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LeBron James Doesn't Deserve All Of This Abuse

2011-06-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the press conference of Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra Sunday night after the team’s humiliating loss to the Dallas Mavericks in the National Basketball Association finals.

I knew of the media’s perverse obsession not only with the dismal play of LeBron James but also with James himself. I still thought the first question at least would have something to do with the Mavericks and how well they had played.

The first question was about James. The second question was about James. The third question was about James, all of them in the same vein of what went wrong with him and why had he been so lousy in the Heat’s six-game losing effort. The Mavericks? The who?

It was like that all through the finals for James, constant and withering criticism of his play, constant dissection of every comment and every body movement. Anthony Weiner’s sexting? James made him do it. The crumbling economy? Bankers were only taking James’ advice. Rick Santorum running for president? It came to him in a dream where James said, “You’re the chosen one, Rick. Not me.”

Starvation. Drought. War.

James. James. James.

He truly is the most hated athlete in all of sports.

Which is absurd.

In the 24-hour news cycle that brings out the starving rats feasting on instant analysis, everything James did was a portent of his being an arrogant assoholic.

Did you see that smile? What about the way he bent down to tie his shoelace? And how about guzzling from the water bottle during a timeout as if he was the only one who was thirsty? What a selfish bastard.

The rats ate up every crumb, regardless of the significance. The goal was to maliciously condemn him, and to that extent the media rats got their wish:

He is Public Enemy No. 1 of the tear-down culture in which human foible, unintentional mistakes, and boneheaded stupidity are not allowed. There used to be a period of grace. But not anymore. One gutter ball and you’re out.

It is absolutely accurate to say he was awful in the finals (conveniently ignoring his stellar play in the previous two rounds against the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls). But the vitriol, the spewing hatred spit out with such gleeful self-satisfaction by commentator after commentator, has sunk to a new level of nuclear negativity.

Why is he hated more than Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was accused of sexual assault and is considered a stone-cold jerk by most players in the National Football League? Why is he hated more than recently resigned Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, who under the cloak of being a good Christian did nothing about his players breaking rules as long as his team won? Why is he hated more than Chris Webber, who pleaded guilty to criminal contempt amid a payoff scandal at the University of Michigan and whose conduct was instrumental in the Wolverines forfeiting 112 basketball games in the 1990s? (Ironically Webber, doing commentary for NBA TV, joyfully nailed James during the finals.)

Yes, we all know that James left Cleveland without grace or class. Yes, we know that the Heat, in some ridiculous version of a Las Vegas floor show, had the big three of James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh greeting Miami fans in a raucous pep rally as if they had already won the championship before the season had even started.

Yes, millions of fans, including myself, were upset by the arrogance and self-centeredness with which James handled it all. On the other hand, James wanted to go to the place where he thought he had the best chance of winning. Where should he have gone? The Golden State Warriors? Why stay in Cleveland?

In baseball, players do that all the time in free agency, and no one makes a peep about disloyalty. Has there been any sustained criticism of Albert Pujols for not signing with the St. Louis Cardinals, where he has played his entire career? Should pitcher C.C. Sabathia have stayed with the Cleveland Indians because it would have been a really nice thing to do for the city? James went for less money than he could have gotten elsewhere. Baseball free agents are almost always looking for millions more.

The book I co-wrote with James, Shooting Stars, did not do particularly well. Maybe the fault was in the execution. Maybe the theme, about James and the four friends he befriended who all played together at St. Vincent-St. Mary high school in Akron, just wasn’t sexy enough. But I also believe that readers were hoping James would come off as a spoiled idiot in high school when, as far as I could tell by spending hundreds of hours with both him and his closest friends, that was not the case.

He did some stupid things at St. Vincent-St. Mary. He showed up to school in a decked-out Hummer that he obviously was not able to afford, as he and his mother barely had any income. (Gloria James bought it from a dealer on the correct assumption that her son would soon be coming into a lot of money.) He was offered some throwback jerseys worth a couple hundred bucks—a violation of Ohio high school athletic rules on amateurism—and then promptly gave them back.

He wasn’t the one who called himself “The Chosen One.” The moniker was bestowed on him by Sports Illustrated when the magazine did a cover story on him as a junior in high school. (The first thing he should do in the off-season is get rid of the damn tattoo on his back.) He wasn’t the one who forced ESPN to show several of his games live on national television his senior year. He wasn’t the one who created a constant media circus.

He was the one who, after he signed a mega-million deal with Nike while still in high school, turned to teammate Willie McGee and said he would pay the tuition for McGee to go to Howard University.

But the image was cast. Fans were lying in wait for James to come into the NBA with the patina of being the greatest ever when he had not played a single game. Instead James pleasantly surprised everybody with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was approachable and humble while proud as any successful person in life must be. He never got into trouble—until the disaster of his free agency, when fans were able to say, “See! See! I knew he was an a--hole all along!”

Maybe he has gone hog wild in South Beach. He is a 26-year-old superstar athlete with testosterone who has sufficient money to party. But I think that the fundamentally decent essence of LeBron James is still there. Is he more guarded? Who wouldn’t be, given the avalanche of negative publicity he has gotten this season? Did it affect his play during the finals? Of course. Shutting out the constant noise of hatred is impossible.

But the most hated athlete in sports?

In the tear-down culture in which we engorge ourselves like ticks bloated on blood, I guess he truly is the King.

Buzz Bissinger, a sports columnist for The Daily Beast

2011-05-25T21:18:00.001-07:00

Meet The Blackjack Player Who Took Atlantic City For $15 Million

Over the past six-months, wearing sweatshirts, free baseball caps and jeans, Wyoming executive Don Johnson, has taken Atlantic City blackjack tables for $15.1 million dollars.

The Press of Atlantic City reports that Johnson won about $5 million from the Borgata, $4 million from Caesars in December, and $5.8 million in a 12-hour run at the Tropicana in April.

Johnson denies counting cards or having any type of system.

"I'll take luck over any other skill," Johnson said. "There's no magic to this. Eventually, someone would whack them. I'm just glad it was me."

Johnson is the CEO of Heritage Development LLC, a Wyoming-based company that uses computer-assisted wagering programs for horseracing and his wins may re-shape a bit of how Atlantic City does business.

Tropicana chief Mark Giannantonio has been fired following April's big loss that put the casino in the red. Giannontino authorized Johnson's $100,000 a hand blackjack games.

"That's the highest I've ever heard of," [Johnson] said.

Another option that was offered Johnson and then taken away was the 20 percent discount on his losses. An incentive to get him to play, and allow the casinos to win back some money, Johnson would get back 20 percent of what he lost. So, if he lost $1 million, he'd get back $200,000.

"The best thing is, they offer you discounts on your losses," he said.

Johnson has been banned from gambling in many Las Vegas casinos and expects Atlantic City to follow suit.

"I don't think they will let me play anymore," he said of the Atlantic City casinos. "But it's not going to change my life. If I don't play blackjack, I'll just go to the horse races."

Justice to NCAA: Why no college football playoff?

2011-05-05T01:20:00.000-07:00

DOJ says there are "serious" questions about whether current format to determine champion complies with antitrust laws

(AP) WASHINGTON - The Justice Department wants to know why the NCAA doesn't have a college football playoff system and says there are "serious questions" about whether the current format to determine a national champion complies with antitrust laws.
Critics who have urged the department to investigate the Bowl Championship Series contend it unfairly gives some schools preferential access to the title championship game and top-tier end-of-the-season bowl contents.

In a letter this week, the department's antitrust chief, Christine Varney, asked NCAA President Mark Emmert why a playoff system isn't used in football, unlike in other sports; what steps the NCAA has taken to create one; and whether Emmert thinks there are aspects of the BCS system that don't serve the interest of fans, schools and players.

"Your views would be relevant in helping us to determine the best course of action with regard to the BCS," she wrote.
"Serious questions continue to arise suggesting the current Bowl Championship Series system may not be conducted consistent with the competition principles expressed in the federal antitrust laws," Varney said.

Varney noted that the attorney general of Utah, Mark Shurtleff, has said he plans an antitrust lawsuit against the BCS, and that 21 professors recently wrote the department requesting an investigation.

Shurtleff, who met with department officials last fall to discuss a possible federal probe, said at the time that such an investigation was critical to the effort to get a playoff system.

The NCAA said Wednesday it would respond to the government's questions when it receives the letter.

Spokesman Bob Williams said Emmert consistently has said the NCAA is willing to move to a playoff format if schools with the nation's major football programs want to go that route.

Bill Hancock, the BCS executive director, was confident the current system complies with the law.
"Goodness gracious, with all that's going on in the world right now and with national and state budgets being what they are, it seems like a waste of taxpayers' money to have the government looking into how college football games are played," he said.

Under the BCS, the champions of six conferences have automatic bids to play in top-tier bowl games; other conferences don't. Those six conferences also receive more money than the other conferences.

Attorney General Eric Holder referenced Varney's letter at a Senate hearing Wednesday, in response to a statement from Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and BCS critic. Hatch called the BCS a "mess" and said that "privileged conferences" have tremendous advantages over the unprivileged.
"And I just hope that you'll continue to follow up on that particular issue," he said. "It's an important one, I think."

"I don't disagree with you," Holder responded. "You and I have talked about this issue, and I think I'm free to say that we have sent a letter to the NCAA about this issue and will be following up."

Before he was sworn in as president, Barack Obama said in 2008 that he was going to "to throw my weight around a little bit" to nudge college football toward a playoff system.

NFL gets expedited hearing for appeal

2011-05-04T02:40:00.000-07:00

Lester Munson on the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals granting the NFL's request for an expedited hearing

MINNEAPOLIS -- A federal appeals court agreed Tuesday to fast track the NFL's request to put its labor lockout in place until a new deal is finally worked out.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis set a June 3 hearing, with 30 minutes of oral argument for each side, before Judges Duane Benton, Kermit Bye and Steven Colloton.

8th Circuit Ruling On Expedited Hearing
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Tuesday granted the NFL's request for an expedited hearing of their appeal of the lockout injunction. Read it here. Report (PDF)

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson issued her injunction stopping the lockout on April 25 and denied the NFL's appeal two days later. The league appealed to the 8th Circuit, and the same three-judge panel issued a temporary stay of Nelson's order on Friday.

The lockout was put back in place by the owners a few hours later. The 8th Circuit is still deciding whether to make the stay more permanent, until the appeals process can play out.

Under the appeals schedule set up Tuesday, the league's opening brief is due May 9 and the players must file their response brief by May 20. The NFL's reply to the response is due May 26.

The league's arguments on June 3 will be led by David Boies, while Theodore Olsen will represent the players. The attorneys are two of America's most famous lawyers, having argued against each other in the 2000 case of George W. Bush vs. Al Gore. The duo also worked together in fighting California's ban on same-sex marriage.

The appeals court's approval of an expedited hearing gave the NFL at least some relief from the stern rebuke Nelson delivered.

In denying the NFL's request for a stay, Nelson wrote last week that the league "offered little, if any, evidence to directly rebut" evidence from the players they're being irreparably damaged by the lockout, the key requirement for a decision to lift it.

Nelson also wrote that, without a motion for an expedited appeal, the NFL's argument assuming the 8th Circuit will rule before the 2011 season begins "seems unlikely."

Now the league has just that, theoretically allowing more time this summer after the appeals process is completed for talks to resume on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Court-ordered mediation between the two sides is set to resume before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan on May 16, after four days of talks last month and 16 days of federally mediated negotiations earlier this year. Little progress has been reported.

The old CBA expired on March 11, when the players broke up their union to file a federal antitrust lawsuit and the league enacted the lockout that lasted 45 days until Nelson's order.

