Baseball’s dirty little secret is starting to be dragged more into the public eye after news broke that Barry Bonds failed a test for amphetamines.
The Daily News is reporting that Bonds failed the amphetamine test last season and then blamed it on a teammate. According to “several unnamed sources,” Bonds said it was from a substance taken from teammate Mark Sweeney’s locker.
“I have no comment on that,” his agent said to the Daily News.
Currently under investigation for lying about steroid use, Bonds has always said he has never tested positive for illegal drug use. But a grand jury is looking into whether the baseball superstar lied about steroid use when he testfied in a 2003 case that he never took performance-enhancing drugs. Then, Bonds’ promised jurors his trainer was giving him arthritic balm and flaxseed oil and he didn’t knowingly take any steroids.
Over the last few years, Baseball has seen a crackdown on illegal drug use and the sport’s new amphetamines policy means that a player will not be publicly identified for testing positive once for amphetamines, but a second failed test will result in a 25-game suspension (steroid usage will cost players 50 games).
According to the Daily News, Bonds did not appeal the first positive test, resulting in six more drug tests over a six-month period.
“Mark was made aware of the fact that his name had been brought up,” Sweeney’s agent Barry Axelrod told the Daily News. “But he did not give Barry Bonds anything, and there was nothing he could have given Barry Bonds.”
With such a high-profile player involved, nobody seems to want to comment until they are forced to. For more on this story, click here.
