Game of Shadows
Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
In the summer of 1998 two of baseball leading sluggers, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, embarked on a race to break Babe Ruth’s single season home run record. The nation was transfixed as Sosa went on to hit 66 home runs, and McGwire 70. Three years later, San Francisco Giants All-Star Barry Bonds surpassed McGwire by 3 home runs in the midst of what was perhaps the greatest offensive display in baseball history. Over the next three seasons, as Bonds regularly launched mammoth shots into the San Francisco Bay, baseball players across the country were hitting home runs at unprecedented rates. For years there had been rumors that perhaps some of these players owed their success…
Mark Fainaru-Wada is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He, aloing with Lance Williams, received the prestigious George Polk Award for their investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) and allegations of steroid use among elite athletes, including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.
Game of Shadows
Mark Fainaru-WadaLance Williams and his partner Mark Fainaru-Wada are reporters on the investigative team at the San Francisco Chronicle. Together, they broke a series of exclusive stories on the BALCO scandal and earned a string of national honors, including the George Polk Award, The Edgar A. Poe Award of the White House Correspondents’ Association, The Dick Schaap Excellence in Sports Journalism Award, and The Associated Press Sports Editors award for investigative reporting. Williams has written on subjects including the California cocaine trade, Oakland’s Black Panther Party, and the career of San Francisco mayor and political power-broker Willie Brown. His journalism also has been honored with the Gerald Loeb Award for financial writing; the California Associated Press’ Fairbanks Award for public service; and,…