March 23, 2011, 5:19 pm
Steve Hoskins says Barry Bonds first asked him about steroids in 1999. (AP Photo)
SAN FRANCISCO -- A childhood friend of Barry Bonds said he was so concerned about Bonds' use of anabolic steroids that he hoped the star player's father would help him with an intervention -- and that's why he secretly taped a conversation about steroids he had with Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, in 2003.
"I was hoping Bobby would be the one to stop them from doing it," Steve Hoskins said Wednesday in U.S. District Court. Bonds, baseball's all-time home run king, is accused of lying to a grand jury when he said he had never knowingly used steroids.
Portions of Hoskins' recording were played for the jury. At one point Anderson is heard discussing what prosecutors allege are designer steroids he supplied to Bonds. Says Anderson: "But the whole thing is ... everything that I've been doing at this point, it's all undetectable."
Hoskins, who became a business partner of Bonds until they parted ways in March 2003, spent most of Wednesday on the witness stand describing his relationship with Bonds and his knowledge of his friend's steroid use. Bonds' lead attorney, Allen Ruby, attempted to paint Hoskins as angry when Bonds decided to cut him off, accusing Hoskins of forging his name on memorabilia.
Under cross examination, Hoskins said he did sign Bonds' name on occasion, but only with Bonds' permission, and denied he was planning to extort Bonds with the recording.
Under questioning from federal prosecutor Matthew Parrella, Hoskins said he became aware of Bonds' interest in steroids in 1999 when he asked Hoskins to seek out information about them from Dr. Arthur Ting, an orthopedic surgeon who worked with both the San Francisco Giants and San Francisco 49ers.
"He (Bonds) wanted to find out what a specific steroid was, and he wanted me to find out what the effects were," Hoskins said. "He instructed me to go to Dr. Ting and find out what it was."
Hoskins said Ting gave him photocopies of information he got from medical texts, which he took to Bonds in the Giants clubhouse. He said he witnessed Bonds and Anderson go into a bedroom in spring training in 2000 and that he saw Anderson leave the room with a syringe in his hand.
Hoskins said he recalled that Bonds "complained that his butt was sore from the injections." He testified that he saw the scene repeated at each spring training over the next two three years.
The result of Bonds' alleged use of steroids was an increase in his shoe size and weight, Hoskins said. "He got heavier and bigger," he said.
Hoskins said he first told Bonds' father of his concern in 2000, but when Bobby Bonds approached his son and Anderson about the subject, they both denied it. So Hoskins said the only way he could prove it to Bobby was to record a conversation with Anderson.
But he never got the chance to play the recording. Bobby Bonds had become ill and died of lung cancer and a brain tumor in August 2003 at age 57.
"I did not play the tape for Bobby Bonds," Hoskins said. "He was very ill. That was the last thing on my mind."
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Former Friend Paints Bonds As Steroid User
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