The lawsuit against the NFL is still pending before Nelson, but the legality of the lockout has essentially become the fight for now, with both sides arguing over whether Nelson has jurisdiction in the case and over the notion of irreparable harm. That claim has been prominent in nearly every court filing of the last two bizarre, bitter months as the NFL has stumbled through its first work stoppage since the 1987 strike.

Commissioner Roger Goodell, speaking Monday on a conference call with Atlanta Falcons season ticket holders, said the NFL "doesn't need this uncertainty and clearly the fans don't need this uncertainty."

"Hopefully, we can get to the core of the issues, sit down and resolve them," Goodell said.

He added: "We shouldn't be where we are right now. We should address these issues far enough in advance and gotten an agreement that makes sense that can address the issues that I think both sides want to get done."

The first preseason game is scheduled for Aug. 8. Goodell said the NFL does not have a "drop-dead date" for reaching an agreement to avoid missing games.

"Whether they're training camps, minicamps, signing of players, all of that needs to get done sooner rather than later," he said.

A day after Goodell spoke to ticket holders, New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees led about 40 players through a workout at Tulane in an effort to stay sharp while the lockout prevents the Saints from training on team property or contacting coaches.

Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NBA Players unhappy with owners' new offer

2011-05-04T02:36:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK -- NBA players are not happy with the latest formal collective bargaining proposal from the league's owners, saying the new offer of a 10-year deal is only marginally different from the original one the owners made.

"Unfortunately, the proposal is very similar to the proposal the league submitted over a year ago," union president Derek Fisher told ESPN.com. "This last proposal doesn't look close to what we were expecting."

NBA spokesman Tim Frank said the league delivered its offer to the union last week.

It is the second formal offer made by the owners, who are seeking significant rollbacks in existing contracts, a hard salary cap and a larger share of basketball related income -- 57 percent of which is guaranteed to the players under terms of the existing labor agreement, which expires June 30.

Union director Billy Hunter has previously said the players are willing to give up their 57 percent guarantee, but he wants to keep most other elements of the existing deal.
But the owners have taken a hard-line stance in arguing that a new economic operating system is needed to give all 30 NBA teams an equal chance to be profitable and to contend for a championship.

In their initial proposal, the owners sought a reduction of nearly $800 million in salaries for the 2011-12 season.
Players were paid a total of approximately $2.1 billion this season, and Stern said last month that the league is projecting a $300 million loss for the current season.
The union has disputed that number, saying a majority of those costs are attributable to depreciation, along with interest payments on loans used to finance the purchase of teams.

The owners' new proposal still seeks a similar financial cutback, though it would be phased in over the first two seasons.

"We are taking a close look at each piece of the proposal, and I along with my players and executive committee will be determining what next steps best move this process forward," Fisher said. "I continue to work on this daily, take this very seriously, and have a responsibility to my players to try and get a deal done."

Hunter, who has said publicly in recent months that there is a 99 percent chance of the lockout if the owners insist on sticking to the terms of their original proposal, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The NBA has not had a work stoppage since 1998, when the league lost games because of a labor dispute for the first time in its history. But the owners emerged from that fight with two significant cost control mechanisms
the luxury tax paid by the highest spending teams, and the escrow tax withheld from players paychecks to ensure that the owners do not pay out more than 57 percent of designated revenues
in lieu of getting a "hard" salary cap to replace the existing "soft" cap system in which teams can exceed the salary cap through several means, including the Larry Bird exception (which allows teams to exceed the cap to retain their own free agents) and the mid-level exception (which allows over-the-cap teams to acquire an additional free agent at a price equal to the league's median salary).

The union made its only formal proposal to the owners last summer, and the sides have engaged in numerous informal meetings since then. Currently, both sides are keeping a close eye on developments in the NFL labor stalemate, where the players union has decertified and successfully sued in federal court to have the lockout lifted, although an appeals court has issued a temporary stay that has effectively re-imposed the lockout until the matter is further reviewed.

"With the recent news that Round 1 ratings are at an all time high, the popularity of the game globally has never been higher, we have to work to keep this going in the right direction," Fisher said. "I will continue to urge our players to be prepared in the event of a lockout, but will remain steadfast in my efforts to drive this process forward."

Chris Broussard covers the NBA for ESPN The Magazine. Chris Sheridan is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com.

2011-04-26T11:29:00.001-07:00

Football's Future If the Players Win
There would be no draft. Incoming players would sell their services to the richest teams

By ROGER GOODELL
Late Monday afternoon, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Richard Nelson issued a ruling that may significantly alter professional football as we know it.

For six weeks, there has been a work stoppage in the National Football League as the league has sought to negotiate a new collective-bargaining agreement with the players. But Judge Nelson ordered the end of the stoppage and recognized the players' right to dissolve their union. By blessing this negotiating tactic, the decision may endanger one of the most popular and successful sports leagues in history.

What would the NFL look like without a collectively bargained compromise? For many years, the collectively bargained system—which has given the players union enhanced free agency and capped the amount that owners spend on salaries—has worked enormously well for the NFL, for NFL players, and for NFL fans.

For players, the system allowed player compensation to skyrocket—pay and benefits doubled in the last 10 years alone. The system also offered players comparable economic opportunities throughout the league, from Green Bay and New Orleans to San Francisco and New York. In addition, it fostered conditions that allowed the NFL to expand by four teams, extending careers and creating jobs for hundreds of additional players.

For clubs and fans, the trade-off afforded each team a genuine opportunity to compete for the Super Bowl, greater cost certainty, and incentives to invest in the game. Those incentives translated into two dozen new and renovated stadiums and technological innovations such as the NFL Network and nfl.com.

Under the union lawyers' plan, reflected in the complaint that they filed in federal court, the NFL would be forced to operate in a dramatically different way. To be sure, their approach would benefit some star players and their agents (and, of course, the lawyers themselves). But virtually everyone else—including the vast majority of players as well as the fans—would suffer.

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Small-market teams like the Buffalo Bills would suffer.
.Rather than address the challenge of improving the collective-bargaining agreement for the benefit of the game, the union-financed lawsuit attacks virtually every aspect of the current system including the draft, the salary cap and free-agency rules, which collectively have been responsible for the quality and popularity of the game for nearly two decades. A union victory threatens to overturn the carefully constructed system of competitive balance that makes NFL games and championship races so unpredictable and exciting.

In the union lawyers' world, every player would enter the league as an unrestricted free agent, an independent contractor free to sell his services to any team. Every player would again become an unrestricted free agent each time his contract expired. And each team would be free to spend as much or as little as it wanted on player payroll or on an individual player's compensation.

Any league-wide rule relating to terms of player employment would be subject to antitrust challenge in courts throughout the country. Any player could sue—on his own behalf or representing a class—to challenge any league rule that he believes unreasonably restricts the "market" for his services.

Under this vision, players and fans would have none of the protections or benefits that only a union (through a collective-bargaining agreement) can deliver. What are the potential ramifications for players, teams, and fans? Here are some examples:

• No draft. "Why should there even be a draft?" said player agent Brian Ayrault. "Players should be able to choose who they work for. Markets should determine the value of all contracts. Competitive balance is a fallacy."

• No minimum team payroll. Some teams could have $200 million payrolls while others spend $50 million or less.

• No minimum player salary. Many players could earn substantially less than today's minimums.

• No standard guarantee to compensate players who suffer season- or career-ending injuries. Players would instead negotiate whatever compensation they could.

• No league-wide agreements on benefits. The generous benefit programs now available to players throughout the league would become a matter of individual club choice and individual player negotiation.

• No limits on free agency. Players and agents would team up to direct top players to a handful of elite teams. Other teams, perpetually out of the running for the playoffs, would serve essentially as farm teams for the elites.

• No league-wide rule limiting the length of training camp or required off-season workout obligations. Each club would have its own policies.

• No league-wide testing program for drugs of abuse or performance enhancing substances. Each club could have its own program—or not.

Any league-wide agreement on these subjects would be the subject of antitrust challenge by any player who asserted that he had been "injured" by the policy or whose lawyer perceived an opportunity to bring attention to his client or himself. Some such agreements might survive antitrust scrutiny, but the prospect of litigation would inhibit league-wide agreements with respect to most, if not all, of these subjects.

In an environment where they are essentially independent contractors, many players would likely lose significant benefits and other protections previously provided on a collective basis as part of the union-negotiated collective-bargaining agreement. And the prospect of improved benefits for retired players would be nil.

Is this the NFL that players want? A league where elite players attract enormous compensation and benefits while other players—those lacking the glamour and bargaining power of the stars—play for less money, fewer benefits and shorter careers than they have today? A league where the competitive ability of teams in smaller communities (Buffalo, New Orleans, Green Bay and others) is forever cast into doubt by blind adherence to free-market principles that favor teams in larger, better-situated markets?

Prior to filing their litigation, players and their representatives publicly praised the current system and argued for extending the status quo. Now they are singing a far different tune, attacking in the courts the very arrangements they said were working just fine.

Is this the NFL that fans want? A league where carefully constructed rules proven to generate competitive balance—close and exciting games every Sunday and close and exciting divisional and championship contests—are cast aside? Do the players and their lawyers have so little regard for the fans that they think this really serves their interests?

These outcomes are inevitable under any approach other than a comprehensive collective-bargaining agreement. That is especially true of an approach that depends on litigation settlements negotiated by lawyers. But that is what the players' attorneys are fighting for in court. And that is what will be at stake as the NFL appeals Judge Nelson's ruling to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. Goodell is commissioner of the National Football League.

2011-04-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

Online poker firms, U.S. government agree on refund plan for players

Two of three firms targeted in a federal crackdown on online poker have reached agreements with prosecutors to "facilitate" the return of money from their accounts to U.S. players, a U.S. attorney announced Wednesday.

Former World Series of Poker champion, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer,has been vocal about the federal crackdown on online gambling.

Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.

The indictment last week, which seeks at least $3 billion in civil money laundering penalties and forfeitures, came with restraining orders against about 75 bank accounts used by the firms and their payment processors in 14 countries.

The announcement comes was timely for players contemplating withdrawing funds from their online accounts to participate in the 2011 World Series of Poker, a series of 58 tournaments that begins May 31 in Las Vegas. The Main Event at the WSOP, which last year drew 7,319 entrants at a buy-in of $10,000 each, is set to begin July 7.

Bharara said the firms had already been free to return money.

"No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player's deposited funds," Bharara said in a press release.

But the nature of the agreements announced Wednesday was to allow PokerStars and Full Tilt to use their pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com domain names to facilitate the withdrawals.

Last week's restraining orders were also issued against the Internet domain names used by the firms. Wednesday's agreement stipulated that the Internet sites will not be allowed to use the domain names for "real money" online poker.

"In fact, this office expects the companies to return the money that U.S. players entrusted to them, and we will work with the poker companies to facilitate the return of funds to players," said Bharara.

No such agreement was announced with the third online company involved in the indictments, Absolute Poker.

Wednesday's announcement was welcomed by the Poker Players Alliance, a players' advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

The group said that in recent days more than 65,000 emails, letters and phone calls had been addressed to the Department of Justice, Congress and the White House urging access to the players' money in online accounts.

"The poker players have spoken, and it seems the U.S. government has heard their cries," John Pappas, executive director of the alliance said in a press release.

"But players are still in pain. While today's action allows players on two of the three online poker sites to access their funds, this is just a small victory in the ongoing fight to protect Americans' rights to player poker online."

The indictment were made under the 2006 federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

The indictments named 11 individuals involved in the three firms. All were charged with conspiracy to violate and violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits firms from knowingly accepting U.S. payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling.

