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Woes of Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds traced back to BALCO probe
Paul Elias, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 2009-02-12 19:57:00 
SAN FRANCISCO - Convicted steroids dealer Victor Conte has been out of prison and back in business - selling legal supplements - for close to three years now.
But fallout from the sports doping ring he created at BALCO continues to roil Major League Baseball and now has ensnared New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, who has admitted using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03.
Conte remains one of the public faces of baseball's steroid era - a role he says is undeserved.
"This didn't all start with this bad guy coming along," Conte said in an interview this week.
Instead, he blamed baseball commissioner Bud Selig and players union leaders Donald Fehr and Gene Orza with purposely ignoring a doping problem until the BALCO scrutiny turned public attention their way.
"We are not going to dignify Mr. Conte's comments with a response," MLB spokesman Rich Levin said. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."
Union officials didn't return telephone calls.
"These guys have harboured and promoted this culture by not drug testing," Conte said. "And when they did institute drug testing, it was inept."
Rodriguez's admission came after Sports Illustrated reported on its website that he was among 104 names on a list of players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, when testing was intended to determine the extent of steroid use in baseball.
The results weren't subject to discipline and were supposed to remain anonymous, but were seized by the government in 2004. Federal agents had a search warrant for the testing records of 10 players involved with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. When they saw the spreadsheet with the list of names, agents obtained additional search warrants, copied the entire computer directory and took the records of all the players.
It is unclear if the names of the remaining players will become public. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is considering whether to allow the government to retain the names. The players' union argues that the test results were supposed to be destroyed, were wrongfully seized and should never see the light of day.
Conte complained that the federal government's investigation of doping in sport has expanded far beyond his core constituency - elite track athletes. Few of his clients were baseball players, he said, and Rodriguez was not one of them.
Conte's specialty was selling track athletes designer drugs that would evade detection - even at the Olympics. Major leaguers had little need for those services, Conte said, because baseball did not start testing players until 2003.
"They didn't need me. They didn't come to me," he said.
But documents unsealed this week show that government investigators who sorted through BALCO's trash in 2002 and 2003 found FedEx receipts between Barry Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, who pleaded guilty to dealing steroids, and players Gary Sheffield, Armando Rios, Jeremy Giambi, Benito Santiago and Marvin Benard. In addition, Jason Giambi and Randy Velarde also have been connected to BALCO through Anderson.
And then there's Bonds.
Anderson's most famous client has pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. His trial is scheduled for March 2.
But fallout from the sports doping ring he created at BALCO continues to roil Major League Baseball and now has ensnared New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez, who has admitted using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03.
Conte remains one of the public faces of baseball's steroid era - a role he says is undeserved.
"This didn't all start with this bad guy coming along," Conte said in an interview this week.
Instead, he blamed baseball commissioner Bud Selig and players union leaders Donald Fehr and Gene Orza with purposely ignoring a doping problem until the BALCO scrutiny turned public attention their way.
"We are not going to dignify Mr. Conte's comments with a response," MLB spokesman Rich Levin said. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."
Union officials didn't return telephone calls.
"These guys have harboured and promoted this culture by not drug testing," Conte said. "And when they did institute drug testing, it was inept."
Rodriguez's admission came after Sports Illustrated reported on its website that he was among 104 names on a list of players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, when testing was intended to determine the extent of steroid use in baseball.
The results weren't subject to discipline and were supposed to remain anonymous, but were seized by the government in 2004. Federal agents had a search warrant for the testing records of 10 players involved with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. When they saw the spreadsheet with the list of names, agents obtained additional search warrants, copied the entire computer directory and took the records of all the players.
It is unclear if the names of the remaining players will become public. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is considering whether to allow the government to retain the names. The players' union argues that the test results were supposed to be destroyed, were wrongfully seized and should never see the light of day.
Conte complained that the federal government's investigation of doping in sport has expanded far beyond his core constituency - elite track athletes. Few of his clients were baseball players, he said, and Rodriguez was not one of them.
Conte's specialty was selling track athletes designer drugs that would evade detection - even at the Olympics. Major leaguers had little need for those services, Conte said, because baseball did not start testing players until 2003.
"They didn't need me. They didn't come to me," he said.
But documents unsealed this week show that government investigators who sorted through BALCO's trash in 2002 and 2003 found FedEx receipts between Barry Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, who pleaded guilty to dealing steroids, and players Gary Sheffield, Armando Rios, Jeremy Giambi, Benito Santiago and Marvin Benard. In addition, Jason Giambi and Randy Velarde also have been connected to BALCO through Anderson.
And then there's Bonds.
Anderson's most famous client has pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. His trial is scheduled for March 2.
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