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[ThurgreedMarshall]

Sheff is my favorite Yankee since Dave Winfield and Don Mattingly. He is a straight shooter.

Here's an article on his interaction with Bonds and BALCO.
___________

By Tom Verducci



"I don't want friends like that," Sheffield says of
Bonds, who introduced him to BALCO before the 2002
season.
Eric Risberg/AP



Gary Sheffield was testifying before a federal grand
jury in San Francisco in 2003 when a prosecutor held
up the testoterone-based steroid known as "the cream,"
supplied by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.

"Do you know what this is?" Sheffield was asked.

"Yeah, I do," Sheffield said.

"What did they tell you it was for?"

"My wounds," said Sheffield, who then rolled up his
right pants leg to show a surgical scar on the outside
of his knee. "It was like a cortisone to heal these
wounds. I rubbed it on every night and it helped me."

Sheffield says he was not told that the cream, which
he used before and during the 2002 season when he
played for the Atlanta Braves, was an illegal steroid.
"It was like you could go to a store and find
something like that. That's what was in my thoughts,"
he says. "I put it on my legs and thought nothing of
it. I kept it in my locker. The trainer saw my cream."

Sheffield says it shocked him when news broke that
"the cream" and "the clear," another balm supplied by
BALCO, were designer steroids. "That's why I was mad,"
he says. "I want everybody to be on an even playing
field."

Sheffield was introduced to BALCO by someone he now
describes as a former friend: Barry Bonds. Sheffield
says he has no knowledge of what, if any, enhancers
Bonds may have used, but he did provide SI with a
harsh firsthand look at the inner circle of Bonds's
trainers. (Bonds, through a spokesperson, declined to
address Sheffield's comments, saying only, "I wish
nothing but the best for Gary. I want him to win the
MVP. He deserves it.")

Sheffield says he and Bonds enjoyed a casual
friendship when the Giants leftfielder invited
Sheffield to live and train with him in San Francisco
for a few weeks before the 2002 season. "He said, 'I
got guys here, they can get your urine and blood and
prescribe a vitamin specifically for your blood type
and what your body needs,' " Sheffield says. "And
that's what I did."

Bonds introduced Sheffield to BALCO president Victor
Conte as well as to members of Bonds' support team,
which included chiropractors, a track coach, a
stretching coach and a strength coach, Greg Anderson.
He and Conte were two of four men indicted Feb. 12 on
charges of conspiring to distribute
performance-enhancing drugs. Sheffield says he did not
deal directly with anyone from BALCO after his initial
meeting with Conte, but that the company gave vitamins
to Anderson, and Anderson gave them to Sheffield.
(Through his lawyer, Anderson declined to comment on
providing Sheffield with any BALCO products.)

"The only thing Greg Anderson does is what Barry tells
him to do," Sheffield says. "Barry ran everything. If
I'm training and if he sees Greg making me do one curl
too many, it's an argument: 'I told you, don't have
him do no more than he needs!' So I knew Greg was a
puppet. All these guys around [Bonds] were puppets.

"They used to confide in me about how they hated it. I
told them, 'You knew what you were getting into. You
accept his money. You accept the status when you're
around him. But you don't want to deal with the
backlash of what comes out of his mouth, and you want
to complain to me.'"

Soon after Sheffield arrived in San Francisco, the
friendship between him and Bonds began to sour. Bonds
insisted that Sheffield stay at his house and not rent
a car. He insisted that Sheffield not pay for
anything, though Sheffield did bring his personal
chef. "[It was], 'It's my way or no way,' " Sheffield
says. "I'm not a child. I make $11 million. I can buy
what I want."

To thank Bonds for inviting him into his home,
Sheffield arranged for the two of them to see a boxing
match in Miami on Feb. 2, 2002. "I was going to pay
for the plane, the flight, pay for the limo service,
the hotel," Sheffield says. "He gets my mail. He looks
in my mail and sees he can get better seats, so he
gets better seats. He can get a better flight, so he
gets a better flight. He can get a better limo
service. And he can get a better hotel. So basically
my plan, in trying to do something in return, he wound
up doing it. And [that sort of behavior] just
escalated."

Another time, Sheffield arranged for a limo and
tickets for him and Bonds to see the Sacramento Kings
host the Los Angeles Lakers. "He complained the whole
drive," Sheffield says. "'Man, I could have drove. We
would have gotten there a lot faster.' The whole time.
And I'm saying to myself, Never again. Never again."

Sheffield says the breaking point occurred one morning
when Bonds departed for their morning workout without
him, leaving Sheffield to scramble for transportation
to the gym. When Sheffield eventually showed up, he
found Bonds laughing at him with someone he later
learned was a writer for Men's Journal. "He sold me
out to the media," Sheffield says.

Though Sheffield says he was under doctor's orders not
to run because of his knee, he did so anyway because
Bonds and his trainers wanted him to. "Now all of a
sudden my knee was hurting," Sheffield says. "He said
something to me [about being late]. I did not respond,
because if I did respond at that particular moment, I
would have knocked him out. That's how I was feeling.
[But] I said [to myself], No, I'm just going to walk
away, and when I say walk away I mean walk away."

Sheffield flew home to Florida with his chef. The chef
told him, "Gary, I want to confess something. [Bonds]
made an offer to hire me: He'll get me a car, give me
a place to stay and pay off my student loan."

Shortly after they returned, Sheffield says he and his
chef parted ways. Sheffield says about a month later
Bonds called him to inquire about why the chef was no
longer working for Sheffield but made no mention of a
related development: Bonds had hired him.

"That's the kind of person I found out I was dealing
with," Sheffield says. "To me, I don't want friends
like that. I never will have friends like that."

Soon Sheffield received a call from one of Bonds'
team. According to Sheffield, Bonds had initially
insisted that Sheffield not pay for anything, but now
he was told to settle his tab with BALCO and others.
Bonds also told Sheffield that BALCO would no longer
supply him with vitamins.

"I called BALCO. 'Do I owe you anything?' " Sheffield
says. " 'Well, you have a bill ...' I told my wife,
'You write the check.' That's how I got linked to
BALCO."

Sheffield hit .307 in 2002 after training with Bonds,
but with 25 home runs and 84 RBIs, it was a down year
for him. "I had my worst year ever," he says. "I gave
him too much credit. When you listen to another person
on an everyday basis drill into you numbers, numbers,
numbers, and you've never been that way, it doesn't
work. I don't play for numbers. When I played to try
to get numbers, I didn't get them."

Adds Sheffield, "I never wished anything bad on
[Bonds]. I want him to achieve what he wants to
achieve, but what I want more is that his life gets
right. That he can have compassion for other people.
And that's what I want the most."
___________

TM