Nine were charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. Ten were charged with money laundering conspiracy.

Each count of the indictments carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and three years of supervised release, plus monetary penalties.

The Poker Players Alliance wants government to license and tax online poker.

"At a time of such economic weakness in the U.S., citizens expect their government to be wholly focused on improving their way of life through job and revenue creation, not attacking their personal activities," said Pappas.

"Congress needs to recognize the benefit of licensing and regulating online poker to protect players' rights while adding thousands of jobs and billions in revenue to the U.S. market."

Some of the fallout so far from the federal crackdown:

? Full Tilt has been a major sponsor in mixed martial arts. It was on the verge of returning to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. But Caren Bell, a spokeswoman for UFC's parent company Zuffa, confirmed in an email to USA TODAY the deal has been shelved.

? ESPN2, which was to begin taped coverage of the North American Poker Tour Monday night, said the shows will not air in light of PokerStars being the sponsor.

"Plans have not changed" for the WSOP, said spokesman Mike Soltys of ESPN, which aired WSOP shows from July 27 through Nov. 9 last year.

The World Series of Poker, operated by Caesars Entertainment, declined comment on possible effects on the World Series.

Entries took a hit after the 2006 enactment of the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting U.S. payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling.

There were a record 8,773 entries in the Main Event in 2006. The next year, after the WSOP prohibited third parties such as online gaming firms from directly paying the $10,000 entry feed for participants, entries fell to 6,358.

But despite the WSOP ban on third-party entries, online companies still offered tournaments in which winners could earn the equivalent of the Main Event entry fee. It was up to them whether they played.

Entries rebounded steadily in recent years. Last year's total (7,319) was second most ever.

But the recent indictments raised questions about whether they would result in diminished entries for this year's WSOP and Main Event. Those questions were tied to uncertainty about whether players would be able to access their online accounts to get money to play in the World Series.

Wednesday's announcement in New York addressed that.

But the indictments remain.

"The government shouldn't have anything to do with morality in general," says Greg Raymer, who won the $5 million top prize at the 2004 Main Event after winning his seat in a PokerStars tournament that cost $160 to enter.

"The government should be protecting us here. That's why they should be creating a law to license and regulate online poker, the same way they protect us from bad food. … These people (in online poker) are saying, 'Please, pass the law, give us a license and then we'll be happy to pay taxes.' "

What if TIGER used PEDs?

2011-04-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

Is The Doctor Who Allegedly Gave Athletes HGH Ready To Spill His Guts About His Famous Clients?

Anthony Galea, a Canadian doctor accused of distributing performance enhancing drugs to athletes in the United States, is reportedly "in discussions" with federal prosecutors.

The speculation from the New York Times is that he might be negotiating a plea deal, and the implication of that is that in order secure a lesser sentence, he may need to give the feds a bigger fish — namely the big time pro athletes that he might have supplied with human growth hormone.

Galea, who is not licensed to practice in the U.S. has admitted to treating both Alex Rodriguez and Tiger Woods, though he claims that he never game them PEDs or HGH. He pioneered a controversial rehab treatment, known as platelet replacement therapy, that helped them recover from injuries.

However, Galea does admit to using HGH on himself and has advocated for its wider, therapeutic use. He was indicted last year after one of his employees was caught trying to smuggle it into the U.S.

2011-04-15T13:42:00.001-07:00

3 Online Poker Houses Face Fraud Charges in NYC

NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities in New York City have unsealed an indictment charging 11 people with bank fraud and illegal gambling in a prosecution of the three largest Internet poker companies.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Friday they've issued restraining orders against more than 75 back accounts used by the poker companies, interrupting the illegal flow of billions of dollars.

A prosecutor says PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker created an elaborate scheme that included fooling banks and bribing officials at a few to keep money flowing.

The indictment seeks $3 billion in money laundering penalties and forfeiture from the defendants.

Arrests occurred in Las Vegas and Utah.

It isn't immediately clear who would represent the defendants in court.

2011-04-14T19:36:00.001-07:00

Feds ponder move in Barry Bonds case

SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of investigation, three weeks of trial and millions of dollars spent pursuing Barry Bonds, federal prosecutors were back where they started Thursday -- deciding whether to try to prove the home run king's records were built with steroids and lies.

On Wednesday, the jury that was to finally decide whether Bonds deceived a grand jury in 2003 when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs instead left the issue deeply unresolved.

The panel of eight women and four men convicted Bonds of obstructing justice but deadlocked on the three charges at the heart of the government's perjury case, including two counts of lying about the use of steroids and human growth hormone. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston declared a mistrial on those three charges.

Now, prosecutors must weigh whether to spend still more money, and staff time, conducting another trial. They typically take into account a hung jury's vote when making such a call, but legal analysts warn that the Bonds trial was very different from the typical criminal case and the usual practices don't apply to such a high-profile defendant.

What's more, the jury's vote on the deadlocked counts were inconsistent. A majority of jurors voted to acquit Bonds on the drug-related charges while voting 11-1 to convict him of lying about never receiving injections from anyone but his doctor.

Further, the judge who would preside over the new trial has been showing impatience with a case that reaches back to Dec. 4, 2003. That's the day Bonds testified before a grand jury investigating an international sports doping ring centered at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, also known as BALCO.

Amid the confusion and frustration of Wednesday's muddled verdict, Illston sharply cut off Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella's argument that the government need not decide immediately about a new trial.

"The trial is over and we don't need any more speeches," she said.

It wasn't the first time she displayed displeasure with the prosecution during the trial -- and the more than three years Bonds has been under indictment.

But the judge did agree that prosecutors could decide later about a new trial. She set a May 20 hearing to discuss that issue and to schedule a sentencing date for Bonds.

An obvious calculation will be whether it's worth the effort.

Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann and others who followed the trial said it's impossible to put an exact dollar figure on the government's expenditure in pursuit of Bonds. The government doesn't do its accounting on a per-defendant basis. Still, it's clear the figure is substantial, he said.

"The government has spent millions of dollars and hours and is being questioned over whether that time and money could have been better spent elsewhere," said McCann, who specializes in sports law. "There's also a fatigue factor setting in."

Indeed, outside pressure is mounting. Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia recently questioned at a congressional hearing whether top BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky was motivated by trying to bring down a celebrity.

"What bothers me is that you've got a very powerful federal government that has the money and time and resources to ruin someone's reputation," Kingston told The Associated Press after the verdict. "Why did it take eight years to get to this point on Barry Bonds? And with all the problems we've got, why are we sitting here at the end of an eight-year investigation?"

Analysts and observers are split over the wisdom of a retrial, with U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag only saying in a written statement that a decision would be made as soon as possible.

"A retrial is warranted," said Stanford University law professor William Gould, who as chair of the National Labor Relations Board cast the decisive vote to end the baseball strike of the 1990s. "At a minimum, they should retry Bonds on his injection testimony."

Gould said that the "the government was fighting with one hand behind its back" because Bonds' former personal trainer Greg Anderson refused to testify. Prosecutors allege Anderson supplied Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs, but the judge excluded that evidence from the trial because the trainer wouldn't take the witness stand. Anderson spent the duration of the trial in prison on contempt charges and his lawyer Mark Geragos said he will never testify against Bonds.

"The government will be satisfied with the one felony conviction," said defense attorney William Keane, "especially given the hurdle they had to overcome because of Anderson."

Keane represented former track coach Trevor Graham, who was charged with three counts of lying to BALCO investigators. After a trial in front of Illston, a jury found Graham guilty on one charge but deadlocked on two others. Illston declared a mistrial on those two charges, which prosecutors dropped in July 2008 after Graham agreed not to appeal his conviction.

Keane said he doubted the government would offer Bonds a similar deal -- or that Bonds would agree to such an arrangement.

"There's been too much baggage," Keane said.

Bonds attorney Dennis Riordan is already contesting the obstruction charge. Riordan on Wednesday asked Illston to toss out the guilty verdict on several grounds. The judge will rule on the request later, after both sides submit legal arguments.

At least eight of the 12 jurors said prosecutors failed to show that Bonds knew he was taking steroids and human growth hormone. Prosecutors must also wrestle with jurors who pointed to credibility gaps with a trio of key government witnesses -- Bonds' ex-business partner Steve Hoskins and ex-mistress Kimberly Bell, both of whom came off as somewhat bitter, and Bonds' personal shopper, Kathy Hoskins, who is Steve's sister.

Jury foreman Fred Jacob of Marin City said it would take more evidence than prosecutors presented to convict Bonds on those remaining charges.

"This cost the citizens a lot of money to bring him to court," Jacob said. "They're going to have to even do more homework than they already did."

If you're a loser here's what happens! Maybe his mother may disown him next?

2011-04-14T12:20:00.001-07:00

“Life coach” fires JaMarcus Russell

If JaMarcus Russell hasn’t hit bottom yet, we are not looking forward to what’s coming next.

The latest embarrassment for the former No. 1 overall pick: Russell’s “Life coach” John Lucas told Russell he would no longer work with him and asked Russell to leave Houston, according to Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports.

Just think about that for a second. A man who is getting paid to help Russell, who makes a career out of rehabilitating athletes, gave up on the kid.

Russell reportedly worked hard after starting to work with Lucas last September, but he quickly lost focus. He showed up to NFL workouts last November and December out of shape, and his work habits “continued to deteriorate.” Lucas grew tired of trying to get Russell to care.

“The title of your article should be, ‘It’s Over,’ ” one source told Cole. “It’s just amazing that you could say that about somebody who is 25 years old and just got drafted four years ago. But it’s been almost a year since he got cut and there’s no interest. Even before the lockout, nobody wanted to get near the kid.”

Bonds found guilty of obstruction of justice

2011-04-13T14:59:00.001-07:00

Mistrial declared on three remaining perjury charges

SAN FRANCISCO -- A jury has found Barry Bonds guilty on one federal charge of obstruction of justice while a mistrial was declared on the remaining three counts of making false declarations to a grand jury.
The eight women and four men who were impaneled March 22 in Judge Susan Illston's courtroom and listened to 11 days of testimony and arguments took more than three days to come in with their verdict on Bonds, the Major Leagues' all-time leader in home runs and a seven-time Most Valuable Player.

The charges were based on Bonds' Dec. 4, 2003, testimony before the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) grand jury in which he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. The trial took place in the U.S. District Court, Northern California District, in Courtroom 10 of the Phillip Burton Federal Building.

On Monday, the jury asked that the testimony of former personal shopper Kathy Hoskins be re-read. Hoskins testified at trial to having witnessed Bonds receiving an injection from former trainer Greg Anderson, and a court employee read the entire testimony in open court.

On Friday, the first day of deliberations, the jury reheard a secretly taped recording Steve Hoskins, Bonds' childhood friend and former business manager, made of a conversation with Anderson in which they discussed injections of performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds originally was indicted on four charges of giving false testimony and one charge of obstruction of justice on Nov. 15, 2006. He pleaded not guilty on Dec. 7, 2006. A second indictment added 10 charges, but the third superseding indictment on Feb. 10 of this year was pared back down to four charges of making false declarations and one of obstruction of justice when the trial began. One of the charges of making false statements was dropped prior to closing arguments during the trial.

The prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Parrella and Jeffrey Nedrow, called 25 witnesses to the stand, including active baseball player Jason Giambi and former players Jeremy Giambi, Marvin Benard and Randy Velarde. The witness list also included Steve Hoskins, Kathy Hoskins and former mistress Kimberly Bell, along with a parade of drug-testing employees and experts. The prosecution was not able to compel Anderson to testify, however, so he was sent back to federal prison for contempt of court at the beginning of the trial, then released when the jury went into deliberations.

