America At Large/George Kimball: How convenient it would be for law enforcement operatives and investigative journalists alike if all criminals were as obliging as the gang of bumbling idiots who conspired to supply Barry Bonds in his pharmacologically-inspired assault on the baseball record book.

"Once you have them by the balls, their
hearts and minds will surely follow."

- Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th president of the United States.

The cover story of the Sports Illustrated which hit the stands yesterday is an excerpt from Game of Shadows, a new book by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, a pair of San Francisco Chronicle reporters who have spent two years exhaustively researching the Balco scandal in general and the steroid-driven home run rampage that accompanied Bonds' own mid-life crisis.

Now, at first blush you'd have to say a "Barry Bonds Used Steroids!" story is as tiresome as the latest Pentagon announcement of the demise of yet another al-Qaeda second-in-command.

The difference would seem to be that in all of the previous accusations against Bonds, the evidence was largely circumstantial, and in the absence of a smoking gun the San Francisco Giants' slugger was able to sit back smugly and deny all, bolstering his position with the claim that the perpetrators were on a racially motivated "witch hunt".

This time it looks like they've got the goods on Barry. While the book won't be published for another three weeks, the excerpts available in SI constitute a persuasive case. And while Williams and Fainaru-Wada present a mountain of evidence that won't leave Bonds anywhere to hide, the most remarkable aspect of their work, it seems to us, is how readily available most of the material was for anyone who cared to look.

Although they interviewed over 200 sources in researching their book, the most damning evidence came in the form of public record: grand jury testimony and internal memos between Balco founder Victor Conte, vice-president James Valente, and Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson. The California drug lab also maintained fairly meticulous purchasing records and didn't bother to code them, thus preserving evidence of what Sports Illustrated describes as "a massive doping regimen that grew more sophisticated as the years went on".

The book's authors present evidence that by 2001 - the year in which Bonds hit his major league record 73 home runs - Barry was using not only the designer steroids ("The Cream" and "The Clear") he has already acknowledged using, albeit "inadvertently", but also insulin, human growth hormone, testosterone decanoate (a fast-acting steroid derivative known in the body-building world as "Mexican Beans"), and trenbolone, a steroid agent originally developed "to improve the muscle quality of cattle".

The authors also detail that at various times over the past eight years Bonds also used stanazolol (Ben Johnson's drug of choice), another steroid called deca-durabolin, a female infertility drug called clomid (which is supposed to help steroid abusers regain some testicular function), and a stimulant called modafinil, developed to help sufferers of narcolepsy.

It's going to be pretty difficult for Barry to maintain that he thought all of this stuff it was flaxseed oil, and the wonder is that he was able to swing a bat at all. According to the authors, when he wasn't injecting himself, or allowing himself to be injected by Anderson, Bonds was taking up to 20 pills a day.

After missing most of last season (baseball's first under a tough new drug-testing policy) with conveniently-timed "injuries", Bonds had attempted to re-invent himself this year, joking his way through spring training and even, a few weeks ago, humorously modelling a slinky black evening dress. (The prospect of Barry packing up that piece of his wardrobe and taking it along to jail is almost too delicious to contemplate.)

Asked about the book on Tuesday, Bonds shrugged and said dismissively, "I won't even look at it. What for? There's no need to."

The other remarkable aspect of this week's revelations would seem to be the discovery of what a chummy lot these drug cheats appear to be. Besides the Balco records and testimony already part of the public record, much of the most damning testimony cited in Game of Shadows comes from the likes of banned track and field athletes like sprinter Tim Montgomery and shotputter CJ Hunter, both of whom somewhat enthusiastically implicated Bonds.

Balco, apparently, had few rules about confidentiality when it came to discussing its clients with one another. In fact, the suggestion is that the likes of Conte and Anderson were as apt as not to attract new clients by pointing to the success they'd had with older ones.

It brought to mind that scene in Ring of Fire, when a fellow musician first persuades Johnny Cash to try amphetamines. As Cash stands there wavering over the moral implications, the fellow cements his argument when he points across the room and says "Elvis uses them!" The camera quickly cuts to Elvis Presley, throwing down greenies like so much popcorn, at which point a smile spreads across Johnny's face and he reaches out to grab a fistful of pills for himself.

One can't help but wonder, then: if Montgomery and Hunter knew this much about Bonds' drug use, how much did Bonds know about theirs? And did the IAAF squeeze Barry for information when it banned the athletes? It's an interesting question, because while the rest of us may not fully understand this subculture, we do know this much: if it meant saving their skins, most of these guys would give up their mothers. Wouldn't it be naïve to suppose that Barry Bonds is an exception?