SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' steroid use was so "out of hand" that his former business manager made a secret recording in the Giants' clubhouse as part of a campaign to dissuade the ballplayer from using banned drugs, the ex-employee testified Wednesday.
Steve Hoskins was Bonds' boyhood friend and his business manager until a bitter breakup in 2003. That year, he testified, he recorded weight trainer Greg Anderson describing the array of steroids that he was allegedly providing to the Giants left fielder.
Hoskins, the government's second witness in Bonds' trial on perjury charges, said he had spent years trying to get Bonds off steroids.
He said he made the tape for Bobby Bonds, a former Giants outfielder and Bonds' father, as part of that effort.
"I was hoping Bobby would be the one who would stop him from doing it," Hoskins said.
But Bobby Bonds died of cancer in August 2003 before Hoskins could play the recording for him, Hoskins said. He later turned over the recording to federal agents.
No revenge
During three hours of cross-examination in federal court in San Francisco, Hoskins insisted he had made the recording out of concern for Bonds' health - and not, as defense lawyer Allen Ruby contended, to avenge his firing.
After firing Hoskins, Bonds complained to the FBI that his ex-business manager had been forging the ballplayer's name on memorabilia and selling it, the defense lawyer said. Ruby also charged that the government had dropped a fraud investigation against Hoskins in exchange for his testimony about Bonds and steroids.
Hoskins, a slender man who spoke softly in court, said the government had cut him no deals. He said his motives were pure.
"Barry's a very good friend, a very good person and one of the best baseball players there's ever going to be," he said.
'It was bad for him'
"That was one reason (starting) in 1999 to 2000 I was trying to stop him from taking steroids - because I thought it was bad for him," Hoskins said.
"In 2003 I was even more concerned because it seemed to be getting out of hand," Hoskins said of Bonds' alleged steroid use. "I talked to people about it. I spoke to Barry. I spoke to Greg about it."
Bonds, 46, occasionally jotted notes as his onetime friend testified. The two men rarely made eye contact.
Baseball's all-time home-run leader, who played his last game in 2007, is charged with five felonies for allegedly lying to the federal grand jury that investigated steroid dealing at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame.
In that 2003 testimony, Bonds said he had never knowingly used banned drugs. The government says Bonds was using designer steroids from BALCO, many of them provided by Anderson. The trainer has been imprisoned three times, most recently on Tuesday, for refusing to cooperate with the government's probe.
Clubhouse tape
Portions of the clubhouse recording - loud, and with distorted sound and background noise - were played for the jury after Hoskins described making it, near Bonds' locker early in the 2003 season. Bonds was not present, Hoskins said.
On the recording, Hoskins and Anderson can be heard discussing "when Barry's taking those shots," as Hoskins puts it.
Then Anderson boasts that he is providing Bonds with undetectable steroids that will ensure he will pass baseball's urine tests for steroids.
"The whole thing is, everything that I've been doing at this point, it's all undetectable," Anderson says.
"See, the stuff that I have ... we created it. And you can't, you can't buy it anywhere. You can't get it anywhere else. But, you can take it the day of and pee."
"Isn't that the same s-- that Marion Jones and them were using?" Hoskins asks, referring to the sprinter who later forfeited her Olympic medals after admitting she had used steroids.
"Yeah, same stuff, the same stuff that worked at the Olympics," Anderson replies.
The Chronicle first reported on the recording's contents in 2005.
Friends growing up
Hoskins, son of the late San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Bob Hoskins, said he grew up with Bonds on the Peninsula. They reconnected about 1993, after Bonds left the Pittsburgh Pirates and signed with the Giants.
Over the years, Hoskins said, he handled many tasks for Bonds, including sales of autographed sports memorabilia.
Hoskins said Bonds kept as much as $100,000 cash in a safe in Hoskins' business office in San Carlos, drawing on it when he needed money. By his account, Bonds would sometimes instruct the business manager to make cash payouts to two women - Kimberly Bell, Bonds' longtime girlfriend, and Piret Aava, an Estonian model then living in New York.
Bonds also told him to make cash payments to Anderson, Hoskins said.
Asked about steroid
Hoskins said that in 1999, Bonds confided he was using steroids. The ballplayer told his business manager to consult sports orthopedist Dr. Arthur Ting about the side effects of an injectable steroid called Winstrol, Hoskins said.
Athletes who use the steroid, which is derived from testosterone, are typically seeking to build up muscle mass while shedding fat. Winstrol is banned by many sporting bodies, and sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal in the 100-meter dash in the 1988 Olympics after testing positive for the drug.
Hoskins gave Bonds printouts of medical literature he got from Ting, but Bonds kept using, he said.
In 2002, by the batting cage at what was then called Pacific Bell Park, Hoskins said Bonds began complaining that Anderson had refused to give him a steroid injection.
"Barry just said, if Greg wouldn't give him the shot he'd give it to himself," Hoskins said.
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