The defense team, led by Allen Ruby and Cristina Arguedas, did not present a single witness, only reading part of the testimony Bell gave the Bonds grand jury to demonstrate contradictions with her testimony at trial. They vigorously cross-examined Bell and Steve Hoskins, in particular, and argued in closing that the government's pursuit of Bonds was motivated by the fact that he wasn't intimidated by investigators at the grand jury.

Bonds, 46, hit 762 home runs in his career, surpassing Hank Aaron's previous career record of 755 in 2007. A 14-time All-Star and eight-time Gold Glove winner whose seven MVP awards are a record, Bonds set the single-season mark for homers with 73 in 2001. He also stands as the all-time leader in walks with 2,558 and intentional walks with 688 and remains the only player to record 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases.

The son of three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds and the godson of Hall of Famer Willie Mays, Bonds played for the Pirates for seven seasons (1986-92) before signing as a free agent with his hometown Giants prior to the 1993 season, leading the National League with 46 homers and 123 RBIs that year to claim his third NL MVP honor. Bonds later won four consecutive MVP awards, from 2001-04.

2011-04-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Manny's drug-induced retirement effectively ruins his Hall chances

Story Highlights
Manny Ramirez abruptly retired after learning MLB had an issue with a drug test
Ramirez, in all his wisdom, has no excuse for failing two different drug tests
Manny's career ending taints his legacy as one of baseball's greatest power hitters

Instead of fighting a possible drug violation -- and subsequent 100-game suspension -- Manny Ramirez has decided to retire after 19 seasons. SI's Tom Verducci discusses Manny's sudden departure, and how it'll affect the cellar-dwelling Rays.

I don't know what Manny Ramirez's "drug-related issue" was, but I'm guessing he did not test positive for excessive brain cells. Ramirez isn't any worse than a lot of guys who juiced -- but they are smarter than he is.

Ramirez is running from Major League Baseball's drug-testing cops, the first time anybody can remember him running anywhere. He is doing so in a fit of idiocy. With 555 home runs, 1,830 RBIs and one positive drug test to his name, he decided to ... juice again, evidently. His apparent positive test killed any chance of ending his career on a happy-go-lucky note. It probably killed his Hall of Fame chances, too, at least for the next decade or so.

If you really think about this, which Ramirez clearly did not, it is dumb on several levels. Ramirez was on his last chance -- with the public, if not with baseball. The last time he tested positive, Ramirez had a good excuse: He was trying to give birth to a baby panda. I think that's what he said. I could be wrong. Whatever he said, it was a ridiculous excuse. Generally, Americans will buy one ridiculous excuse. But two? Forget it.

Also: How do you get caught twice by the testing system? I mean, baseball is pretty clear about what they test for. If you have a way around the system, morality aside, then at least there is some logic to what you're doing. But if you get caught twice, maybe you should read the label on the bottles a little more closely.

If we can all step down from our high horses -- and I'm a sports columnist, so it's a long way down for me -- then let's acknowledge the temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs. We all like to think we would never do it. But if I said that you could make millions and be famous doing what you love, as long as you took performance-enhancing drugs, and the alternative was scrapping to pay the rent ... well, you can at least understand why somebody might do that, right?

And that's the amazing thing about Manny. He had less to gain and more to lose than almost anybody else in baseball. He has already made more than $200 million. He has played for two World Series champions. The first positive test was part of his legacy, but it didn't have to define him. He could have sold people on the idea that he made a mistake late in his career, regretted it and learned from it.

Not anymore. Now he looks like he couldn't play without steroids. I suppose he could argue that the bulk of his accomplishments came before he tested positive, but who would buy it? He hit 347 home runs before Major League Baseball instituted mandatory drug-testing ... and 208 after. Who would believe that he was clean when he wasn't being tested, and dirty when he was? Not even Manny is that dumb.

Ramirez was one of the great righthanded hitters of alltime. This is undeniable, no matter how he got there. It is also, apparently, why he played the game.

Ramirez has reinforced the perception that he never cared about anything except hitting a baseball. (And making money, of course.) Ramirez never seemed to care about being a great fielder, or running out ground balls, or what the score was or who the President is. But he loved, loved, LOVED hitting baseballs. It's bizarre -- he worked so much harder on hitting in the batting cage than he did at everything else in a real game. But that was what mattered to him.

Maybe that explains why he did something so foolish. Manny wasn't thinking about his legacy, or right and wrong, or the Hall of Fame, or getting caught. He just wanted to hit baseballs. For better and for worse, that is his legacy.

Judge: Ruling to take 'couple of weeks', urges sides to negotiate NFL Labor Agreement

2011-04-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

Highlights

Lawyers for the players ask judge to grant preliminary injunction
Players in attendance include Mike Vrabel ,Ben Leber and Vincent Jackson
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Richard is presiding over the hearing

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) As she wrapped up the five-hour hearing on the legality of the NFL lockout, the federal judge overseeing the case said she'd take "a couple of weeks" to rule on the players' request to return to work.

U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, however, urged the two sides not to wait that long.

"It seems to me both sides are at risk, and now is a good time to come back to the table," Nelson said, noting her willingness to facilitate the resumption of talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement that would put pro football back on track.

Owners and players failed to reach that goal last month, leading to the decertification of the union, the lockout of the players and the antitrust lawsuit against the owners filed here by the players.

But the two sides don't agree on much these days.

James Quinn, an attorney for the players, said they'd "listen carefully" to Nelson's recommendation. But David Boies, a lawyer for the league, hedged when asked about Nelson's offer to supervise talks.

"We don't need a settlement of this lawsuit," Boies said. "What we need is a collective bargaining agreement so that players can go on playing and the league can put on games. Until we have that, we're not going to make any progress."

The injunction request - a plea to the judge that the lockout be immediately lifted on the grounds that their careers are being irreparably harmed - was the sole purpose of Wednesday's hearing.

The court appearance was the first round - call it the first quarter - between the NFL and the players in their legal fight over the future of the $9 billion business and the 2011 season.

Teams of attorneys from both sides, officials from the now-dissolved union, several NFL players and dozens of reporters crowded the courtroom, but little was accomplished other than the formal launch of the legal process.

Boies argued that the court shouldn't have jurisdiction while the National Labor Relations Board is considering an unfair labor charge filed by the league that players didn't negotiate in good faith. The NFL's contention is that the union's decertification was a tactical maneuver and that it has the legal right to keep players from working.

Boies claimed players are still acting like a union, that the NFL Players' Association is funding the litigation and has set up other services for the players as if it were a fully formed labor entity. DeMaurice Smith, the head of the NFLPA, attended the hearing, and the players, lawyers and union officials arrived and departed together in a bus.

"They're financing this lawsuit," Boies said. "They're saying, 'We're no longer a collective bargaining agent, but we're going to continue to do all these things."'

Quinn dismissed the accusation that the decertification was a sham, pointing to unanimous participation in a player vote to approve the move.

"It's not some kind of tactic. It's the law," Quinn said. "It's what we're allowed to do."

Plaintiffs Mike Vrabel, Ben Leber, Vincent Jackson, Brian Robison and Von Miller were joined in court by veterans Tony Richardson and Charlie Batch, members of the union's executive committee prior to dissolution. Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, the three highest profile players named on the lawsuit, did not attend.

Hall of Famer Carl Eller, the lead plaintiff in a separate, similar case filed by retirees, former players and rookies, was also present. Nelson approved a motion to consolidate those cases, and attorney Michael Hausfeld - on behalf of the Eller group - took turns with Quinn arguing against and rebutting Boies.

Nelson listened to arguments from lawyers for the players and the league Wednesday, asking questions often and speaking politely but directly while acknowledging her difficulty discerning which components of the laws apply to this complicated case.

She expressed some frustration trying to understand some of the arguments, mostly those made by Boies, but oversaw a cordial process, telling the two sides they did an "outstanding job." Both sides praised Nelson afterward for her thorough approach and intelligent questions.

As she began the hearing, she urged both sides to stick to the issue of the injunction and not delve into the evidence presented previously in their briefs since all parties are up to speed on the information.

"You can assure that the court has done nothing else in the last few weeks," Nelson said.

When she reveals her decision, the winner would have leverage whenever talks resume on a new CBA. However, that ruling will all but likely be appealed. She could also defer a decision until after the NLRB rules, which could take months, or declare the need to schedule another hearing to consider the evidence in the case before she rules.

That would be a loss for the players.

"All of this is delay so they want to put pressure on us," Quinn said.

Boies said factual disagreements - regarding the existence of the union, for one - prove the necessity of another hearing. Boies took roughly double the amount of time to talk than the lawyers for the players did, in part because he was pressed so much by Nelson as she tried to grasp the argument that she has no jurisdiction.

The NFL says a union can't just "flick a light switch" and decertify to their liking. The two sides spent a long time arguing over the Norris-LaGuardia Act, Depression-era legislation meant to protect workers from a federal judge's ability to stop a strike.

Quinn pointed to the irony of owners using that to defend a lockout, and Nelson agreed. She sounded firm in her belief that the decertification is legal, pointing to court precedent in the last antitrust suit filed by players in the early 1990s.

"It's a big risk on their part and they lose a lot by doing it," she said.

But Boies cautioned afterward against reading too far into the scrutiny.

"I've been doing this for 45 years, and I've never been able to figure out from a judge's questions exactly where they're coming from," he said.

Bonds trial: Tape barred, feds rest

2011-04-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge ruled jurors in the Barry Bonds trial may not hear a freshly rediscovered recording of two key witnesses -- ridiculed by the defense as a "miracle tape" -- as prosecutors rested their case against the home-run king Tuesday after 2½ weeks and 25 witnesses.

Two developments Tuesday in the Barry Bonds trial could have major impact on its outcome, writes ESPN.com's Lester Munson.

The defense said it planned to call up to six witnesses, including possibly Bonds himself, in a presentation that lawyers projected will start and end Wednesday. If that schedule holds up, closing arguments would take place Thursday morning and the case could go to the jury of eight women and four men later in the day.

Bonds, Major League Baseball's season and career home run leader, is accused of four counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice for telling a grand jury in 2003 that he didn't knowingly use performance-enhancing drugs. Prosecutors ended their presentation with a 95-minute reading of portions of Bonds' grand jury testimony.

Dressed in a gray suit and striped silver tie, Bonds' alternately watched for the jurors' reaction and followed in a three-ring binder as his testimony was read. One juror chewed on a pen and rested her head on a silver thermos.

Jurors and Bonds' mother laughed when Bonds' 7½-year-old answer to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nedrow was read back in which the baseball star said: "Yes. You are confusing. I'm telling you," before addressing the grand jurors directly and telling them: "Is he confusing to you guys? I'm glad it's not just me."

After the prosecution rested, Bonds' lawyers filed four motions with the court, the most significant of which asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to acquit Bonds now. They also filed motions to strike testimony by four players on how they received drugs from former Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, testimony on the side effects of steroids and HGH, and part of the taped conversation between former Bonds business partner Steve Hoskins and Anderson.

Illston said she was inclined to strike part of the Hoskins-Anderson conversation that was played for the jury and testimony from former Bonds' girlfriend Kimberly Bell about his shrunken testicles, which the government says is a side effect from steroids use. She also wondered aloud whether the government had provided any evidence to back its count charging Bonds with lying when he said he received only vitamins from Anderson before the 2003 season.

She gave prosecutors until Wednesday morning to respond in writing before finalizing her decisions.

