Asterisk: *Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment

Baseball is facing a crisis.  Our national pastime is now riddled with accusations, testing, and debates about whether or not records will need to include an asterisk.  In attorney David Ezra's new book, Asterisk, he explores the public trials of the baseball community.  Are accusations of steroid use justified?  Or do today's well-trained players, whose teams play in newly constructed ballparks, shatter records because the game has changed?

Asterisk: *Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment

In this era of “The Mitchell Report,” rampant steriod suspicion and performance-enhancing drugs, is it possible for the modern athlete to receive a fair trial – in either the court of law or court of public opinion? When questionable journalistic practices help fuel common misconceptions about a topic few know much about, a biased verdict appears to be inevitable, especially in the case seeking to prove steriod use by Major League Baseball’s all-time home run king, Barry Bonds.

Asterisk: *Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment by David Ezra (foreword by Mike Schmidt) questions the complex case against Bonds. Talk show hosts, fans and the print media largely presume Bonds to be guilty, but Ezra reveals facts in Asterisk and questions some commonly-held beliefs that will help better explain what fans should know about Bonds’ side of the case before they form an opinion on his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Ezra will answer any and all questions about the Bonds case and can present a rare opportunity for talk show hosts to ask pointed questions about Bonds with an expert in law who is one of the few – if only – questioning some elemental foundations of the case against Bonds; some question raised in Asterisk include:

¨ How fair and accurate was the actual reporting done for the book Game of Shadows by authors Mark Fainaru-Wade and Lance Williams

¨ Why are the photos supposedly proving Bonds’ unusual growth actually no evidence at all?

¨ How biased is the media against Bonds and what source of information on Bonds do fans have other than that same biased conduit of information?

¨ What unusual workout regimens did Bonds use to extend his career that typical athletes do not?

¨ Why are there inconsistencies in the case claiming when Bonds’ use supposedly began? Was it in 1998 or 2001 or never at all?

Regardless of your opinion on Bonds’ alleged steroid use, Asterisk is sure to make you reevaluate your stance on the subject and look at the whole debate with a new perspective.

About the Author: David Ezra was born in Norwalk, California, in 1963. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California, where he was an editor of the Southern California Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. He has frequently published on topics involving the intersection of law and health. Respected law reviews that have published his work include the Rutgers Law Review, the Tennessee Law Review, and the St. Louis University Public Law Review. David is a lifelong baseball fan and student of the game’s history. He lives in Huntington Beach with his wife of 12 years, Barbara.

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Asterisk

Despite setting a new career home run record in 2007, Barry Bonds has been reviled by fans and baseball insiders for using steroids. Numerous books have attacked Bonds for his assumed transgressions, but here the San Francisco Giant slugger finds a defender. Ezra argues that Bonds' abrasive personality has resulted in a classic rush to judgment. Because nobody likes Barry, everyone is upset about him displacing the revered Hank Aaron in the record book. But the only evidence of Bonds' steroid use is circumstantial. The Bad Barry camp says Bonds is bigger than he used to be. Ezra says fine, but that doesn't prove steroid use. He counters with testimony from those who observed Bonds' brutal workout and off-season training regimen. Detractors say no athlete has ever improved as much as Bonds during what should have been the twilight of his career. Ezra agrees but doesn't see the irrefutable causal relationship to steroid abuse. Until there is a "smoking needle," the argument goes, Bonds has been convicted in the court of public opinion for all the wrong reasons. Many will disagree with Ezra's conclusions, but he presents his position thoughtfully in what is a carefully researched book.-- Booklist, 1/17/08

Take Me Out To The Bookstore: Baseball Books Examine Yankees, Sox, 'Roids

By STEVEN GOODE -Courant Staff Writer

April 6, 2008

In "Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids and the Rush to Judgment" (Triumph, 214 pp, $24.95), attorney David Ezra takes Bonds' side and attempts to cast doubt on the "Game of Shadows" authors' conclusion that baseball's single-season and all-time home-run king is a steroid cheat.

