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20 reviews for:
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams
3.78 AVERAGE
20 reviews for:
Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports
Mark Fainaru-Wada, Lance Williams
3.78 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
informative
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
The main thing I got out of this book: Victor Conte is a scumbag.
His moustache makes him comically bad.
He's too good to be true.
How did Victor Conte, a massive fuckup with no ties to medicine in the first play really, orchestrate all this is beyond me.
It's an interesting read.
His moustache makes him comically bad.
He's too good to be true.
How did Victor Conte, a massive fuckup with no ties to medicine in the first play really, orchestrate all this is beyond me.
It's an interesting read.
A cinematic cast of con-men, faux-scientists, and world record-holding athletes, chasing money, fame, and revenge. The authors shoot for a morality play, but the plot is really farce. Hard to say here who are the heroes and who are the villains, at least as presented. Probably four stars if you don't already know the story.
A great account of the BALCO sports scandal, with a specific focus on Barry Bonds, MLB and track and field. There are few heroes in this story, even though there is much space given to the unraveling of the scandal and those who “caught” the dopers.
Bonds is arguably the main figure here and he does not look well under the lights. He claims righteousness and inveighs against a media he sees as out to get a black guy, but much of the anger is self-generated. He works incredibly hard, but that drive is not turned off around other people and manifests itself in emotional abuse towards his girlfriend. And, of course, he juiced and he lied about it. If you wanted a fuller story of how steroids insidiously entered MLB and track, you won’t get it here, but you’ll get the broad strokes. The Bonds Show, however, is what people wanted in 2006, and it’s what they/you got.
BALCO’s inter-workings parallel the Bonds story, with the key figure given center stage. It’s exactly what Victor Conte wanted: a shameless showman, he never really tried to develop any sort of veneer to mask the true goal of dealing roids. It’s quite surprising it didn’t unravel sooner, given Conte’s braggadocio and semi-public fights with track and field trainers. Not even being caught could stop Conte’s inveterate need to flap his gums.
The second half turns to the investigation by the feds and USADA. This is Game of Shadows at its most page-turny. Dumpster diving, mailed syringes, a rush to create a testing system that can better detect drugs… it’s all fascinating. Congress even rears its ugly head by the end. Unfortunately you can’t help but feel the story is incomplete, even with the afterword, since the Mitchell Report did not release until 2007. But the book is worth its salt. Mostly enlightening, somewhat insider gossip, just not willing to wait a bit longer because of the very explosive findings they had on Bonds.
Bonds is arguably the main figure here and he does not look well under the lights. He claims righteousness and inveighs against a media he sees as out to get a black guy, but much of the anger is self-generated. He works incredibly hard, but that drive is not turned off around other people and manifests itself in emotional abuse towards his girlfriend. And, of course, he juiced and he lied about it. If you wanted a fuller story of how steroids insidiously entered MLB and track, you won’t get it here, but you’ll get the broad strokes. The Bonds Show, however, is what people wanted in 2006, and it’s what they/you got.
BALCO’s inter-workings parallel the Bonds story, with the key figure given center stage. It’s exactly what Victor Conte wanted: a shameless showman, he never really tried to develop any sort of veneer to mask the true goal of dealing roids. It’s quite surprising it didn’t unravel sooner, given Conte’s braggadocio and semi-public fights with track and field trainers. Not even being caught could stop Conte’s inveterate need to flap his gums.
The second half turns to the investigation by the feds and USADA. This is Game of Shadows at its most page-turny. Dumpster diving, mailed syringes, a rush to create a testing system that can better detect drugs… it’s all fascinating. Congress even rears its ugly head by the end. Unfortunately you can’t help but feel the story is incomplete, even with the afterword, since the Mitchell Report did not release until 2007. But the book is worth its salt. Mostly enlightening, somewhat insider gossip, just not willing to wait a bit longer because of the very explosive findings they had on Bonds.
Stunning information, with plenty of evidence to support it.
dark
slow-paced
informative
fast-paced
A great read even if you're not in to baseball. Only thing I'd say against it is that I'm massively cynical about drugs in sports so in someways it wasn't that eye opening for me.
When GAME OF SHADOWS arrived on the scene, the clamor was to know about Barry Bonds and what, if any, illegal drugs he took to fuel his pursuit of Major League Baseball’s all time home run record. To a lesser degree people wanted to know why. Those questions are answered painstakingly throughout the book. In fact, the presentation of Barry Bonds in this book is so brutal, like a villain from a penny dreadful novel, that if it wasn’t true he would have sued. Truth be told, I have been a Bonds hater since he signed with the San Francisco Giants---rival to my LA Dodgers. But even I often blushed at the broad strokes of distasteful behavior that he is shown to be capable of. That, however, is the prurient part of the book. What makes GAME OF SHADOWS a book of historical note is the depth it plumbs into the entire performance enhancing drug culture. The book was criticized upon arrival for not being all about Barry Bonds—as if the rest of it were just padding. Bond’s outsized personality is used to shine a light on the rest of what was going on at the time. Tempting to just use the term steroids when talking about performance enhancing drugs as a short cut, most people have some sense of what those are, but the book reveals that the many different drugs used come from many different places and medical disciplines. Following the drugs from creation to distribution to use is fascinating and the extent to which they have permeated the sports world—including to a very large degree our Olympic athletes who seemingly should have held themselves to a higher standard—is astonishing. Basically an extended newspaper article, the book remains fresh and lively throughout by deftly dropping one story line for another so by the end there is the feeling of having followed the story for months and staying on top of it the whole time. Don’t be scared off if you are not a baseball fan. Or a sports fan. The book reminds us that we may think we have air tight characters, but one wrong decision and we sink like stones.