Bonds' name turned up in the BALCO records, along with several other athletes (some of whom were punished by their sports).

His ex-girlfriend tattled on him in "Game of Shadows," a well-documented and researched book that leaves the reader convinced of Bonds' guilt (the slugger has never refuted any of the book's facts).

The book prompted baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to launch an investigation into steroid use, headed by former Sen. George Mitchell, but after nearly a year nothing much has happened.

Bonds recently refused to cooperate with the glacially slow investigation, which sounds a lot like Mark McGwire stalling in front of Congress, without the public outcry.

Bonds himself is being investigated by a federal grand jury for possible perjury for testifying in 2003 that he had never intentionally taken steroids.

Bonds has never flunked a steroid test, but neither did Tim Montgomery and Chryste Gaines, who were both banned from track and field based on evidence from the BALCO scandal.

Some defend Bonds by claiming that baseball did not prohibit steroids prior to 2002. But in 1991, Fay Vincent, who was the baseball commissioner at the time, sent a league memo stating that any player caught using illegal drugs, including steroids, could be punished. This occurred shortly after the federal government classified steroids as a controlled substance, making it illegal to sell, distribute or use them without a prescription.

Somehow, that hasn't been enough to stop Bonds. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that something stinks about the slugger. (Maybe it takes a guy with a big head.)

---

E-mail: drob@desnews.com