Dr. Don Catlin, former head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, was the last prosecution witness, and he testified about Bonds' 2003 urine test for Major League Baseball's anonymous survey, which was seized by federal agents the following year. At Catlin's lab, it tested positive for Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a designer steroid known as "the clear," and a female fertility drug. Three UCLA lab employees preceded him to the stand.

Bonds testified to the grand jury that Anderson had told him the substances he was giving Bonds were flaxseed oil and arthritic cream.

While Catlin was testifying, prosecutors submitted a motion to allow into evidence a recording of a 15-minute conversation in 2003 between Hoskins and Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds' orthopedic surgeon.

But Illston quickly rejected the request.

"It's barely intelligible," she said, adding: "Where you hear the name Barry, it's not clear what is said." She also said the material didn't shed much light on the Bonds case.

The recording, taken from a microcassette recorder, consists mostly of Hoskins, a friend of Bonds since childhood, discussing media accounts of the 2003 government raid of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), which was the center of a steroid distribution ring in which Anderson was a participant. Ting responds "yeah" about a dozen times. When Hoskins tells Ting "the only reason narcotics was there" Ting immediately finishes the sentence with "the drugs."

In the version of the transcript created by the government, 126 passages over 10 pages are marked "(UI)" for "Unintelligible."

Hoskins testified he spoke with Ting about Bonds and steroids on approximately 50 occasions, while Ting said they had only one general discussion of steroids. While the tape was subpoenaed in 2005, Hoskins told federal agent Jeff Novitzky he found it at a storage facility on Sunday afternoon and turned it over to Novitzky at 10 p.m. that night.

"The tape is highly relevant to Hoskins' credibility and therefore to the question whether the defendant knowingly lied to the grand jury about his use of steroids," prosecutors said in their motion. "Admission of the tape is also necessary to rectify the jury's misimpression that the tape does not exist."

Lead Bonds attorney Allen Ruby dismissed the recording as "the miracle tape discovered by Mr. Hoskins."

"Hoskins now claims that the recording has miraculously surfaced as the government prepares to rest its case" defense lawyers wrote. They also said "Hoskins' conduct in making a secret recording of a private conversation was criminal under both California and federal law" and they asserted "if the recording is indeed of a Hoskins-Ting conversation, it was made in an attempt to extort Mr. Bonds after Bonds fired Hoskins in the spring of 2003."

Illston also ruled the defense may not challenge Hoskins' credibility based on the lack of a recording.

Bonds is charged with lying when he said he never received steroids from Anderson, never received human growth hormone from Anderson, received only vitamins from Anderson prior to 2003 and allowed himself to be injected only by doctors.

Ruby said a decision whether to have Bonds testify in the flesh was to be made Tuesday night. The other possible defense witnesses he mentioned are former Bonds' trainer Harvey Shields, Bonds' lawyer Laura Enos, FBI agent Heather Young and IRS agent Erwin Rogers. The defense also may recall Hoskins to lay the foundation to introduce a recording he made of a conversation with Enos.

Lawyers said Illston had not told the sides whether the jury would deliberate on Fridays, which were off-days during the first two weeks of the trial.

2011-03-31T13:42:00.001-07:00

Ex-aide: Trainer injected Barry Bonds
But Bond's Doctor may save him from jail?

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' former personal shopper has testified that she saw the slugger's private trainer inject Bonds in the navel before a road trip during the 2002 season.

Kathy Hoskins said Thursday she was in Bonds' bedroom packing his clothes for the trip when the seven-time NL MVP and trainer Greg Anderson came into the room. Anderson expressed concerns about her presence but Bonds said not to worry about Hoskins because "she's my girl."

Hoskins testified that she then watched Anderson inject Bonds. She said she didn't ask about the injection, but Bonds volunteered that it was "a little something, something for when I go on the road. You can't detect it."

Bonds is charged with lying to a federal grand jury when he said no one other than his doctor ever injected him with anything. The owner of Major League Baseball's records for home runs in a career and a season also is accused of lying when he said that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.

Hoskins testified after prosecutors called Bonds' orthopedic surgeon to the witness stand -- a move they may wind up regretting.

Dr. Arthur Ting contradicted the testimony of a key prosecution witness, former Bonds business partner Steve Hoskins, who is the brother of Kathy Hoskins. Their dad played for the San Francisco 49ers and was a friend of Bonds' baseball star father, Bobby.

The two Hoskins and Barry Bonds grew up together and the siblings went to work for Bonds when he signed with the San Francisco Giants before the 1993 season.

Prosecutors are relying on the Hoskins' testimony to help convince the jury that Bonds knowingly used steroids.

Steve Hoskins testified last week that he had as many as 50 discussions about Bonds' alleged steroid use with Ting. Steve Hoskins also testified that Ting told him Bonds' 1999 elbow injury, which required surgery, was caused by taking steroids.

But Ting denied Hoskins' accounts.

Ting said he did not speak about Bonds and performance-enhancing drugs with Hoskins, and also denied telling Hoskins that steroids were to blame for the elbow injury.

During a break outside the presence of the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that there were "inconsistencies" between the testimony of Ting and Hoskins, who the prosecutor also conceded had been "impeached heavily."

Nedrow made the concession while defending the government's handling to Ting. Bonds' attorney, Cristina Arguedas, complained to the judge that the government should have disclosed Ting's testimony before the trial, but Nedrow said that Thursday was the first time he heard Ting contradict Hoskins so heavily.

Illston is considering Arguedas' request to hold a special hearing to determine if any government official had details of Ting's testimony and, if so, why it wasn't disclosed to Bonds' attorneys before trial.

Ting also testified that he gave Bonds legal steroids to ease swelling after surgery. Ting said those type of steroids have side effects that are similar to those of performance-enhancing steroids -- acne, weight gain, mood swings and loss of libido.

Ting testified that he has operated on Bonds eight times, the last time in 2009.

Bonds bulked up in 1999, Giants ex-trainer says

2011-03-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

(CBS/AP) SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Giants' former head trainer testified Tuesday that Barry Bonds added significant muscle mass in 1999 and that he recommended the slugger's personal trainers be banished from the team's facilities the following year.

Stan Conte, who is now the Los Angeles Dodgers head trainer, told the jury that Bonds viewed him and the medical department as "spies" for the owners.

Conte said he suggested to general manager Brian Sabean and manager Dusty Baker at spring training in 2000 that Bonds' trainers, Greg Anderson and Harvey Shields, should be barred from the Giants training room and clubhouse.

Conte said that Sabean told Conte to evict the trainers himself. Conte testified that Sabean remained silent when he asked the general manager to back him if Bonds complained. Conte testified that he understood from Sabean's silence that he didn't have the general manager's backing and he dropped the subject.

Conte also testified that he noticed Bonds had bulked up before the 2000 season and noticed acne on the slugger's back, which prosecutors allege is a side effect of steroid use.

Before Conte's testimony, two witnesses discussed the urine samples Bonds provided during the 2003 season. Prosecutors allege those samples tested positive for the designer steroid THG.

The two witnesses, Barry Sample, chief science officer of Quest Diagnostics, the company that analyzed Bonds' urine, and Dale Kennedy, who collected the sample, were necessary to establish that Bonds' samples were handled properly and can be used as evidence.

Bonds, the major league record-holder for home runs in a career (762) and a season (73), has pleaded not guilty to four charges that he lied to a grand jury when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs. He also pleaded not guilty to a charge of obstruction.

Tuesday morning's testimony was far less dramatic than the testimony of Bonds' former mistress Monday. Kimberly Bell testified that Bonds told her he used steroids and became verbally abusive toward her at the end of their nine-year relationship.

She also testified that Bonds' testicles shrank during their relationship. Prosecutors allege that testicle shrinkage is a side effect of steroid use.

That testimony came under fire outside the presence of the jury Tuesday 03-29/11).
At issue is a concession Bell made on the witness stand Monday. Bell testified that she exaggerated when she told a grand jury that Bonds' testicles shrank by half late in their nine-year relationship.

She said Monday that Bonds' testicles shrank and changed shape, but not as dramatically as portrayed before the grand jury.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said Tuesday she was "struck by" Bell's concession. The judge was reviewing transcripts of Bell's grand jury testimony. One remedy under consideration is for the judge to tell the jury to disregard Bell's testimony regarding Bonds' testicles.

The judge didn't indicate when she would rule on the matter.

Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi and his brother testified Tuesday that Anderson supplied them with performance-enhancing drugs.

Giambi said he paid Anderson a total of about $10,000 for several shipments of steroids known as "the clear" and "the cream" designed to evade detection starting in late 2002 and through the beginning of the 2003 baseball season. Syringes and a calendar detailing when he should take the substances were included in the first shipment, Giambi testified.

During cross-examination, Bonds attorney Cris Arguedas read Giambi's 2003 grand jury testimony when he testified that Anderson had told him "the clear and the cream had steroid-like effects without being a steroid."

Giambi agreed with that testimony.

Bonds lawyer Allen Ruby said that Bonds used the designer steroids, but believed Anderson when he told the slugger they were legal supplements.

Giambi's brother, Jeremy Giambi, testified similarly.

Neither Giambi provided direct testimony about Bonds. Instead, prosecutors hope to use their testimony -- and that of other players -- to show that Anderson was a well-known steroids dealer. Anderson is in jail for refusing to testify at the trial.

The Giambi brothers were joined by former Bonds teammate Marvin Benard as the first athletes called to testify at trial but several other athletes are expected to testify about their relationship with Anderson this week.

Before the testimony of the Giambis, two witnesses discussed the urine samples Bonds provided during the 2003 season. Prosecutors allege those samples tested positive for the designer steroid THG.

The two witnesses, Barry Sample, chief science officer of Quest Diagnostics, the company that analyzed Bonds' urine, and Dale Kennedy, who collected the sample, were necessary to establish that Bonds' samples were handled properly and can be used as evidence.

Bonds, the major league record-holder for home runs in a career (762) and a season (73), has pleaded not guilty to four charges that he lied to a grand jury when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs. He also pleaded not guilty to a charge of obstruction.

Mike Krzyzewski reacts to Jalen Rose

2011-03-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski took exception to critical comments that ESPN analyst Jalen Rose made about the school, saying they were "very insulting to everyone here at Duke."

“[The Fab Five] had a heck of a run but, they didn't leave anything, they didn't establish anything there.” -- Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski

Rose, as part of an ESPN Films documentary "The Fab Five" that aired March 13 (Rose was an executive producer), said black Blue Devils basketball players recruited in the early 1990s were "Uncle Toms."

"I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn't recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms," Rose said in the documentary.

Former Duke and NBA star Grant Hill already called the comments "sad and somewhat pathetic."

"Obviously, that was a poor choice of words and very insulting to everyone here at Duke but especially, not just our African-American players, but any African-American students," Krzyzewski said on "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 in Chicago Tuesday. "When you judge within a race, you start judging, like you put categories as to who you are. I think that's just the wrong thing to do."

Krzyzewski said one of the Fab Five could have ended up at Duke.

"We were very successful against them and, to be quite frank with you, we recruited Chris Webber," he said. "I didn't recruit Jalen Rose because we had Grant Hill and I'm happy with that. We didn't look at the other, Juwan Howard [because] we knew he wasn't going to come to Duke. The other two kids we didn't think were the caliber that could play as well as Thomas Hill and Brian Davis and Billy McCaffery. They're good kids. They were good kids."

Duke beat the Fab Five in the 1992 NCAA championship game. Michigan made it back to the title game in 1993 but lost to North Carolina.

