King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Report: Bonds failed amphetamine test, blamed teammate. Now's your chance, Giants: Cut him loose! Plus: BCS ratings.

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Jan. 11, 2007 | The New York Daily News reported Thursday that Barry Bonds tested positive for amphetamines last season, then initially blamed the positive test on a teammate.

Just when you thought Barry Bonds couldn't get any more repulsive.

Though speed has been the drug of choice in major league baseball for decades, testing for it was introduced only last season. Unlike the more severe penalties for failing a steroid test, where a first positive test brings a 50-game suspension, players who test positive for amphetamines for the first time aren't suspended or publicly identified.

Unless their names leak out, which, given the events in baseball over the past three years, appears inevitable. And if you're wondering why steroids are punished more severely than amphetamines, it's because Congress hasn't done any grandstanding about amphetamines in baseball, though there's no more evidence and probably less that steroids enhance performance more than speed does.

Here's what happened, according to the Daily News, which cited "several sources":

Bonds tested positive for amphetamines last season, and when told of the result by the union said he'd taken something from the locker of teammate Mark Sweeney. Bonds was referred to treatment and counseling and became subject to monthly drug tests for six months.

Sweeney first heard about the situation when union official Gene Orza told him that he shouldn't be sharing any substances with other players, and that if he had anything troublesome in his locker he should remove it. Sweeney responded that there was nothing to remove. His agent, Barry Axelrod, told the Daily News that Sweeney had given nothing to Bonds, nor did he have anything illegal to give Bonds. No one else involved was talking for attribution.

The Daily News' sources said Sweeney later confronted Bonds, who told Sweeney that Orza had misunderstood him and Bonds hadn't implicated Sweeney.

And here's my favorite part of the whole thing. Orza's only comment to the Daily News was about Bonds' alleged implication of Sweeney. "I can say unequivocally in my 22 years I've known Barry Bonds he has never blamed anyone for anything," Orza said.

What's in Gene Orza's coffee? Barry Bonds has never failed to publicly blame others, usually the media, for any problem he has ever had. Not once. It's entirely possible that Bonds didn't implicate Sweeney. But it would also be entirely in keeping with the rest of his career if he did.

For Bonds' team, the San Francisco Giants, this is a preview of what the 2007 season will be like. Controversy, ugliness, accusations, recriminations and everything, everything, about Barry Bonds, all the time.

Next page: Here's your chance, Giants. Get out now! Plus: BCS ratings. And: A correction