End finally in sight for Bonds’ BALCO scandal

The BALCO scandal has finally come down to just Barry Bonds, and most will be grateful for that .

Not necessarily because they want to see Bonds behind bars, though there are undoubtedly a lot of people who do. That probably includes some in San Francisco, who no longer feel compelled to offer up excuses for Bonds now that he is out of baseball and no longer useful to their team.

Mostly, though, people are worn out to the point of being numb to the whole steroid mess. They’ve been watching it unfold from an unassuming Bay Area storefront for five years now, and would like nothing better than to have it stop interfering with their enjoyment of sports.

They may soon get their wish, though the continuing investigation of Roger Clemens could drag things into an entirely new arena. Just the other day, FBI agents were in Texas questioning people to see if they could find someone who provided steroids to the pitcher.

For now, it’s just the government vs. Bonds. Mano-a-mano sometime later this year or early next in a federal courtroom in San Francisco.

In the prosecution’s corner will be IRS intimidator Jeff Novitzki, some damming grand jury transcripts, and, of course, the cream and the clear.

Across the ring will be Bonds and a brigade of attorneys who can’t wait to start casting aspersions on both the government’s case and the people who put it together.

There’s little doubt it will be a circus. Just the sight of a cartoonish Bonds walking up the courthouse steps every day surrounded by a phalanx of expensive suits will be worth the price of admission.

What remains in doubt is how it will all turn out. And a reading of the tea leaves from Trevor Graham’s just-completed trial reveals a muddied path ahead for both sides in the final – and biggest – showdown of an investigation that began when Bonds was still clubbing home runs at a prodigious pace.

Perhaps fittingly in a sport that defines players by numbers, there are a couple of key numbers that could decide whether Bonds is eventually fitted for a prison uniform or measured for induction into the Hall of Fame.

The first – and most ominous for Bonds – is 10-0. He wouldn’t want to face a pitcher with that record, and he sure doesn’t want to face a relentless team of investigators and prosecutors who have gained convictions in all 10 previous BALCO cases.

The latest to go down was Graham, one of only two defendants to actually go to trial and one of several – including Bonds – who were charged not with using steroids but lying about them when questioned under oath. Graham, who coached former star sprinters Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, rolled the dice and lost when telephone records clearly showed he had numerous contacts with a steroid dealer he claimed not to have talked to since 1997.

While attorneys for Bonds maintained there wasn’t much similarity in either Graham’s trial or his legal strategy to their case, they were paying close attention last month when cyclist Tammy Thomas was convicted of four counts of perjury for denying she used steroids to the same grand jury that Bonds testified before.

They watched prosecutors produce medical records that showed Thomas grew a full beard and underwent dramatic voice changes that a doctor said were side effects of heavy steroid use. They had to imagine the impact of pictures that will inevitably be passed around by prosecutors in Bonds’ trial showing how much his body and head changed for the bigger during just one off-season.

Still, there is good news for the Bonds defense team, and it comes in two other numbers. One is 12, the number of jurors who will be on his jury and the same number that need to vote guilty for him to be convicted.

The other is one, because if just one juror has misgivings, Bonds could escape with a deadlocked jury.

That’s nearly what happened in the Graham case when jury foreman Frank Stapleton came close to derailing the prosecution’s best-laid plans by voting against conviction on two of the three counts. Stapleton was alone on one of the counts and joined by just one other juror on the second, but it was enough to cause a deadlock on both.

Even better for the Bonds team was that the jury foreman believed the government had a vendetta against Graham.

“I hope this verdict satisfies the Justice Department’s lust for blood and there is no retrial,” Stapleton said.

You can expect attorneys for Bonds to try to plant the same thought with his jurors when the time comes. They’ll portray Bonds as the innocent victim of overzealous prosecutors who came up with a late indictment in an attempt to close the BALCO case with the scalp of their biggest name.

Unlike the prosecution, they don’t need to prove it. All they need to do is make one juror believe it.

If they do, Bonds won’t need a home run. Because he’ll have gotten the biggest walk ever.