Bulking up before the fall

Barry Bonds' testicles have not shrunk and his hat size has not grown. A clever line from San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Henry Schulman in March, 2005, but it hardly describes the devastation that anabolic steroids and its offspring have caused throughout major-league sports.
However, 'roids did not have its beginning or, perhaps, it's ending within the confines of Major League Baseball.
While Bonds, seemingly on permanent disability these days with leg problems, never has admitted to steroid use, he has rationalized it.
"You're talking about something that wasn't even illegal at the time," Bonds was quoted by Schulman was quoted as saying. "All this stuff about supplements, protein shakes. whatever. Man, it's not like this is the Olympics. We don't train four years for, like, a 10-second (event). We go 162 games. You've got to come back day after day after day. We're entertainers. If I can't go out there and somebody pays $60 for a ticket, and I'm not in the lineup, who's getting cheated? Not me. There are far worse things like cocaine, heroin and those types of things."
If Bonds is in denial, his date from 1994 to 2003, Kimberley Bell, 35, a graphic artist from San Jose told a jury that in 2000, the left fielder confided that he'd began using 'roids. Bell spilled those kind of "beans" because she was given full immunity from prosecution.
In January 2005, former All-Pro centre Oakland Raider Barret Robbins went "nuts."
It wasn't the first time, for Robbins suffered a mental breakdown and went AWOL just before the 2003 Super Bowl game. There was a Tijuana drinking binge and talk of suicide.
In 2005, Robbins, supposedly the victim of bipolar disorder and alcoholism, was shot twice during a violent struggle with Miami cops. He was found of all places, in a women's restroom in South Beach.
One of his teammates, Teyo Johnson, said: "You talk to anyone who knows Barret really will tell you he's a great guy and very generous person with a huge heart. Everyone loves Barret. He's never mean to anybody."
Maybe so, but beyond bipolar disorder and alcoholism, there certainly had been a question about anabolic steroids for he had been ordered to appear before those seeking in the BALCO case.
In the past few weeks, MLB CommissionerBud Selig has hauled out names to be banished from the Bigs, but mainly minor-leaguers for suspected 'roids abuse. This came on the heels of Jose Canseco's expose' plus Jason Giambi's demise and the latest physical appearance of retired superstar Mark McGwire.
However, while the 'roids of ruin is so prevalent today and accompanied by screaming headlines in newspapers and television, it does have a beginning, stretching as far back as the 1970s, probably to the early 1960s.
While there were pill poppers, steroids now come disguised even in creams.
In Kaye Corbett's 'Counterfeit Hero -- The 'Roids of Ruin' (Summer, 2005), he relates the use of 'roids within professional wrestling and, in particularly, its use swirling around Vincent McMahon, the present owner of the billionaire empire -- the World Wrestling Federation (now known as the WWE) and its then superhero, Hulk Hogan (aka Terry Bollea).
Vince McMahon was raised in the business, for his father, Vincent J., once ruled wrestling in the northeastern U.S. from New York City's Madison Square Garden. His granddaddy, Jess, was a boxing matchmaker for the legendary Tex Rickard and later worked as a wrestling promoter in the Big Apple and Philadelphia.
In the 1950s, the 30 or so wrestling "warlords" were confronted by the novelty of TV and McMahon Sr. was one of the few who learned to cope with the saturation by employing a simple formula: Never show the TV watcher the match he really wants to see. Then came the insertion of hyping upcoming local wrestling on these tapes.
Vincent K., even at a young age, deplored the fact that North America was cut up into little pieces by the promoters, such as his father. In 1982, he bought out his father's stock in the WWWF (later shortened to WWF), which had been founded in 1963 and began to mesh rock n' roll with rasslin'.
A domineering wheeler-dealer, he threw tons of money to acquire local TV rights for the WWF's brand of story lines and characters accompanied by rock 'n roll music.
The assimilation of 'rasslin into the American mainstream, nevertheless, wasn't complete until the introduction of a number of "cartoon" superheroes.
He needed a superhero; not just any superhero, but the ultimate hero of the universe.
His choice became obvious: A tanned blond muscleman named Terry Bollea. Under Young Vince's tutelage, Bollea would become the most recognized hero -- Hulk Hogan.
Bollea had, indeed, been transformed into the Hulk, in and out of the ring, however, there were whispers in the business, that he wasn't as pure as the new Caesar of pro wrestling had projected.
In June 1991, Dr. George Zahorian III, a Harrisburg, Pa. urologist, who happened to be a WWF ringside doctor, confessed in U.S. federal court that he had supplied steroids, now illegal to Vince, and such wrestlers as Roddy Piper, Dan Spivey, Rick Martel, Brian Blair, and shockingly, Terry Bollea, er, Hulk Hogan.
On Tuesday, November 23, 1993, McMahon had a smile of poured concrete as he left the federal courthouse in Uniondale, N.Y. He had been body slammed by U.S. District Court Judge Jacob Mishler, after pleading innocent to federal charges accusing him of peddling muscle-building steroids to his WWF wrestlers.
The setting for the sensational trial, involving those big bruisers with funny hairstyles and cuts and scars on them, as Bollea had once described them, would, undoubtedly, occupy the attention of the court "junkies" during the summer of '94.
However, this was before O.J. and A.J. roared off in a Ford Bronco.
Suddenly, the TV cameras and newspaper reporters forgot about the Long Island case.
Most of them missed a trial, which only McMahon could have produced, and it revealed a world of manipulators and also liars, who had as the great champion from the past, Lou Thesz, stated "raped wrestling."
While McMahon was the target of the government case brought by assistant U.S. attorney Sean O'Shea, Hulk Hogan was the showcase witness, although he had received immunity, except for perjury before the trial.
According to Dave Meltzer, editor of the respected Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Bollea, wearing cowboy boots with his hair carefully combed and hanging down to his shoulders of the black suit he wore with a red tie, Hulk showed nervousness early in his testimony. But then settled down after the so-called "bombshell" was denotated early, with Bollea admitting he'd taken steroids since mid-1976, ending somewhere around 1989.
When asked about specific drugs he had taken, Bollea admitted they included dianabol, anavar, winstrol, testosterone, and decadurabolin with "deca" his obvious drug of choice.
In a dramatic turning point, the Hulkster was almost in tears when he admitted carrying steroids with him on the road. He added he'd used steroids to heal injuries because of the tough schedule and "because I was trying to get big, trying to gain weight."
After trying to establish that Bollea had quit taking steroids in 1989, or "a little after," one of McMahon's lawyers, Laura Brevetti, pried into his personal life, particularly, about his wife Linda's pregnancy.
In 1989, Bollea and his wife decided he would wind down his steroid use because they wanted to have a second child, Nicholas, who was born in July 1990. He admitted to the court that when his wife got pregnant, he was still on the stuff, causing a major family argument.
On Friday, July 22. 1994, Vince McMahon was found not guilty of any charges as was his holding company, Titan Sports.
Meanwhile, Hulk Hogan had left the building to resume his careers as an entertainer and actor. Finally, his years of denial and other accusations from fellow wrestlers had been voiced in court.
And now you know ... the rest of the story.