"They had a heck of a run but, they didn't leave anything, they didn't establish anything there," Krzyzewski said. "The guys that I had established something that Jay Williams continued to do 10 years later -- the standards of what it meant to be a Duke basketball player."

Williams, a college basketball analyst for ESPN, spoke about the topic on ESPN 1000 as well Tuesday. He said that Rose texted him and Hill on the eve of the show and said that his quotes did not pertain to them. When Williams saw the show, he was still unhappy.

"Listen, I know that it's obviously how Jalen reflected upon it when he was a 19-year-old kid," Williams said of the Uncle Tom comment. "But, I think the thing that got a lot of people disgruntled was the fact that he never came out and said, 'Listen, this is not how I feel now' in the documentary."

Williams also said that there is a debate in the African-American community on what it means to be "black." He said he lived in a black neighborhood as a kid but went to a predominantly white school. When he played basketball in his neighborhood he was razzed for "talkin' white."

"How is it to be less black?" he said. "If the definition of an Uncle Tom is me coming from a dual-parenting home where my mother and father worked harder for me to receive a better education; if the definition of an Uncle Tom is for me going to a prestigious school like Duke or Harvard or learning how to flow from being in the inner city and also being on TV and in the corporate world, I'll be an Uncle Tom all day long."

ESPNChicago.com

2011-03-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

Judge’s ruling could force league, players to talk

By Jason Cole, Yahoo! Sports

NEW ORLEANS – NFL fans have to start cheering for Judge Susan Nelson of the Minnesota District Court. Right now, she’s your only hope for a quick resolution to the labor dispute between the players and the owners.

After Nelson hears arguments from both sides regarding the lockout during Brady v. NFL on April 6, here is a devilishly wonderful scenario she could come up with to hammer both sides and really force them to settle their differences. This idea comes courtesy of a clever lawyer who has read the legal briefs from both the players and the owners so far.

More From Jason ColeLockout puts additional pressure on young QBs Mar 22, 2011 Sides allergic to verbal communication Mar 21, 2011 Nelson could declare that the lockout by owners is illegal, that the NFL Players Association is not a union and then hold her decision in abeyance for 90 days. What that means is that the league wouldn’t have very strong grounds to fight her decision in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. It would also mean that the players wouldn’t have the ability to get new contracts signed until July, hurting their chances to get rich deals in free agency.

In other words, both sides would have plenty of incentive to work out a new collective bargaining agreement.

Right now, that’s what the owners and players need – a legal kick in the rear. While both sides would like to talk and have said as much publicly, they can’t get it done for legal reasons. The owners want to talk in mediation, which puts the players in a bind. The players want to talk in court over a settlement, which puts the owners in a bind.

“We want to [get a deal] as fast as possible, but we also recognize that we had to be prepared for other alternatives,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during Tuesday’s league meetings, reciting the kind of double talk that fans have become infuriated by over the past few weeks and months when it comes to the labor negotiations.

Truth is, both sides deserve to get slapped and Nelson is the only one who can do it in a forceful way right now. Currently, this circus is being run by lawyers, guys who are experts in turning nuance into billion-dollar judgments.

What needs to happen is for owners such as Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, Art Rooney II and John Mara to get in a room with Peyton Manning(notes), Drew Brees(notes), Tom Brady(notes), Vincent Jackson(notes) and Mike Vrabel(notes) and discuss their differences. The owners need to hear that the players feel disrespected. The players need to hear that the owners have serious financial concerns. The players need to tell the owners that they can’t take a system that changes the way the players get paid from a percentage of the gross to a fixed cost.

Do that, and many of the other issues in this problem could fade away.

Instead, both sides are waiting for April 6, hoping their side will prevail.

“Nothing is going to happen for either side until [Nelson] decides the injunction issue,” one NFL lawyer said.

True, but even if the players win an injunction, the league is set to go the distance in the legal battle. On Monday, the league put outside attorneys Gregg Levy, Bob Batterman, David Boies and Paul Clement on display to explain their arguments to the media. While much of the legalese went over the head of the many reporters involved in this situation, there was an obvious bottom line: The NFL hired the four lawyers with the sole intent of fighting the union for as long as necessary. For instance, Batterman talked about going through months of work with the National Labor Relations Board over whether the NFLPA can really decertify.

If that battle goes on for months, players will watch as their careers die on the vine. The short-term need to get signed to a new contract and get working with a team will disappear like so many legal briefs into filing cabinets throughout the courthouses of this nation.

The owners will gain short-term leverage over the players by the day. In turn, the long-term fight will get uglier for the owners if the players are able to gain victories in the court.

In the meantime, there is one woman who can solve the whole thing with a swing of her hammer and a judicious opinion. Nelson could send both sides reeling, forcing the two into talks. That’s what should be happening because, if nothing else, the owners are right about one thing.

This deal is not going to be settled without discussion between both sides. It is not really going to get settled in the courts, at least not quickly.

But a settlement can be pushed by Judge Nelson.

Here’s hoping she can get it done.

BONDS Day Two = Ex-friend: Bonds' steroid use was 'out of hand'

2011-03-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' steroid use was so "out of hand" that his former business manager made a secret recording in the Giants' clubhouse as part of a campaign to dissuade the ballplayer from using banned drugs, the ex-employee testified Wednesday.

Steve Hoskins was Bonds' boyhood friend and his business manager until a bitter breakup in 2003. That year, he testified, he recorded weight trainer Greg Anderson describing the array of steroids that he was allegedly providing to the Giants left fielder.

Hoskins, the government's second witness in Bonds' trial on perjury charges, said he had spent years trying to get Bonds off steroids.

He said he made the tape for Bobby Bonds, a former Giants outfielder and Bonds' father, as part of that effort.

"I was hoping Bobby would be the one who would stop him from doing it," Hoskins said.

But Bobby Bonds died of cancer in August 2003 before Hoskins could play the recording for him, Hoskins said. He later turned over the recording to federal agents.

No revenge
During three hours of cross-examination in federal court in San Francisco, Hoskins insisted he had made the recording out of concern for Bonds' health - and not, as defense lawyer Allen Ruby contended, to avenge his firing.

After firing Hoskins, Bonds complained to the FBI that his ex-business manager had been forging the ballplayer's name on memorabilia and selling it, the defense lawyer said. Ruby also charged that the government had dropped a fraud investigation against Hoskins in exchange for his testimony about Bonds and steroids.

Hoskins, a slender man who spoke softly in court, said the government had cut him no deals. He said his motives were pure.

"Barry's a very good friend, a very good person and one of the best baseball players there's ever going to be," he said.

'It was bad for him'
"That was one reason (starting) in 1999 to 2000 I was trying to stop him from taking steroids - because I thought it was bad for him," Hoskins said.

"In 2003 I was even more concerned because it seemed to be getting out of hand," Hoskins said of Bonds' alleged steroid use. "I talked to people about it. I spoke to Barry. I spoke to Greg about it."

Bonds, 46, occasionally jotted notes as his onetime friend testified. The two men rarely made eye contact.

Baseball's all-time home-run leader, who played his last game in 2007, is charged with five felonies for allegedly lying to the federal grand jury that investigated steroid dealing at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame.

In that 2003 testimony, Bonds said he had never knowingly used banned drugs. The government says Bonds was using designer steroids from BALCO, many of them provided by Anderson. The trainer has been imprisoned three times, most recently on Tuesday, for refusing to cooperate with the government's probe.

Clubhouse tape
Portions of the clubhouse recording - loud, and with distorted sound and background noise - were played for the jury after Hoskins described making it, near Bonds' locker early in the 2003 season. Bonds was not present, Hoskins said.

On the recording, Hoskins and Anderson can be heard discussing "when Barry's taking those shots," as Hoskins puts it.

Then Anderson boasts that he is providing Bonds with undetectable steroids that will ensure he will pass baseball's urine tests for steroids.

"The whole thing is, everything that I've been doing at this point, it's all undetectable," Anderson says.

"See, the stuff that I have ... we created it. And you can't, you can't buy it anywhere. You can't get it anywhere else. But, you can take it the day of and pee."

"Isn't that the same s-- that Marion Jones and them were using?" Hoskins asks, referring to the sprinter who later forfeited her Olympic medals after admitting she had used steroids.

"Yeah, same stuff, the same stuff that worked at the Olympics," Anderson replies.

The Chronicle first reported on the recording's contents in 2005.

Friends growing up
Hoskins, son of the late San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Bob Hoskins, said he grew up with Bonds on the Peninsula. They reconnected about 1993, after Bonds left the Pittsburgh Pirates and signed with the Giants.

Over the years, Hoskins said, he handled many tasks for Bonds, including sales of autographed sports memorabilia.

Hoskins said Bonds kept as much as $100,000 cash in a safe in Hoskins' business office in San Carlos, drawing on it when he needed money. By his account, Bonds would sometimes instruct the business manager to make cash payouts to two women - Kimberly Bell, Bonds' longtime girlfriend, and Piret Aava, an Estonian model then living in New York.

Bonds also told him to make cash payments to Anderson, Hoskins said.

Asked about steroid
Hoskins said that in 1999, Bonds confided he was using steroids. The ballplayer told his business manager to consult sports orthopedist Dr. Arthur Ting about the side effects of an injectable steroid called Winstrol, Hoskins said.

Athletes who use the steroid, which is derived from testosterone, are typically seeking to build up muscle mass while shedding fat. Winstrol is banned by many sporting bodies, and sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal in the 100-meter dash in the 1988 Olympics after testing positive for the drug.

Hoskins gave Bonds printouts of medical literature he got from Ting, but Bonds kept using, he said.

In 2002, by the batting cage at what was then called Pacific Bell Park, Hoskins said Bonds began complaining that Anderson had refused to give him a steroid injection.

"Barry just said, if Greg wouldn't give him the shot he'd give it to himself," Hoskins said.

http://sfgate.com

Barry Bonds trial: Expect a 'heavyweight' fight

2011-03-21T00:22:00.001-07:00

On the night of Aug. 7, 2007, after he hit his historic 756th home run into the bleachers at AT&T Park, Giants outfielder Barry Bonds dismissed the growing suspicion that he had broken sports' most hallowed record by using steroids.

"This record is not tainted at all," he told reporters. "Period."

But three months later, Bonds was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, accused of lying under oath when he told a grand jury in 2003 that he had never knowingly used steroids.

Now, in a trial that is scheduled to get under way Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, a jury will be asked to decide whether baseball's home run king set his historic mark while using a long list of banned drugs.

He has pleaded not guilty.

For Bonds, 46, who has not played baseball since he was indicted, the stakes are high - even though most experts doubt he will face prison if convicted.

In 2008, Bonds' trial judge, Susan Illston, sentenced two defendants who were convicted of lying to authorities about steroids in sports to home confinement, not prison. That sets a baseline for sentencing Bonds if he is convicted, experts say.

The trial represents a chance for Bonds to repair a reputation badly tarnished by his association with the BALCO steroid scandal, and, perhaps, to secure a place in baseball history that might otherwise be denied him.

If Bonds is acquitted, his chances of being elected to the Hall of Fame "go way up," said former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent. "But if he gets convicted, it's the end of the discussion for at least 30 years."

Meanwhile, the trial is likely to further roil a sport that has been unable to get past what has been called its "steroid era" - 15 years when baseball was rife with performance-enhancing drugs.

Even after Bonds' trial is over, more turbulence is likely: In July, former All-Star pitcher Roger Clemens is scheduled to go on trial in Washington, charged with lying under oath when he told a congressional committee that he had never used steroids.

Whatever the outcome, the Bonds trial will probably be "a hard-fought battle, like a heavyweight championship fight," said defense lawyer William Keane, who defended Olympic track coach Trevor Graham in 2008 in a case similar to Bonds'.

