Baseball: Bonds Named in American Drug Inquiry

The sport of baseball was pitched into its biggest scandal of the modern era yesterday when it was reported that Barry Bonds, currently the best player in the world, had received performance-enhancing drugs from Balco, the San Francisco-based laboratory alleged to have supplied the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) to the British sprinter Dwain Chambers.

After months of speculation about the involvement of prominent baseball figures in the burgeoning Balco scandal the San Francisco Chronicle published the names of six players alleged to have been supplied with drugs from the laboratory, including Bonds, who holds some of the most prestigious batting records.

Bonds' personal trainer and childhood friend Greg Anderson is reported to have supplied him with THG, a testosterone-based drug and human growth hormone, which cannot be distributed without a prescription. Anderson is one of four men, including Balco's founder Victor Conte, who have already been charged by the American authorities with conspiracy to supply steroids to athletes.

Bonds' association with steroids will draw comparison with other great baseball scandals down the ages, such as that surrounding the Black Sox in 1919, when a gambling ring fixed the result of World Series with the help of players.

The San Francisco slugger stands fourth in the all-time list of home-run hitters, with 658, behind Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron - three of the game's legendary names. He was expected to surpass all three one day. He also holds baseball's singularly most prestigious record - the highest number of home runs in a single season - with 73, which he set in 2001. According to the Chronicle, Anderson first started supplying Bonds with steroids and human growth hormone that same year.

Last night Bonds' lawyer questioned the credibility of the newspaper reports, insisting: "We continue to adamantly deny that Barry was provided, furnished or supplied any of those substances at any time by Greg Anderson."

As a sport baseball reveres statistics like no other and the suggestion that its home-run king had been supplied with steroids at the very time he was setting his records is likely to damage the game's standing with the American sporting public for years to come.

Likewise the implications for Bonds personally cannot be over-estimated. The game's historians are unlikely to look at his achievements as reverentially as they might have done.

Two of the others cited in the reports as having obtained drugs from Anderson, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, play for the New York Yankees. According to the reports, the authorities have not yet established if the players ever used the steroids supplied to them.

Last night lawyers for all three insisted their clients were innocent.