{"id":885,"date":"2006-03-25T10:11:25","date_gmt":"2006-03-25T15:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-can-see-by-what-you-carry-that-you-come-from-barrytown\/"},"modified":"2006-03-25T10:41:46","modified_gmt":"2006-03-25T15:41:46","slug":"i-can-see-by-what-you-carry-that-you-come-from-barrytown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/i-can-see-by-what-you-carry-that-you-come-from-barrytown","title":{"rendered":"I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many baseball fans not from the SF area, I assume Barry Bonds has been using steroids for years. I’ve always had a chuckle over the “it wasn’t illegal in baseball at the time” argument about much steroid abuse, because most of these steroids were illegal to possess in the U.S.<\/em> I mean, my workplace doesn’t explicitly say that cocaine is off-limits, but possession of it would still be a crime.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I come from the Turk Wendell school of analysis<\/a> on this issue: the best evidence is provided by our eyes. Of course<\/em> Bonds, McGwire and Sosa were on the juice; look at them!<\/em> And it’s pretty obvious from the stat-anomalies that Bret Boone and Brady Anderson were on something<\/em> a few years back (as well as a pack of other players).<\/p>\n

But my question about the Bonds case is a little different. Yesterday, he tried to sue to block the writers of Game of Shadows<\/a> from seeing any profits from the book, on the grounds that they were using illegally obtained grand jury transcripts as part of their source material. A judge shot down the motion in short order<\/a>, but it brought up the same issue that I wondered about when Jason Giambi’s testimony was leaked: isn’t it, um, like felony-level illegal<\/em> to leak grand jury testimony?<\/p>\n

Because Giambi thought he was protected by the law during the grand jury deposition, he spoke honestly about his steroid abuse<\/a> and history with the BALCO group that was under investigation. He was given immunity from prosecution (for perjury, or likely contempt) in exchange for his cooperation. However, if Giambi had to choose between<\/p>\n

a) immunity, but having his testimony leaked to the press;<\/p>\n

b) pleading the fifth, but running the risk of being charged in the case<\/p>\n

it doesn’t look like he had much of a choice at all. It’s pretty obvious he didn’t want this stuff to be made public, so it seems his best bet might have been doing what Bonds seems to have done; taking immunity, then lying like a rug in front of the grand jury.<\/p>\n

(Note: I’m not saying that the writers, their publisher or their newspaper should be charged with anything; they have first amendment protection to <\/em>publish secret grand jury testimony, if they receive it. What’s illegal (and seemingly uninvestigated) is the act of <\/em>leaking that testimony.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many baseball fans not from the SF area, I assume Barry Bonds has been using steroids for years. I’ve always had a chuckle over the “it wasn’t illegal in baseball at the time” argument about much steroid abuse, because most of these steroids were illegal to possess in the U.S. I mean, my workplace … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-eh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":516,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tmi","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":0},"title":"TMI?","author":"Gil","date":"March 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Barry Bonds, rambling about steroid abuse without ever saying, \"No, I don't use steroids\": Bonds even brought up another alleged side affect of using steroids, a reduction in size of genitalia.\"They say it makes your testicles shrink,'' he said. \"I can tell you my testicles are the same size. They\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":723,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/size-and-speed","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":1},"title":"Size and Speed","author":"Gil","date":"November 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"It's nice to see that baseball's trying to get some illegal substances banned, with the new steroid penalties. Sure, it was fun to see mega-juiced players belt cartoon-level home runs for the past decade or so, and older players show unprecedented power, endurance and recovery time, but the carnival had\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":501,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/look-kids-its-the-culture-of-irresponsibility","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":2},"title":"Look, kids! It’s the culture of irresponsibility!","author":"Gil","date":"March 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, the U.S. Congress held hearings about the use of steroids in Major League Baseball. It takes some work, bending my brain around that concept. While the House and Senate are debating over the federal budget and whether to deny the White House's proposed cuts to Medicare funding, our duly\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3218,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/today-i-am-the-greatest","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":3},"title":"Today, I am the greatest!","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Later today, the MLB 2009 Hall of Fame class will be announced, and Rickey Henderson will likely have the most votes of anyone in nearly 10 years. I'm sure pre-steroid Barry Bonds would beg to differ, but I think Rickey's the greatest player I've ever seen. I'd love to see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sports"","block_context":{"text":"Sports","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1397,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-big-non-story","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":4},"title":"The Big Non-Story","author":"Gil","date":"March 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Pro wrestlers? On steroids and HGH? It can't be! Okay. Maybe it can. . .","rel":"","context":"In "Pharmaceuticals"","block_context":{"text":"Pharmaceuticals","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business\/pharmaceuticals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5462,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/movie-review-tuesday-steroids-ivies-and-comics","url_meta":{"origin":885,"position":5},"title":"Movie Review Tuesday: Steroids, Ivies and Comics","author":"Gil","date":"July 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Time for another installment of movie reviews! All documentaries this week! Bigger, Faster, Stronger: This is a documentary about the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes in America (well, North America, since Ben Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1988 Olympics disqualification gets some play). The documentarian, Chris Bell, is a young man whose brothers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comic books & strips"","block_context":{"text":"Comic books & strips","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}