Pretrial rulings
The prosecutors, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella, won convictions in the trials of Graham, who was accused of lying to investigators about giving drugs to track stars, and cyclist Tammy Thomas, also accused of perjury before the BALCO grand jury.

The prosecutors also obtained guilty pleas from five steroid dealers, and provided evidence of steroid use in baseball to the internal probe of the game conducted by former Sen. George Mitchell.

But Bonds' seven lawyers, headed by defense specialist Allen Ruby and appeals expert Dennis Riordan, bested the government in a series of pretrial rulings.

Exploiting trainer Greg Anderson's refusal to testify, the defense persuaded Illston to throw out what the government said was some of its strongest evidence: private drug test results and doping calendars allegedly reflecting Bonds' use of banned drugs.

Anderson, Bonds' weight trainer, arranged the tests and kept the calendars, according to the government. Without his testimony, the evidence is inadmissible hearsay, the judge ruled. The trial was delayed for two years while the government unsuccessfully appealed.

Indictment after record hit
The federal probe of Bonds became public in September 2003, when an Internal Revenue Service investigator, Jeff Novitzky, led a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, a nutritional supplement company in Burlingame. Drug agents seized documents indicating that some of the world's greatest athletes - Bonds among them - had been receiving undetectable designer steroids there, sometimes via Anderson.

The raid set up the confrontation that is the flash point of the trial: Bonds' Dec. 4, 2003, grand jury appearance. Five other ballplayers, including then-New York Yankees star Jason Giambi, testified they had received steroids from Anderson, whom they met because he was Bonds' trainer.

But Bonds testified that Anderson had given him only flaxseed oil and arthritis balm, not "the clear" and "the cream," the undetectable BALCO steroids. Bonds also denied that Anderson had ever given him an injection.

Those denials formed the crux of Bonds' perjury indictment, although it was four years in coming.

In the interim, prosecutors obtained guilty pleas from Anderson and four other men involved in distributing BALCO drugs. Then they began pressuring Anderson to testify against Bonds. The trainer refused and served more than a year in prison for contempt of court.

Earlier this month, Anderson once again declared he would not testify against Bonds. The judge said she would send him back to prison.

Burden of proof
Even without the excluded evidence, the government's case is "still winnable," says Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane, who has followed legal issues in BALCO. He is not related to defense lawyer William Keane.

Prosecutors can present one positive steroid test to the jury, from a 2003 urine sample collected by Major League Baseball. When retested, it showed Bonds was using "the clear" and "the cream," prosecutors say.

After that, it will be up to the government's 52 witnesses. They may include former Giants catcher Bobby Estalella, a BALCO customer who says Bonds admitted he was using steroids, and former Bonds assistant Kathy Hoskins, who says she saw Anderson inject Bonds in the navel in 2002. Her brother, Steve Hoskins, Bonds' former business manager, gave the government a recording on which Anderson admitted providing undetectable steroids to Bonds.

Peter Keane said the jury will be able to infer that Bonds was using steroids from all the muscle he put on during his years with the Giants. Also relevant are other body changes associated with steroid use, he said: Former girlfriend Kimberly Bell is prepared to testify that Bonds suffered from such possible steroid side effects as hair loss, back acne and sexual dysfunction.

But proving that Bonds used steroids is only part of the government's burden. To win a perjury conviction, prosecutors must prove he deliberately lied about issues that were important to the BALCO probe.

"The exact wording of the questions asked (and) the exact wording of the answers" become issues for the jury, says William Keane, the track coach's lawyer.

The World Series factor
The government witnesses can expect intense cross-examination. Defense lawyers have denounced Bell as an untruthful gold digger and accused Steve Hoskins of taping Anderson as part of an attempt to blackmail Bonds.

Most experts doubt that Bonds himself will testify.

For the government, one challenge might be called the World Series factor. Prosecutors hope to screen out prospective jurors who want to give a break to a former star of the hometown team, which in 2010 won its first world championship since moving to San Francisco.

"The biggest thing that Bonds has going for him is the euphoria in the Bay Area over the Giants," said Peter Keane. "It's his biggest hole card."

THE NFL FOOTBALL ISSUES SOON IN COURT - Motion to lift lockout comes down to two factors

2011-03-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

We promised on Saturday to translate the legalese regarding the motion to lift the lockout in the Brady lawsuit into plain English.

It probably would be easier to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls into Pig Latin.

The players hope to force the NFL to end the lockout while the antitrust lawsuit against the league proceeds. All of the players’ arguments in the case arise from the fact that, because the union has decertified, 32 separate businesses can’t come together and agree to impose common rules. It’s sort of like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Hardee’s, Arby’s, and Taco Bell all agreeing that no entry-level employees will receive more than the minimum wage. Separately businesses can’t engage in such practices.

Remember the American Needle case from 2010? The NFL was trying to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court that the league is a “single entity” in an antitrust case filed by an apparel company that objected to the league’s exclusive deal with Reebok. If the NFL had won that case, the same argument would have been used here. But the NFL lost, badly, and so the players have the ability to disband as a union and file an antitrust lawsuit.

The motion that will be presented to Judge Susan Nelson on Wednesday, April 6, focuses on only one thing — forcing the league to end the lockout while the lawsuit proceeds. It’s no different than the motion filed by Vikings defensive tackles Kevin and Pat Williams after the league tried to impose four-game suspensions in the StarCaps case. The court system prevented the NFL from imposing the suspensions while the case unfolded, even though the players have lost every step of the way. (Indeed, Kevin Williams has decided not to appeal the latest ruling permitting the suspensions to the Minnesota Supreme Court. So even though he lost the case, he was able to duck the suspension for more than two seasons.)

Like most courts, the Minnesota federal court handling the Brady case will consider four factors when deciding whether to issue an injunction lifting the lockout while the case proceeds. First, will the plaintiffs be irreparably harmed without the injunction? (“Irreparably” means damage that can’t fairly be compensated by a cash award later.) Second, can the plaintiffs show that they are likely to win the case on the issue of the lockout being illegal? Third, will the defendants suffer more harm with an injunction than the plaintiffs will suffer without one? Fourth, does the public interest favor an injunction?

There’s no rock-scissors-paper formula that applies when comparing the four factors, and no one factor drives the process.

In other words, the judge can decide what he or she thinks is fair, and then work backward to justify it.

In this case, the focal point of the battle will be the first two factors — irreparable harm and likelihood of success. The players know it; more than 12 pages of the players’ legal brief is devoted to the first two issues, while barely one page is spent on the last two.

As to the issue of irreparable harm, the players focus broadly on the potential damage arising from a lost year of their careers. This argument overlooks the realities of the sport. In March, April, May, and June, the players aren’t having their careers impacted in a way that only an injunction can fix. They’re losing the ability to work out in team facilities, and they’re risking injuries that could result in a decision by their teams to place them on the non-football injury list and not pay them if/when football resumes in 2011. These injuries arguably can be addressed with a verdict compensating the players for the costs of working out on their own, the per diem payments they would have received while working out with the team, and the expenses relating to any disability insurance premiums aimed at protecting them against injury. To the extent that impending free agents argue that they will experience a much softer market for their services if the lockout ends in August or September, that injury can be addressed via an award of money damages, with the players receiving for 2011 what they would have gotten if they had hit the open market in March.

Some league insiders think that the judge will be inclined to rule that the lockout may continue until the opening of training camps, and that the doors will open as of July 31, at which time the damage begins to become irreparable. We think that Judge Nelson could be inclined to simply deny the motion without prejudice, inviting the players to re-file the motion at a date closer to the start of the season.

Of course, any possibility of an injunction presumes that Judge Nelson believes the players have sufficiently proven that they are likely to win the case on the lockout issue. In the StarCaps case, the judge expressed concern about the players’ ultimate ability to win the case, but the court was sufficiently compelled by the irreparable harm arising from the loss to Kevin and Pat Williams of 25 percent of a football season. Here, the players have a strong likelihood of proving that the lockout violates the antitrust laws — if the players can also show a strong likelihood that the “sham” defense to decertification won’t apply. The league intends to argue that the players shut down the union too soon, and that the players should have waited until after the agreement expired to do so.

In the brief in support of the motion to lift the lockout, the players focus solely on the fact that the NFL agreed to waive the “sham” defense as part of the settlement of the White antritust case. The brief doesn’t address the timing of the decertification.

Look for the league’s brief, due on Monday, to hammer that issue. The league’s brief also will surely attach documentation of quotes from members of the NFLPA* that tend to support the argument that the union is still calling the shots, such as the recent remarks from Executive Committee members like Mike Vrabel and Domonique Foxworth.

The players then will have a chance to respond in their March 28 reply brief, and Judge Larson surely will have plenty of questions for both sides at the April 6 hearing.

In the end, the “sham” issue may not matter. If the judge believes the harm will be sufficiently significant once the regular season approaches, the potential cloud over the players’ ability to show that they’re likely to win on the merits may not matter. With the antitrust violation being fairly clear and the shelf-life of an NFL player’s career fairly short, Judge Nelson easily could find that, once training camps are due to open, the harm will become irreparable and the lockout will be lifted.

Then again, Judge Nelson also could find that anything lost by the players during a lockout can be given back to them in the form of money, if they win the case. At a time when the players are complaining so loudly about playing more games, the prospect of eventually getting paid to play no games in 2011 could be reasonable, and for some players attractive.

In the end, no one knows how this will come out. The ruling won’t resolve the case, but it will give the side that prevails plenty of leverage when the time comes to negotiate a potential settlement. Each side will surely claim that they are confident of victory; deep down, however, there is plenty of reason for the players and the league to be nervous.

Mike Florio PFT NBC Sports

Obama’s N.C.A.A. Bracket Is One of the Best

2011-03-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

President Obama on ESPN revealing his N.C.A.A. mens’s basketball bracket on Wednesday.Being president is an ego trip. So you would have thought President Obama wouldn’t need to add to his bragging rights. But Mr. Obama’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball bracket stands — for the moment, anyway —as one of the best out there.

Out of 32 games, Mr. Obama has accurately predicted all but three. As of Saturday morning, he ranks at No. 16 on The Times’s bracket site, tied with many others. Mr. Obama has a total of 166 out of 195 points possible.
The success of the president’s picks may bring him attention that White House aides would rather do without.
Critics of the president chastised him for spending time on college basketball — and announcing his bracket on ESPN — even as the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and violence spread in the Middle East and north Africa.

“Millions of Americans will be filling out a bracket this week, but only one of them is responsible for signing a federal budget, monitoring the crisis in the Middle East and assisting with a major humanitarian effort in Japan,” said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

“With all of those pressing issues on the President’s plate, we would be happy to hear the White House explain why filming an ESPN special on the N.C.A.A. tournament should be a priority on his public schedule,” Ms. Kurkowski said.

White House aides dismissed the criticism and noted that Mr. Obama used the ESPN interview to urge people to donate to relief efforts in Japan. And in sports, Americans love nothing more than a winner, so the criticism is likely to fade as the basketball tournament proceeds.

Mr. Obama has accurately predicted the winners of some of the closest games, including ones between George Mason University and Villanova, Kentucky and Princeton, and Temple and Penn State.

He stumbled just a bit, picking Georgetown over Virginia Commonwealth, perhaps going with the alma mater of his communication’s director, Dan Pfeiffer.

Mr. Obama also erroneously picked Louisville over Morehead State and Michigan State over UCLA. Both of his picks lost by a hair to the other team.

