Federal prosecutors working on the case of beleagured home run star Barry Bonds are said to be cooking up a plan: to have baseball brothers Jason and Jeremy Giambi go up the witness stand and nail the coffin shut on the doping charges laid out before Bonds. A recent article from the New York Times reported that the prosecutors are keen at having the Giambi brothers testify that Bond’s former trainer, Greg Anderson, created a doping schedule or calendar for the brothers, which was almost the same as the one he made for Barry Bonds.

However when Bonds testified and he was presented with the alleged doping calendar with his initials on them, the baseball player vehemently denied that he took performance enhancing drugs or that he had a doping schedule mapped out for him.

It was this 2007 testimony that drove prosecutors to indict Bonds in November for having committed perjury. During the indictment proceedings, the government was firm in saying that Bonds lied under oath when he said that never received performance enhancing drugs from Anderson since late 2001, when the evidence, in fact showed a doping calendar made out to Bonds for that same period. Jason Giambi, on the other hand, similarly testified before a grand jury in 2003, and was questioned and cross examined about the other doping calendars said to have been seized from Greg Anderson’s home.

These calendars were not made for Bonds, but for Giambi. The major difference in the proceedings is that Giambi admitted to receiving a steroid regimen from Anderson, and further said that he had full knowledge that he was taking peroformance enhacing steroids as part of the regimen. His elder brother Jeremy Giambi was also called to the witness stand that same day, and gave the same admission. The testimony of the Giambi brothers were disclosed by The San Francisco Chronicle in December 2004 after documents of the grand jury proceedings were leaked to the Press. By February 2005 an apologetic Jason held a news conference at the Yankee Stadium but never mentioned the word “steroids” when he addressed his fans and the baseball-following public. His reluctance to be associated with steroids seemed to be short-lived though.

In May 2007, a USA TODAY interview quoted Giambi as admitting that he had indeed used performance-enhancing drugs. Because of this, Commissioner Bud Selig compelled Jason Giambi to meet with George J. Mitchell, who at that time, was leading the investigation about the use of performance-enhancing drugs by baseball players. But despite his major league status, Giambi only spoke about his own drug use to Mitchell and did not name names or implicate other coaches.

Giambi played seven years for the Yankees and returned to Oakland during the off-season. Big brother Jeremy on the other hand, is out of the baseball picture. Besides the Giambi brothers, ESPN had reported another baseball player may be summoned to take the stand in March: Bobby Estalella, Bond’s former Giant’s teammate has also been subpoenaed for a court appearance. For sure, the steroids battle outside the baseball diamond is one match fans are eager to see the conclusion of.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS