Craig, why weren’t the lawyers asking Bonds the questions during his grand jury testimony more Mason-esqe. There was a ton of inconsistencies from page to page of his testimony.

For instance, the lawyers asked Bonds about the regimen schedule they had in evidence, and whether or not Anderson gave him the cream, clear, blood test, whatever during the months of February or March, and Bonds was curt in his denial, explaining that he was in Spring Training, he even used the word “impossible” because “I wasn’t even here”, meaning he was in ST (pg 47 and again on pg70). But a couple of pages later, he gives testimony that Anderson would fly to ST every other weekend (pg 63)…yet there was no “gotcha” moment, or even an attempt to have Bonds clarify his prior statements.

One would think that if the Feds were just going after BALCO, and not witchhunting after Bonds, that they might have alerted Bonds to this desprepency in his testimony right then and there, however if they were trying to “get him”, allowing him to contradict himself and keep him talking, would be a smart way to go. Either way, these lawyers look inept.

I think it’s clear from the testimony of the Giambi brothers and Bernard at this trial that they very well knew they were getting steroids and PEDs from Anderson. They may not have known the exact name of the steroid, but they knew it was a steroid — or HGH — and a PED. An athlete not knowing the exact pharmaceutical name won’t work against the government’s case. It’s not as if the jury is going to believe the laughable tale that anyone thought it was flaxseed oil.

From what I’ve read, the government so far has made a strong case in incriminating Bonds.

I think the questioning reflected this. It wasn’t about getting evidence. It was about making a high profile investigation into a higher profile investigation.

*senior year of college my apt was robbed. They found the guy because he gave one of my roommates’ cellphones to his gf. the girl lived with her grandmother, who found the phone and wondered how the girl got it. Went through the phone, saw an ID for “mom” and called it. Then called the police. Go go genius thiefs.

More commonly, the prosecutor would go on for a while, saying “Ok, so in September 2002, you say that you were blah blah blah …” and Bonds would say “No.” And then he’d say “Wait, did you say 2002?” and a dispute would erupt about the date, and eventually Bonds would give an answer. And I’d say that 50 percent of the time it was not at all clear that he either knew what he was answering or the prosecutor knew exactly what he was asking.

Other times Bonds would evade — and didn’t look good doing it — but the prosecutor wouldn’t focus him. “Did Greg Anderson give you injections in the Giants locker room in August 2001?” Answer: “well, we were at the ballpark, you know and …” followed by a lot of rambling by Bonds and, sometimes, but not always, an answer.

That’s not all of it — I am prone to overstating it — but there are very few clear questions and clear answer exchanges. Sometimes Bonds did come off like a liar, such as when he was asked about syringes, but if I were the prosecutor I’d be worried about the jury being bored nor not catching the lies as they happen. I assume there will be clever use of highlighted text and stuff for this.

At least nothing that sounds like it. They will hear confusing, multi-part rambling questions premised on scientific terms, followed by a mostly confused-sounding and often rambling Barry Bonds.

Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but you reference this a lot. What do you mean? What scientific questions did they ask Bonds and what were his mumbling responses?