Mr. Obama has picked Kansas to win the championship final over Ohio State. His picks for the final eight teams are all still alive, giving him a shot at a near-perfect bracket.

All of which proves one thing: Mr. Obama knows his hoops.

The Sport Needs to Change NYTimes BOB HERBERT (notice something NFL owners are OLD & RICH and the players POOR & DIE YOUNG!)

2011-03-15T22:44:00.000-07:00

Dave Duerson was once a world-class athlete, a perfect physical specimen whose pro football career included Super Bowl championships with the Chicago Bears and New York Giants. Friends and former teammates would tell you that he was also a bright guy — a graduate of Notre Dame with a degree in economics and, at least for awhile, a successful businessman.

When he shot himself to death in his South Florida home last month, the despondent Duerson, who was 50, fired the bullet into his chest rather than into his head. He did not want to further damage his brain. As he explained in text messages and a handwritten note, the former all-pro safety wanted his brain tissue studied, presumably to determine whether he had been suffering from a devastating degenerative disease that is taking a terrible toll on what appears to be an increasing number of pro football players and other athletes.

As The Times has reported, Duerson wrote, “Please, see that my brain is given to the N.F.L.’s brain bank.”

Professional football has a big, big problem on its hands, and I’m not talking about the lockout that is jeopardizing the 2011 season. The game is chewing up players like a meat grinder. The evidence is emerging of an extraordinary number of players struggling with lifelong physical debilitation, depression, dementia and many other serious problems linked to their playing days.

Duerson’s concern was believed to have been centered on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an incurable disease associated with depression and dementia in athletes who played violent sports like football and boxing. A number of retired football players, including some who took their own lives, were found to have had the disease, which can only be diagnosed post-mortem.

Pro football, the nation’s most popular sport, had been ratcheting up its violence quotient for years. Fans loved it. But a backlash has developed as more and more stories come to light about the awful price retired players are paying for a sport that increasingly resembles Colosseum-like combat. Few players escape unscathed after years of brain-rattling, joint-crippling, bone-breaking, consciousness-altering collisions. Many live out their lives in chronic pain, varying degrees of paralysis, and all manner of cognitive and emotional distress.

The N.F.L. has taken some remedial steps, especially in the area of head injuries. But pro football, always violent, is now violent in the extreme, and there is some question as to whether that violent style of play — and the consequences that flow from it — can really be changed. Paul Tagliabue, a former N.F.L. commissioner, told The New Yorker about the comments of a group of former players who had looked closely at the way defensive play has changed. “They raised the idea,” said Tagliabue, “that it was no longer tackle football. It was becoming collision football. The players looked like bionic men.”

I am an enormous fan of football, but I get a queasy feeling when I see one of those tremendous hits that leaves the opposing player lying as if lifeless on the turf. Or when I read about players like Andre Waters, formerly of the Philadelphia Eagles and Arizona Cardinals, who shot himself to death in 2006 at the age of 44. A forensic pathologist said Waters’s brain tissue looked like that of an 85-year-old man. It turned out that he had been suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the disease that Duerson may have feared.

This is an enormous tragedy. So many players are suffering in the shadows. They need much more help from the N.F.L., the players’ union and the myriad others cashing in on a sport that has become a multibillion-dollar phenomenon. And big changes are needed in the rules, equipment and culture of the sport to cut down on the carnage inflicted on current and future players.

I once was a big fan of boxing. I marveled at the breathless, elaborately detailed stories my parents’ generation told about Joe Louis and the unparalleled Sugar Ray Robinson. I followed Muhammad Ali’s career from beginning to end. I read biographies of the great boxers of the 20th century.

But I also saw the televised fight in March 1962 in which Emile Griffith beat Benny (Kid) Paret so savagely that Paret died 10 days later. Robinson also killed a man in the ring, Jimmy Doyle, in a fight in 1947. And it’s no secret that even the greatest fighters tended to end up in bad shape, demented or enfeebled from the punishment of their trade — Louis, Robinson, Ali, so many others. I haven’t been able to watch the sport in years.

It’s a very bad sign that chronic traumatic encephalopathy, long associated with boxing, is now linked to football. With the carnage increasingly emerging from the shadows, there is no guarantee that football’s magical hold on the public will last. Players are not just suffering, some are dying. The sport needs to change.

NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday

2011-03-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

NCAA's new giant field of 68 is announced for college basketball's year-end championship; Ohio St. is Vegas' favorite

(AP) Three more teams in this year's edition of March Madness. Three more networks to cover it.
And the Big East will have its hooks in practically every nook and cranny of that new-look NCAA bracket.

The NCAA selection committee released its newfangled, 68-team draw Sunday and included a whopping 11 teams from the deepest conference in the nation.

Leading the way for the Big East was Pittsburgh, seeded first in the Southeast even though it didn't win a game in the conference's postseason tournament.
"It has Hall of Fame coaches, great programs with storied traditions and heritage," St. John's coach Steve Lavin said, a few minutes before his team became the 11th and final squad from the Big East to have its name announced on the selection show. "It has athletic programs that understand the value of investing the dollars that are needed to run a topflight program."

All 68 teams in the NCAA tournament are aiming for one destination - the Final Four in Houston, set for April 2. At the Las Vegas Hilton, Ohio State was made an early 7-2 favorite to cut down the nets at Reliant Stadium after the title game on April 4.

The Buckeyes (32-2) of the Big Ten were the top seed overall, with Kansas (32-2) of the Big 12 next, while defending champion Duke aced out another Big East team, Notre Dame, for the fourth and final top seed. Led by one of the country's best guards, Nolan Smith, the Blue Devils (30-4) are trying to become the first team since Florida in 2006-07 to repeat as national champions.

The tournament got a facelift this year, including the addition of three more at-large teams that will open the tournament in what the NCAA is calling the "First Four." Those games - UAB (22-9) vs. Clemson (21-11) and Southern Cal (19-14) vs. Virginia Commonwealth (23-11) - will take place Tuesday and Wednesday.

Those, along with every other game of the entire tournament, will be aired in their entirety on four networks. Before the start of the season, TBS, TNT and TruTV joined CBS in signing a new, 14-year TV contract worth $10.8 billion - the price to be paid to air the games that make up the ingredients for America's biggest office pool.
The games used to all be shown on CBS, with the network deciding which part of the country got which games. Now, it's the viewers who will make the choice.

But more teams, more TV and more money don't solve every problem or erase every whiff of controversy.

As is always the case on Selection Sunday, there were plenty of head-scratchers - a list of teams that came out of nowhere to make it and other virtual shoo-ins that didn't.

In the first category: Georgia (21-11), given a surprisingly high No. 10 seed despite losing twice to Alabama, a team that got left out. Many experts thought VCU, UAB and Clemson making the tournament at all were equally big surprises.

Among those snubbed were Virginia Tech (21-11), which has come close but missed for four straight years, and Colorado (21-13), which beat tournament teams Texas and Missouri once - and another one, Kansas State, three times.

"I was shocked," Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. "That's the only word that comes to my mind. Just absolutely shocked we weren't in the field."
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, who led the selection committee, said members investigated the resumes of the teams "more than I've ever done in my tenure on this committee."

"Colorado is a good ballclub, and there were many good ballclubs we considered," he said. "They just didn't quite get the votes to get in. That's just the reality."

Those that did make it include nearly three-quarters of the Big East - 11 of 16 teams from a conference that was formed in 1979 and gets credit for helping transform college basketball from something much smaller into a sport that produces the best single American sporting event this side of the Super Bowl.

Pitt (27-5) got the top seed in the Southeast - its second No. 1 in the last three years - despite losing to Connecticut in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. Notre Dame (26-6) was given a No. 2 seed in the Southwest after losing to Louisville in the semifinals. And Connecticut (26-9) got handsomely rewarded for winning five straight games against that tough competition to win the tournament. The Huskies, who missed the NCAAs altogether last year, are a No. 3 seed in the West and will open Thursday against No. 14 Bucknell.

"We were a good team in the league, but to be a No. 3 seed ... obviously our work this past week really paid off," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said.

The Big Ten placed seven teams, including a pair - Penn State and Michigan State - with 14 losses each. Led by freshman big man Jared Sullinger, Ohio State got rewarded with opening-week games down the road in Cleveland. The Buckeyes open against the winner between Texas-San Antonio and Alabama State, a pair of 16th-seeded teams that will also play in the First Four early in the week.

"There's a lot of great teams, a lot of great players in our conference," Buckeyes guard Jon Diebler said. "It's just unbelievable the amount of talent here, and I think the Big Ten should have a good showing in the tournament."

The Big 12 and Southeastern Conference got five teams each while the Atlantic Coast only got four - a list that included the usuals, Duke and North Carolina, along with Florida State and Clemson, but not Boston College, which finished 20-12.

"I'll put our top two against anybody. I'll put our middle pack against anybody else's middle pack," BC coach Steve Donahue said. "But, yet, there's 11 from one league and 3ý, basically, from another. I don't see the drastic difference. I'm being honest."

Of the 37 at-large teams, 30 came from the top six conferences and seven came from the so-called mid-majors - the conferences that supply the underdogs and unknowns that have turned the NCAA tournament into what it is. The seven were one fewer than last year, even though there were three more spots available.

"It was more difficult, it really was, because there was so many good teams out there," Smith said of the selection process.

-Louisville and Morehead State are 130 miles apart in Kentucky, but will travel to Denver for their second-round matchup.

-UNLV coach Lon Kruger leads the eighth-seeded Rebels against his old team, Illinois, in an 8 vs. 9 matchup in the Southwest.

-Mountain West Conference champion San Diego State (32-2) is in the same region as Michigan, meaning Aztecs coach Steve Fisher may have to face the school he left in controversy.

-Last year's national runner-up, Butler, closed out an up-and-down season by winning its conference title and was rewarded with a No. 8 seed. Butler (23-9), the team from the 4,500-student campus that came two points short of winning it all last year, will play Old Dominion in its first game, but could face Pittsburgh in the second.

The East looks like the toughest region, maybe in part because that's where four of the 11 Big East teams were sent, including 11th-seeded Marquette (20-14), the only team from the conference that had to sweat out the selection show.

The Southeast could be the most wide open. No. 2 Florida lost by 16 to Kentucky in the SEC tournament final Sunday and while No. 3 BYU may have the player with the best name - Jimmer Fredette - the Cougars have not been the same since losing leading rebounder Brandon Davies, who violated the school's honor code last month. They lost 72-54 to San Diego State in Saturday's conference title game.

This year marks the return of UCLA, Arizona and North Carolina, a trio of perennials that missed the tournament last year and led many experts to call the 2010 field one of the weakest of all time.

That tournament, however, turned out to be one of the best - filled with exciting, close games and ending with a halfcourt shot by Butler's Gordon Hayward that bounced off the glass and nicked the rim while the buzzer was sounding - denying the Bulldogs a happy ending.

But the pundits are at it again. They're pointing to five at-large teams with 14 losses (Marquette, USC, Penn State, Michigan State, Tennessee), which is only one fewer than in the combined history of the entire tournament since it was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

They're wondering how the committee could favor Georgia, UAB, VCU and the rest over the Colorados and Virginia Techs of the world.

Other surprising snubs went to St. Mary's (24-8, but lost to Gonzaga in final of the West Coast Conference tournament), Alabama (won the SEC West and beat Georgia twice) and Harvard (beat Colorado, lost to Princeton by one in the Ivy League tiebreaker game and ranked 32 in the RPI ratings that are used as a guideline.)

"There are some people on the committee who don't know if the ball's round," said ESPN analyst Jay Bilas. "These are bad decisions."

© 2011 The Associated Press.