Barry Bonds is a poor liar

[BengalszoneBilly]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds denied sworn testimony track star Tim Montgomery gave to a federal grand jury last year saying that the Giants slugger obtained the steroid Winstrol from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO). The San Francisco Chronicle reported Montgomery's testimony in Thursday's editions.

Bonds told MLB.com in the Giants' clubhouse at SBC Park after Wednesday night's 3-2 victory over the Dodgers that Montgomery's testimony was a fabrication.

"It's bull," Bonds said. "I've never met Tim Montgomery in my life. What am I supposed to do about it?"

The Chronicle said that "Montgomery's testimony about Bonds is secondhand, a recounting of what Montgomery said (BALCO founder and president Victor) Conte told him when the track star visited BALCO in Burlingame, Ca. in 2000 or 2001."

Winstrol, also known as Stanozolol, has long been a favorite of bodybuilders and can be taken by pill or injection, the Chronicle said.

Bonds was one of 10 baseball players who also testified in front of the grand jury last year. The grand jury subsequently handed down indictments naming four men for tax evasion and illegal distribution of steroid-based drugs without a prescription, including Conte and Greg Anderson, Bonds' former personal trainer.

None of the baseball players, including the Yankees' Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, have been formally charged with using steroids nor have they publicly admitted doing so. Bonds has said in the past that he used vitamins and legal over-the-counter performance enhancing drugs, but never used steroids.

The Chronicle, which said it obtained Montgomery's grand jury testimony, also reported that Montgomery's claims about Bonds are supported by comments Conte made to Internal Revenue Service investigators when BALCO was raided this past September.

The Chronicle said it reviewed an investigator's memo that quotes Conte as saying he "gave Bonds an undetectable steroid-like drug called 'the clear' and a testosterone cream." The memo also said Bonds used both products regularly, the Chronicle reported.

Montgomery, who may be banned from all future international competition, including the Olympics, told the grand jury that he used human growth hormone and "the clear." Montgomery said he was assured by Conte that "the clear" was legal, but that he knew that using human growth hormone was illegal.

The testimony contradicted Montgomery's recent public statements that he didn't use those drugs, the Chronicle said.

"The clear," which has been identified as THC, has subsequently been banned from over-the-counter sales by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As such, THC has also been put this year on the list of 28 "Schedule III" anabolic androgenic steroids that are banned under the auspices of Major League Baseball's drug treatment and prevention program.

This season, every Major League player is being tested at random once in two parts for the use of these banned steroid-based drugs. First detection of use is met with anonymous treatment, while a repeat positive testing by the same player would lead to fines, suspensions and the public revelation of that player's drug use. So far this year, almost halfway through the first season of punitive testing, no player has been fined, suspended or publicly named.

MLB and the players association have been in negotiations to try and strengthen the current drug program, which ends on Dec. 19, 2006, with the expiration of the four-year Basic Agreement.

The Chronicle quoted Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, as saying he was not aware of Montgomery's testimony about his client.

"That's the first I've ever heard about that. I have reason to have serious doubts about that," Rains said. "I doubt very much that Conte would be talking about anything he's giving to anybody."

It has been previously reported, though, that Conte has been trying to plea-bargain with the U.S. Justice Dept. and has even sent a letter to President Bush, seeking his intervention in creating a plea-bargaining arrangement in return for testimony about the athletes he treated.

BALCO was a blood-testing lab that analyzed the blood of professional athletes to give them advice on how to enhance performances. Conte is a former San Francisco Bay Area rock musician, who played guitar in local bands such as Oakland's Tower of Power.