Book: Bonds A Heavy Steroids User

Reporters Say Basball Slugger Used Drugs For At Least 5 Seasons

(CBS/AP)  Barry Bonds used a vast array of performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone, for at least five seasons beginning in 1998, according to a book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters.

An excerpt from "Game of Shadows," which details the San Francisco slugger's extensive doping program, appears in the March 13 issue of Sports Illustrated.

"I won't even look at it. For what? There's no need to," Bonds said Tuesday at Giants camp in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Giants said Bonds would not comment any further.

Bonds, who testified before a California federal grand jury looking into steroid use by top athletes, repeatedly has denied using performance-enhancing drugs. Phone messages left by The Associated Press seeking comment from his attorney and publicist were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Baseball did not ban performance-enhancing drugs until after the 2002 season.

Authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, who led the newspaper's coverage of the BALCO scandal, recount in remarkable detail the specifics of Bonds' drug regimen, which they write started in 1998 with injections of Winstrol, a powerful steroid also linked to Rafael Palmeiro.

In the four months following the '98 season, the authors claim, Bonds packed on 15 pounds of rock-hard muscle by injecting or ingesting a raft of performance enhancers —- from human growth hormone to designer drugs, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports.

According to the book, Bonds was using two undetectable designer steroids, informally known as the cream and the clear, plus insulin, human growth hormone and other performance enhancers by 2001, when he hit 73 home runs for the Giants to break Mark McGwire's single-season record of 70 set in 1998.

At the age when most players break down, Bonds broke out, cracking 37 percent of his home runs after the age of 35, Keteyian reported.

In fact, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bonds decided to use performance-enhancing substances after watching McGwire – whom the excerpt says he suspected was "a juicer" – gain national acclaim for eclipsing Roger Maris' storied single-season record.

"He knew he was better than Mark McGwire," co-author Williams said on the CBS Evening News. "It offended him when people said Mark McGwire might be the greatest player who ever lived."

As the Chronicle reports, an excerpt of the book also says Bonds "learned how to inject himself" and describes one conversation with Greg Anderson, his trainer, in which Bonds says of starting another drug cycle, "I'll do it myself."

"It was a decision he made to do it, it wasn't something that was foisted on him," Williams said. "This is a prideful athlete with a controlling personality. There's no way he wasn't running this."