Ezra argues Bonds' power numbers did not increase any more dramatically from one season to the next than did those of another great slugger — Babe Ruth — and just because the foul-mouthed, foul-tempered Bonds is easy to hate doesn't prove he cheated his way to two of baseball's most hallowed records.

He points out Bonds never failed a league-mandated, random test for drugs (although, like many others, he did test positive once for amphetamines) and that his former trainer, Greg Anderson, has steadfastly refused to testify before a grand jury about his "professional" relationship with Bonds, to the point of being jailed for contempt.

Ezra, like any good defense lawyer, manages to muddy the waters, introduce doubt and bring up interesting questions. But he doesn't answer one important one: why Anderson, who could supposedly clear Bonds on steroid use, would remain silent and in jail instead of testifying before the grand jury.

There's also contradiction as he quotes Bonds' own "leaked" testimony before the grand jury, in which he admits to unwittingly taking performance-enhancing drugs known as "the Clear" and "the Cream."

And one more little problem — why hasn't Bonds sued the daylights out of the authors of "Game of Shadows"?

"Asterisk" probably will not change the minds of those — myself included — who believe Barry Bonds cheated his way into the record books and possibly out of the Hall of Fame. But it's still a fun argument.

Here's hoping Ezra takes up the cause of Roger Clemens for his next book.

"Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment"
By Mike Stadler
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Mar. 02 2008

Maybe attorney David Ezra has outsmarted Sisyphus and found a way to get
massive boulders up and over the hill.

In any case, he has chosen a steep uphill battle in "Asterisk," in which he
tries to roll back the all-but-universally held opinion that Barry Bonds had
help from steroids these past several seasons as he humbled pitchers and home
run fences.

Having broken Mark McGwire's single-season home run record and then Hank
Aaron's career mark, Bonds has become the textbook case of how an athlete
undermines a sport by cheating. Many of the arguments used against Bonds —
changes in appearance, surges in statistics — are used against others who are
suspected of steroid use.

Bonds was indicted last year on federal charges of perjury and obstruction of
justice over questions of steroid use.

But Ezra says the evidence does not merit the suspicion.

Bonds is not, of course, the everyday hero-athlete. His arrogance and meanness
have made him reviled. Ezra wisely does not try to convince us that Bonds is a
nice guy. But he suggests that fans' hatred of Bonds the man has precipitated a
rush to judgment about Bonds the player. Ezra says that the allegations against
Bonds found in the 2006 book "Game of Shadows" do not hold up.

"Asterisk" suggests that fans should be able to respect Bonds' talent if they
consider it fairly. Before the 1998-1999 offseason, which is when Bonds
supposedly began using performance-enhancers, he was clearly one of the best
hitters to ever play the game.

Ezra recounts plenty of statistics and some awe-inspiring anecdotes to convince
a fair-minded fan that Bonds has great natural talent, an unparalleled work
ethic and a genius' understanding of baseball. Of course, many baseball fans
already grant this at the same time that we wonder: Given all that talent, why
turn to steroids?

If you are willing to accept Ezra's presentation and interpretation of the
evidence as accurate, then there is a good chance you will finish the book with
some doubts about whether Bonds really did, in fact, turn to
performance-enhancing drugs. Ezra assails everything from the motives of the
government agents working the case to the character of Bonds' former
girlfriend, a key witness, to the ideas that Bonds' size and statistics are
evidence of performance-enhancing drugs. Taken at face value, Ezra's
counterarguments are effective.

If, on the other hand, you are inclined to check and weigh facts for yourself,
you have your work cut out for you. Ezra lists his sources, but there are no
footnotes linking the facts he cites to those sources.

When he writes "there was no change in Bonds' arm size after 1995 ... (the
orthotist who makes his protective elbow gear) says he hasn't had to re-mold
Bonds' arm since 1995," you cannot judge the veracity of the source, much less
check it. In a case so notorious, every fact could be crucial, so the sources
are key.

That said, if "Game of Shadows" is the case for federal prosecution and the
standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt," then the case presented in
"Asterisk," if it holds up, raises enough questions that a jury might have to
acquit.

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