Late yesterday, SF Chronicle Journalists Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams were held in contempt and (barring appeal) will face jail time - up to 18 months - for refusing to reveal their sources in the grand jury leaks from the steroids/BALCO case. Anyone that's read Game of Shadows : Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports knows that the authors, in their investigative work, did the job that the government was supposed to (and essentially refused to) do. The whole investigation, initially, seemed more an election year ploy by the Republican party, and when the election was over (and main proponent, Atty General John Ashcroft, stepped down,) the whole thing was nearly swept under the carpet... that is until someone started leaking testimony and evidence to the press. The leak likely came from both sides of the case. On the 'whistleblower' side would be IRS investigator Jeff Novitzky, who aggressively pursued the case only to see it end up in the Feds (bumbling) hands. On the 'blowing my own horn' side is of course the huckster himself: Victor Conte.
Play it: Tower of Power "We Came To Play"
Of all the things I learned reading Game of Shadows, the most amazing thing is that BALCO founder Victor Conte played bass for Tower of Power. He only played on the album We Came to Play before getting ousted along with his brother for trying to take more power of the group, but he was in the band nonetheless. How appropos that the only album he plays on is ToP's 'sports' related album?Anway, that's probably not reason enough to recommend it so I'll just say that what lies between the pages represents a crisis of not only baseball, but of nearly all of sport. While Barry Bonds is truly a monster (of ego and lies) in this book, plenty more are deserve condemnation... he's just the one on top, thus (should) fall the farthest.
Read an excerpt from Game of Shadows (SI.com)
Support the authors, and the first amendment.
tags: books, game of shadows, barry bonds, baseball, steroids, balco, tower of power, first amendment
2 comments:
Hey! I've been a fan of your blog during the last couple of months and it's inspired me to start my own cyber space, treating all kinds of topics and things I enjoy speaking of. I just wanted you to know the importance of your work here. By the way,how can I add those different sections of "Recent Posts" and "Favorite blogs" on mine???
Thanks for the nice blog. It was very useful for me. Keep sharing such ideas in the future as well. This was actually what I was looking for, and I am glad to came here! Thanks for sharing the such information with us.
Post a Comment