Will Barry Bonds Walk Away From Charges In Steroid Case?

[...] federal appeals court judges at a hearing last month signaled that they’re likely to overturn his conviction for obstruction of justice, which was based on his 2003 grand jury testimony. [...] unlike most of the baseball stars and lesser lights who have been caught trying to enhance their skills and endurance through chemistry, Bonds has never acknowledged it publicly, or paid any penalty. The most irrefutable evidence, and the only drug test disclosed to the jury at Bonds’ 2011 perjury trial, was the test conducted by Major League Baseball in 2003, when it started screening players for steroids. Bonds initially tested negative, and it was only years later that retests showed positive samples — consisting, according to federal prosecutors, of a previously undetectable steroid cream distributed by BALCO, and another drug that some users took to hide steroids in their system. [...] the jury never heard about those tests because the only person who could connect them to Bonds — Greg Anderson, his personal trainer and longtime friend — refused to testify, and instead spent more than a year in prison for contempt of court. Without his testimony, prosecutors were also unable to contradict Bonds’ statements to the grand jury that Anderson had told him the drugs he was getting were flaxseed oil and arthritis balm. The jury heard what seemed to be strong evidence of surreptitious drug use: a clandestine 2003 tape recording in which Anderson discussed injections and how to conceal them with Bonds’ former business manager, Steve Hoskins, who at one point asked him why he didn’t always inject “Barry” in the same place.