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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
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
informative
sad
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
About as good as investigative journalism gets. Meticulous, propulsive and utterly infuriating.
I thought this would be mostly about Barry Bonds and his drug use as he chased the home run records. Instead it showed the reader that most of our sports have drug-using cheaters. It was very well written and they managed to keep it engaging even while discussing legal and medical situations that I would expect to be very dry and boring.
Having listened to the podcast "American Scandal" and their treatment of the Balco case, I decided to re-read this after 10 years. The authors, who really were a part of the scandal at one point, did a very good job of remaining objective and even objectively treating their own role (it dealt with leaks from the grand jury). The book focuses primarily on Barry Bonds and his "alleged" steroid use, his attitude (having met him twice, yes, he's not terribly kind), the assault on the single season homerun record and so on, with almost as much attention paid to Marion Jones. Rounding out the cast of characters are Victor Conte and Jeff Novitzki. For baseball fans, this was both an exciting and dark time--monstrous homeruns, that are all tainted. Well worth the couple days to read.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Just like Fainaru-Wada’s other book League of Denial, this was a very interesting and entertaining read. Although it seemed that most of the book dealt with the BALCO and track and field side as opposed to the baseball (Bonds) side, they did a great job of tying everyone together. But I was a bit surprised at the number of typos and grammatical errors.
It did bother me though when they got to the investigative section of the book (Part II). I’m of the opinion that it’s none of our business what people put into their bodies. When the main IRS agent is sifting through BALCO’s trash (I never realized you didn’t need a search warrant to do that) and voicing a strong dislike for Barry Bonds, I started wondering if they just wanted to find something on Bonds. And as it did to me back then, it really bothered me when President Bush is mentioning steroids in a State of the Union speech and Congress is having hearings on “cleaning up baseball”, although it was encouraging that most of the Bush Justice Department thought the idea of government caring about baseball and steroids was laughable. If MLB, the NFL, or NBA want to police their sport, that’s one thing. To have the Feds try to tell a private business how to conduct itself is a different story.
Bonds’s teammates and girlfriend did shed light on clubhouse atmosphere and Bonds as a person. While there was no mention of the NBA, tennis, hockey, or golf, the book pretty much gave the impression (maybe rightly so) that most professional sports are plagued by athletes doing whatever they can to get an edge. Part of that is finding chemicals that are not yet detected by drug screens.
But, I do give the book 4 stars in spite of the typos, grammar, and queasiness of having the government involved in sports. It was enlightening and very well-written, content-wise.
It did bother me though when they got to the investigative section of the book (Part II). I’m of the opinion that it’s none of our business what people put into their bodies. When the main IRS agent is sifting through BALCO’s trash (I never realized you didn’t need a search warrant to do that) and voicing a strong dislike for Barry Bonds, I started wondering if they just wanted to find something on Bonds. And as it did to me back then, it really bothered me when President Bush is mentioning steroids in a State of the Union speech and Congress is having hearings on “cleaning up baseball”, although it was encouraging that most of the Bush Justice Department thought the idea of government caring about baseball and steroids was laughable. If MLB, the NFL, or NBA want to police their sport, that’s one thing. To have the Feds try to tell a private business how to conduct itself is a different story.
Bonds’s teammates and girlfriend did shed light on clubhouse atmosphere and Bonds as a person. While there was no mention of the NBA, tennis, hockey, or golf, the book pretty much gave the impression (maybe rightly so) that most professional sports are plagued by athletes doing whatever they can to get an edge. Part of that is finding chemicals that are not yet detected by drug screens.
But, I do give the book 4 stars in spite of the typos, grammar, and queasiness of having the government involved in sports. It was enlightening and very well-written, content-wise.
The BALCO steroid raid was a local headline news "event" for a number of months. I have to admit that I tuned most of it out. Around the same time as the trial I read and enjoyed The Secret Language of Baseball which among its analysis of hand signals had some chapters on previous baseball scandals. So when Game of Shadows was offered up at the local BookCrossing meeting last year, I had to give it a read.
Baseball while an entertaining sport to play and to watch is not all "Mom and apple pie" pure as some would like to believe. Heck, I'd argue that neither is "Mom and apple pie" but I digress. It's a highly competitive team sport that produces a lot more misses than hits. Those team members who can consistently hit the ball well end up being the stars of the sport. With stardom comes the big bucks. Baseball has a history of turning a blind eye to a lot of the underhanded things players and teams do get ahead in the game.
The BALCO thing is just the latest and most recent public example. [b:Game of Shadows|9532|Ender's Shadow (Shadow Series, Book 1)|Orson Scott Card|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166028017s/9532.jpg|3145587] covers the people involved in the trial (owners of BALCO, the managers, the players, the investigators, and so forth). It is set up in three equal parts. The first introduces all the "players", the second piece is the events that lead up to the trial and the final third is the trial itself. The trial piece is by far the most interesting piece of the book and I wish more time had been given to it and perhaps to the investigatio
Baseball while an entertaining sport to play and to watch is not all "Mom and apple pie" pure as some would like to believe. Heck, I'd argue that neither is "Mom and apple pie" but I digress. It's a highly competitive team sport that produces a lot more misses than hits. Those team members who can consistently hit the ball well end up being the stars of the sport. With stardom comes the big bucks. Baseball has a history of turning a blind eye to a lot of the underhanded things players and teams do get ahead in the game.
The BALCO thing is just the latest and most recent public example. [b:Game of Shadows|9532|Ender's Shadow (Shadow Series, Book 1)|Orson Scott Card|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166028017s/9532.jpg|3145587] covers the people involved in the trial (owners of BALCO, the managers, the players, the investigators, and so forth). It is set up in three equal parts. The first introduces all the "players", the second piece is the events that lead up to the trial and the final third is the trial itself. The trial piece is by far the most interesting piece of the book and I wish more time had been given to it and perhaps to the investigatio
A very good, informing, and shocking read. I appreciate the investigative effort that was required to make this book.
5/5 Stars
5/5 Stars