure Barack Obama can imagine that, but can you?

Anyway, nobody was happy to see Hank break that record except maybe himself and, you know, Black people at large; especially the race-pride types.

So, fast-forward to 2007 and San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds is now about to break Henry Aaron’s home run record (Hank had pushed it up to 755).

Now all of a sudden, everybody’s all nostalgic for Hank! A young picture of him appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated and his baseball card is featured in current commercials! He’s loved!

The reason for this is, of course, the fact that Barry Bonds is widely suspected to be a steroids cheat-though concrete evidence of this has, to date, never been conclusively proven.

Nevertheless, Bonds was quietly blackballed from baseball after the 2007 season, preventing him from extending his record even further.

Now all of a sudden the cry sounds that, don’t worry, it won’t be long until still-clean Alex Rodriguez breaks Barry Bonds all-time mark (which Bonds left at 762) and we get a home run leader that we can be proud of again!

*As of right this second, A-Rod’s career homer number is 574, and at only 33 years old, it’s likely he will break the all-time home run mark.*

Then around February of this year, reports started surfacing that A-Rod himself had tested positive for steroids back in 2003. Uh oh…

Well, with subsequent positive steroid test results from just about everybody of note in baseball over the course of the last 15 years, it’s finally being accepted that this whole era in baseball is pretty much tainted.

That’s why I’m hoping that A-Rod is gay-despite (Madonna, plenty of strippers, Kate Hudson, ex-wife) so much evidence to the contrary. You see, the same type of “moralists” that find time to be outraged by people using steroids to play a child’s game also usually hate homosexuals (at least publicly).

And wouldn’t it be great to listen to them moan and complain about how much they miss the good ol’ days of Barry Bonds?