As a lifelong sports enthusiast I didn't want to read this story. Like many other fans, the entertainment value of professional sports is directly related to one word -- excitement. Athletes breaking records, making great plays, rising above all obstacles and competition to achieve the unthinkable. But excitement disintegrates when supposed greatness is unmasked as counterfeit. The authors (Williams & Fainaru-Wada) of Game of Shadows do an excellent job of weaving together documented facts to show how this deception engulfed MLB and Olympic athletes over the past decade. The book is an easy read, even though it is packed with nearly 300 pages of numerous quotes, conversations and biographical sketches. What courage it takes to research and record the truth, no matter how unpopular it is! The authors paint a clear and disturbing picture of the people behind BALCO and its distribution network of illegal drugs. Of course, the BIG question is whether Bonds, Giambi, Marion Jones and others are guilty of using illegal performance-enhancing drugs? Williams and Fainaru-Wada leave no doubt. "Shadows" shows the dark side of some of our most beloved stars without apology. Hard to swallow, yes, but at least now we can redirect our support and admiration for authentic greatness, not the counterfeit stuff.Read full review
I found this book to be very interesting. The 'steroid' era saved baseball, and became one of the most controversial aspects of any sport ever. Surprisingly, the book doesn't just focus on the scandal, but discusses the full history of the performance enhancing boom. Olympians, weightlifters, and plain old guys from Connecticut use enhancers for recovery, strength, or just plain old vanity. That is why steroids are interesting to me. As this isn't an English paper, please forgive the casualness of the review. I recommend this book to anyone interested in sports, baseball, steroids, or just an old fashioned scandal.
This book tells the complete story of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (otherwise known as BALCO) and it's chief operator, Victor Conte. This San Francisco lab produced illegal performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of elite athletes, including Olympians Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Dwain Chambers; NFL All-Pro Bill Romanowski and baseball superstars Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield to name a few. The book is extremely detailed and forthright, listing approximately 1,000 sources as references for the information given. It presents a lock-tight case against these superstars. The evidence is damning - there is little coincidence that Major League Baseball announced only a few days after the official release of the book that they would begin an investigation into past steroid use by the players. Barry Bonds himself, the most famous athlete involved in the scandal and the main subject of the book, issued (and lost) some legal challenges in the days preceeding the release. Unlike the first book to break the steroid scandal (Jose Canseco's "Juiced" from last year) these sources are published and documented - many of Canseco's stories were later proven to be false and impossible given their timing. Despite the fact that the books tends to jump around a bit from person to person and era to era, it is hard to put down. Authors Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-wada leave very little to the imagination and assume nothing, presenting their exhaustive research from trusted sources in a fantastic yet heartbreaking volume. One can only hope that this book is the beginning of some radical changes in the world of professional sports. Most baseball fans, including this one, have disliked Barry Bonds for some time due to his surly temper and lack of respect for the game. These changes would bring a "happy ending" to the facts and stories of the individuals presented; in the meantime, this book offers critical perspective for fans and outsiders alike. Buyers won't be disappointed.Read full review
Everyone knows that Bonds is a juicer, and this book shows and tells all. I especially liked the statistical analysis of Barry's numbers from before and after he took performance enhancing drugs. There is a section on grand jury testimony. The only turn off is that a great deal of the book is devoted to the track and field stars that also got busted for their association with BALCO. I do not care about track and field, so most of that was background noise to the Bonds, Sheffield and Giambi information. BALCO founder Victor Conte's life is laid out in detail, and it is interesting to note that a great deal of what he was doing would never had come to light if he had been able to keep his mouth shut and his dealings more private. I left the book with the impression that most of the players in the MLB use some sort of banned substance, especially the stars. The BALCO part of the steroid use is likely to be only the beginning. Where did the other players not connected to BALCO obtain their drugs? This is a good intro into the subject of steroids in baseball, and it is likely that further books on the subject will fill in for us how pervasive cheating is in MLB. And Rose can't be in the hall for gambling? That looks like nothing now.Read full review
As a fan of Major League Baseball, I found this book to be very informative. I find the BALCO scandal to be akin to the 1919 Black Sox scandal (ie: the Chicago White Sox "throwing" the World Series) and why not? BALCO is the 21st centuries version of the gamblers who aided the White Sox in throwing the 1919 World Series. The effects of performance enhancing drugs cannot be denied after reading this book. I was somewhat aware of the effects on professional sports but upon completion of this book, there was no question or doubt in my mind. If someone such as Shoeless Joe Jackson - one of the best natural hitters to ever stand in a batter's box - cannot be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, I do not see how someone such as Barry Bonds can usurp the record of Babe Ruth. While Shoeless Joe (and did they REALLY prove he was part of the 1919 scandal?) and the Babe had issues of their own, what we DO know for fact is that their hitting came from NATURAL talent, not 'roids. This book blows the lid off Bonds and athletes from other sports such as Marion Jones. This book does what certain factions did not want done: it tells the truth about performance enhancing drugs in today's professional sports arenas.Read full review
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