Book Review: "Game of Shadows"

Chronicle writers expand our view of BALCO's Frankenstein regimen and the athletes who bought in
Reviewed by John Freeman
The San Fransisco Chronicle
Thursday, March 23, 2006

Game of Shadows
Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports
By Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
GOTHAM; 332 PAGES; $26

They say 40 is the new 30, but in the world of professional sports, this became literally so at the turn of the new millennium.

In 2003, at 39, middle-distance runner Regina Jacobs became the first woman to break the four-minute barrier in the indoor 1,500 meters. A year later, Giants slugger Barry Bonds put up the third-best offensive season of his career -- batting .362, with 45 home runs and 101 RBIs, also at age 39.

According to "Game of Shadows," it was the steroids and related drugs given or sold to Bonds, Jacobs and many other star athletes by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, that made all this possible. Its proprietor, Victor Conte, wasn't a doctor or even a nutritionist -- he was a former hippie, Tower of Power musician and alleged drug dealer.

In December 2004, Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada broke the story of how this shady start-up became integral to the performance of high-profile athletes, from American League MVP Jason Giambi to Olympic sprinter Marion Jones to NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski to Bonds.

Now, with "Game of Shadows," they have expanded their coverage into a book. Although most of the discussion about this superb read will surely be focused on Bonds -- who the authors make a damning case was BALCO's poster child for the power of steroids -- it would be a shame if the discussion stops there. For "Game of Shadows" turns the BALCO story into a window on the high-stakes realm of professional sports, where tenths of a second can mean millions in endorsement deals and so-called all-American athletes will do whatever it takes to succeed.

The story begins in the Central Valley, where Conte grew up a musician who nearly made it as a bandleader. When his dreams of music success crashed, he drifted before opening a holistic health clinic in 1983. When that, too, failed, Conte shifted careers and virtually overnight reinvented himself again, this time as a nutritionist to star athletes.

The food chain from snake-oil salesman to Olympian consultant is shockingly quick, and Williams and Fainaru-Wada, who are first-rate gumshoes, do the legwork to connect all the dots. Along the way, they remind us that steroids in sports have been with us a long time, from the doping programs of East Germany through the disgrace of Canada's Ben Johnson at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Steroids, they explain, do not directly make athletes faster or stronger -- they simply allow them to train harder, with fewer injuries, and often with no need for recovery time.

Sophisticated drug testing has been developed to keep the Olympics clean (or somewhat clean, as "Games" would imply), but Conte focused on providing illegal performance enhancing drugs that would elude detection. Initially, steroids were a sideline for Conte, who made the drugs available to star athletes in exchange for their endorsements of his legal nutritional supplement ZMA. But over time, as the authors demonstrate, he was being sought out almost exclusively for his cocktail of undetectable drugs, which had to be injected, dripped under the tongue (the Clear) and rubbed into the skin (the Cream).

Obtaining these ointments and vials involved some complicated schemes, which "Game of Shadows" reports with true-crime flair. There were posts on Internet chat boards, FedEx packages sent with goofy names, trips to Mexico to purchase oral testosterone and steroids disguised as flaxseed oil smuggled into the 2004 Summer Olympics in Australia.

Reading the book, it is surprising just how many athletes signed on for this Frankenstein regimen -- and how, with the help of Conte's myriad drugs, they saw dramatic turnarounds in their careers. Sprinter Kelli White, according to the authors, felt them nearly immediately. "She could work out twice a day if she wanted to and get up the next morning and be ready for more. She gained probably 15 pounds of muscle." Bonds' results were even more startling. "Over the first 13 seasons of his career ... Bonds hit .290 and averaged 32 home runs and 93 RBI. ... But in the six seasons after he began using performance-enhancing drugs -- that is, ... between the ages of 34 and 40 -- Bonds's batting averaged .328, 39, and 105."

The evidence amassed here against Bonds' denials about using banned substances is overwhelming. Besides the obvious evidence of his hulking body and the unexpected spike in his performance, there are statements to federal agents about the drugs sold to him, the grand jury testimony of Kimberly Bell, his former girlfriend, and documents found at the apartment of his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, a former steroid dealer, all connecting Bonds to steroids.

On top of this, Fainaru-Wada and Williams portray the Giants star as a superbly talented athlete who developed into an indulged egomaniac, troubled by the shadow still cast by his father, Bobby Bonds, and eaten up with jealousy over Mark McGwire's success in breaking Roger Maris' home run record in 1998. Before that, Bonds had refrained from cheating, but after seeing a "juiced" McGwire break the record, he was fed up.

Eventually, though, someone would have to halt this one-drug bonanza in sports. After being tipped off by a track coach about possible Olympians cheating, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Terry Madden was spurred into action, especially as he already knew the United States had a "reputation within the international Olympic community as the ultimate hypocrite," thanks to cover-ups of positive drug tests during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

But the real spark plug was IRS agent Jeff Novitsky. An experienced investigator, he went after the BALCO case with dogged determination. He searched through BALCO's trash and obtained a subpoena to fish through their medical waste, where he found empty vials of the blood-boosting agent EPO and traces of human growth hormone. He sought out the best in drug testing and educated himself on how steroids were detected -- and hidden from detection.

In April, Bonds will begin his race to top Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs. It seems probable he will. As to what he will say during his victory speech, or how it will be received, only God knows. But after finishing this important and disturbing book, it's hard not to feel it will be an empty accomplishment.

John Freeman is president of the National Book Critics Circle.

Page E - 1