THE BALCO SCANDAL

August 18, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The baseball newsletter that surprises you every day.

You never know what you’re going to get.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about a scandal that exposed the MLB’s steroid problem and ignited a decades-long battle to cleanse the sport of PED’s.

It all starts with a man named Victor Conte.

Back in the late 70s, Victor was playing bass for a funk band called Tower of Power.

By the early 2000's, he was one of the most infamous figures in all of sports.

So what the hell happened during those 20 years in between?

Victor's music career was short-lived; he parted ways with the band in '79.

A few years later, Conte started Millbrae Holistic - a run-of-the-mill vitamin shop.

After year one, it was failing, so Victor shut down operations and went back to the drawing board - that's when he started BALCO (Bay Area Lab Co-Operative).

Victor invested in an ICP spectrometer which allowed him to analyze blood and urine for mineral deficiencies.

Keep in mind, this guy was not a doctor.

He started working one-on-one with pro athletes - using the data from the ICP to prescribe them customized supplement regimens based on their personal needs.

Victor was the first one to use an ICP for this purpose.

The idea was to serve the pros for free and in return they would wear BALCO merch.

When the BALCO logo was seen on the world stage, that would give Victor the publicity he needed to sell his vitamins to the public, worldwide.

And by the way, it totally worked.

At one point, Victor had ZMA (his supplement) in over 9,000 GNC stores.

One of the first athletes Conte started working with was Gregg Tafralis, a shot putter who went to the Olympic games in 1988.

Gregg was decked out in BALCO swag, but unfortunately he didn't win any medals.

Tafralis did take away one thing from the experience - many of the athletes at the Olympics that year were taking banned performance-enhancing drugs.

It's unclear exactly when Conte started giving his athletes PED's, but one thing we know for sure is that 4x Super Bowl Champion, Bill Romanowski, appears to be one of the first players he crossed that line with.

Victor gave bill “The Clear” which was a designer steroid Conte gained access too.

There was no testing for that particular drug yet so it was essentially the “holy grail” of PED's.

In an interview after the fact, Conte said he didn't view this whole thing as cheating because “everyone was doing it” and if everyone’s doing it - those are the new rules of the game.

Victor figured if the athletes were going to do the steroids anyways, they might as well “take the good stuff” and make sure it was undetectable.

Soon enough, high-profile athletes began flocking to BALCO.

Victor had a client list that included everyone from Marion Jones to Jason Giambi.

They also had people like Greg Anderson, a personal trainer, who was distributing "The Clear" to some of his athletes.

That's where shit went left for Barry Bonds.

Anderson was Barry's trainer and supposedly gave him "The Clear" and "The Cream."

Bonds claims he did not know that these were banned substances.

From ‘01-’04, he was the best player in the league by far, winning the MVP four times in a row.

No other player has four MVP's over their entire career.

During this time, Barry hit 209 dingers.

But steroids were a problem in the league way before ‘01.

In ’98, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record.

A bottle of Androstenedione - a substance banned by the NFL, NCAA and the Olympics - was spotted in McGwire's locker that year, but nothing happened.

In 2000, the league's slugging percentage as a whole skyrocketed to a record-high .437.

The MLB’s drug testing policy was a joke at the time - players received one random drug test per year, and basically had zero repercussions for failing.

Tom Verducci wrote an article for Sports Illustrated where he said the game had become “a pharmacological trade show.”

The implosion of BALCO embarrassed the league in a very public way, and it got to be such a big deal that even the president spoke up about it.

So here's how it went down:

  • August 2002: BALCO starts being investigated by the feds.

  • September 2003: Feds raid BALCO's office.

  • October 2003: A grand jury begins an investigation into BALCO - dozens of athletes are subpoenaed to testify.

  • November 2003: MLB does anonymous "survey testing" to see if more than 5% of the league was juicing. We already know the answer to that.

  • February 2004: Conte and several BALCO execs are indicted on charges of money laundering, fraud and possession with intent to distribute steroids.

  • July 2005: Conte and Anderson plead guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering.

At the end of the day, Victor Conte only got a few months in jail.

Bonds battled in court for over a decade in an attempt to clear his name.

In 2015, a federal appeals court overturned his’ 2011 obstruction of justice conviction, but Barry is still waiting on his call from Cooperstown.

If you want to go deeper on this story, I highly recommend the new documentary that just dropped on Netflix about it.

THE CULTURE

Back in ‘07, Ryan Vesler founded Homage in his parents’ garage.

The goal was simple: celebrate the places, people and moments that have shaped our history.

Whether it’s childhood mornings spent watching MTV, or the first time you watched Griffey go yard - their entire store is an explosion of nostalgia.

Here’s a few gems we think you’ll like:

Quick Links:

If you don’t see what you’re looking for, there’s literally thousands of other options on the site.

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Manuel “Cocaína” García supposedly got his nickname because batters "seemed drugged by his pitches and unable to concentrate or focus on the baseball."

Seems legit.

Whatever the actual origin story, one thing is for sure - García pitched terribly in the big leagues.

He played for the Cuban Stars West and the New York Cubans over three seasons.

During that time, he went 5-19 and recorded a 6.21 ERA.

THE DEAD LEGENDS ARCHIVE

If you like this story, check out some of our past favorites: