Comments (0) Best Sports Book - 2006
Game of Shadows, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
OK, it's an obvious choice. But then again, what other book compelled Major League Baseball to finally — finally! — launch an investigation into steroid use among its players? Drawing on thousands of court records and hundreds of interviews, Fainaru-Wada and Williams untangle the knotty story of the BALCO scandal, constructing a damning indictment of baseball in general and Barry Bonds in particular. The two Chronicle reporters set out to show that a doping regimen of human-growth hormone, testosterone, and an array of other synthetic substances — more than Bonds' prodigious natural talent — has fueled his late-career feats. Color us persuaded. To read that the Sputnik-headed slugger allegedly took trenbolone, a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of cattle, is to realize he departed Planet Sanity long ago. No, Barry, that sound you hear isn't fans booing; it's you, mooing.
