Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
Mar 2006 · Sold by Penguin
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In the summer of 1998, two of baseball’s leading sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, captivated the nation in a race to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record. Sosa hit 66 home runs, while McGwire finished with 70. Three years later, San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds surpassed McGwire by hitting 73, in what was perhaps the greatest offensive display in baseball history. Over the next several seasons, as Bonds regularly launched mammoth home runs into San Francisco Bay, players across the country were hitting homers at unprecedented rates. Rumors had long circulated that some of these performances were fueled by steroids. But home runs were big business, and sportswriters, fans, and baseball officials largely looked the other way.
That changed in December 2004, when San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams revealed that, during a federal investigation into the nutritional supplement company BALCO, Yankees slugger Jason Giambi had admitted using steroids. Bonds was also implicated. Steroids immediately became front-page news. The revelations led to Congressional hearings on baseball’s drug problem andintensified efforts to purge the U.S. Olympic movement of drug cheats.
In Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroid Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports, award-winning investigative journalists Fainaru-Wada and Williams deliver a gripping narrative of the biggest doping scandal in sports history and how Bonds, baseball’s home run king, came to use steroids. Drawing on more than two years of reporting, hundreds of interviews, and exclusive access to grand jury testimony, confidential documents, and audio recordings, the authors provide a definitive account of the scandal that shook professional sports.
The book traces the rise of Victor Conte, founder of BALCO, a flamboyant former musician and self-proclaimed nutritionist who supplied elite athletes with “designer” steroids intended to evade modern drug tests. Conte provided these drugs to 28 top athletes, including Olympians, NFL players, and baseball stars, with Bonds chief among them.
A parallel narrative follows Bonds, an immensely talented but deeply competitive player who, after McGwire’s record-breaking 1998 season, turned to performance-enhancing drugs. Through his trainer, Greg Anderson, Bonds gained access to BALCO. Although many athletes benefited, the federal raid on BALCO and Conte’s indictment ultimately exposed a scandal that transformed baseball and the wider sports world.
That changed in December 2004, when San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams revealed that, during a federal investigation into the nutritional supplement company BALCO, Yankees slugger Jason Giambi had admitted using steroids. Bonds was also implicated. Steroids immediately became front-page news. The revelations led to Congressional hearings on baseball’s drug problem andintensified efforts to purge the U.S. Olympic movement of drug cheats.
In Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroid Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports, award-winning investigative journalists Fainaru-Wada and Williams deliver a gripping narrative of the biggest doping scandal in sports history and how Bonds, baseball’s home run king, came to use steroids. Drawing on more than two years of reporting, hundreds of interviews, and exclusive access to grand jury testimony, confidential documents, and audio recordings, the authors provide a definitive account of the scandal that shook professional sports.
The book traces the rise of Victor Conte, founder of BALCO, a flamboyant former musician and self-proclaimed nutritionist who supplied elite athletes with “designer” steroids intended to evade modern drug tests. Conte provided these drugs to 28 top athletes, including Olympians, NFL players, and baseball stars, with Bonds chief among them.
A parallel narrative follows Bonds, an immensely talented but deeply competitive player who, after McGwire’s record-breaking 1998 season, turned to performance-enhancing drugs. Through his trainer, Greg Anderson, Bonds gained access to BALCO. Although many athletes benefited, the federal raid on BALCO and Conte’s indictment ultimately exposed a scandal that transformed baseball and the wider sports world.
In the summer of 1998, two of baseball’s leading sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, captivated the nation in a race to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record. Sosa hit 66 home runs, while McGwire finished with 70. Three years later, San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds surpassed McG...
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About the author
Mark Fainaru-Wada is an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. After fifteen months of covering steroid use in sports, in December 2004 they reported in the Chronicle on the secret grand jury testimony of pro baseball players Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, making headlines around the world. Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams won the Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award, the George Polk Award, and the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Edgar A. Poe Award for their reporting.
Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada are reporters on the investigative team at the San Francisco Chronicle. Together, they broke a series of exclusive stories on the BALCO scandal and earned a string of national honors, including the George Polk Award, The Edgar A. Poe Award of the White House Correspondents’ Association, The Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award and The Associated Press Sports Editors award for investigative reporting.
Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada are reporters on the investigative team at the San Francisco Chronicle. Together, they broke a series of exclusive stories on the BALCO scandal and earned a string of national honors, including the George Polk Award, The Edgar A. Poe Award of the White House Correspondents’ Association, The Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award and The Associated Press Sports Editors award for investigative reporting.
Williams has written on subjects including the California cocaine trade, Oakland’s Black Panther Party and the career of San Francisco mayor and political power-broker Willie Brown. His journalism also has been honored with: the Gerald Loeb Award for financial writing; the California Associated Press’ Fairbanks Award for public service; and, on three occasions, the Center for California Studies' California Journalism Award for political reporting. He was the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California Journalist of the Year in 1999.
Born in Ohio, he graduated from Brown University and the University of California-Berkeley and attended University College, London, U.K. Before joining the Chronicle, he worked as a reporter at the Hayward Daily Review, the Oakland Tribune, and the San Francisco Examiner. He was a University of Michigan Journalism Fellow in 1986-87.
Mark Fainaru-Wada is an investigative reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. After fifteen months of covering steroid use in sports, in December 2004 they reported in the Chronicle on the secret grand jury testimony of pro baseball players Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, making headlines around ...
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