If this thing actually goes to trial, could't the lawyers for the defense depose Bonds, get him on the stand and ask him all kinds of embarrassing questions? Like, Do you take steroids? Have you ever taken steroids? Things like that. If he tells the truth, it confirms what people have known all along. If he lies it opens him up to perjury charges.
Originally Posted by Raisor
No kidding.
Wow.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
The lawyers, the jury and the people who testify are forbidden from commenting on the transcript of a grand jury investigation. Witnesses to the testimony are not. The only way the testimony was illegally obtained was if the information came from one of the aformentioned sources. Even then, it wouldn't be Bonds who would be seeking a remedy, it would be the Court.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
This is like suing the wind for blowing your roof off. Nice deflection Barry.
Cedric 3/24/08It's absolutely pathetic that people can't have an opinion from actually watching games and supplementing that with stats. If you voice an opinion that doesn't fit into a black/white box you will get completely misrepresented and basically called a tobacco chewing traditionalist...
No, it's like suing the wind for a piece of the action.
We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.
The bottom line is, it's time for the commissioner's office to launch a full scale investigation of this matter and get answers.
Now.
This is a black eye on the sport, and it's only going to get worse as the season moves forward and Bonds gets closer to Ruth and Aaron. This problem isn't going to go away, no matter how much Selig wishes it would.
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The problem is time. It took these reporters 2 years to investigate this stuff. Now all of that book is not about Bonds but a good deal of it is. If MLB is serious about doing an investigation they have to track the same leads that the reporters did. This sort of thing cannot be done in 2 weeks. That is the problem. If Bonds had 508 HRs instead of 708 there would not be so much outrage. But he is only a few HRs away from the HR total one of the most beloved figures in the history of the game. People want Bonds stopped before he gets to Ruth and if not then before he gets to Aaron. There is not time enough to complete an investigation before he gets to Ruth unless he is injured. Aaron may be safe but the threat is still there and people do not want the home run record held by someone like Barry Bonds.
MLB had better be careful what they find if they do investigate because what they find may hit closer to home than they like.
This seems like a very novel legal issue being put forth by Bonds's lawyer. If I read the article right, he is suing for the profits of any articles/book by the authors under California law because they based their story, in part, on leaked grand jury testimony.
I'm not sure if Bonds will really pull the trigger and file the suit as it sounds ridiculous. This seems to be a Bill O'Reilly situation, where a lawsuit is filed or contemplated to be filed even though reasonable minds don't think it is a good idea.
If the suit is filed, I would think that the lawyers defending it immediately file a motion to dismiss based on the fact that it is b.s. If the lawsuit proceeds to discovery, then I would think the authors would try to depose Bonds as well as other players (even though I'm not sure on what grounds).
I haven't read the book, but in an interview I heard with the authors they stated that they based most of the book on interviews and publicly available information, not just leaked grand jury testimony. Further, those that testified before a grand jury are not barred from telling someone what they testified about, so they could have interview Greg Anderson and others about the testimony.
In the end, Barry Bonds will continue to seek in the court of public opinion. He's starting to make Ty Cobb look like a nice guy.
Where we gonna go?
Yep, that's why I believe - even though it'll tick a ton of people off - baseball's best move is to just not act on it altogether, unless they find evidence that players cheated on baseball's steroid testing once they implemented it. It's also what I believe Selig's stance will be.
IIRC, the state of the game for about the first six or seven years of Landis' time as commissioner - also the first six or seven years after the Black Sox Scandal - was essentially a witch hunt to find gambling in baseball. Not surprisingly, that witch hunt extended into the past into the years before Landis ruled the game.
Finally, I believe it was shortly after the Cobb-Speaker-Wood scandal in 1926-27 that Landis came out and said he was sick and tired of investigating gambling in the game prior to the beginning of his term as commissioner. He basically stated that if you gambled in the game in 1914, for example, and had gotten away with it to that point, consider yourself free without penalty. He was focused on the happenings during his administration, the present, and most importantly, the future. Constantly digging into the past wasn't doing the game any favors in his mind.
Selig's stance will probably be similar to Landis in that regard. He's focused on the first year of steroid testing and going forward, specifically focusing on trying to ensure the game is cleaned up in the future. Like Landis, he'll leave the past alone and let historians debate it long after all who lived during the era are gone.
Landis also had one major advantage in power that Selig does not enjoy: there was no player's union in the 1920s. Landis answered to nobody but himself; Selig doesn't have anything close to that luxury.
Last edited by Cyclone792; 03-23-2006 at 08:17 PM.
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Pride goeth before a fall.
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Could they put Bonds on some sort of Investigation Pending hiatus from the game that way he would not be allowed to play until the investigation is complete?
Pete Rose has been trying to get people to understand this type of reasoning for years.
This type of lawsuit has suceeded before.
Don't know if many remember the ABC News/Food Lion case, where ABC News reporters went undercover to report on terrible food handling practices going on at the Food Lion. Food Lion sued ABC for tresspassing and fraud in regard to being hired as meat workers, not about anything in regard to the report about selling off nasty meat. And they won a huge verdict. Something to think about anyway.
See Chiquita, Enquirer, Lindner.
But grand juries are a more specific creature. Doesn't mean you can't try to sue, though.
Barry Bonds meet Pete Rose, your twin brother from a different mother.
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