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BLOATED FACE AND BELLY,  ACNE ON HIS SHOULDERS AND BACK, HAIR LOSS AND TROUBLE WITH ERECTIONS:  A GREATER SENTENCE THAN ANY JURY CAN DEMAND

Barry Bonds mug shot with new and improved head: does larger+balder = steroid use?

Yesterday in a San Francisco federal courtroom, Kimberly Bell testified under oath about her nine years as the extra-marital girlfriend of baseball legend Barry Bonds, recipient of a record-setting seven Most Valuable Player awards,  14-time All-Star and 8-time Gold Glove winner who holds numerous Major League Baseball records, including the all-time Major League Baseball home run record with 762 and the single-season Major League record for home runs with 73 (set in 2001.)

Bell is s a witness for the prosecution in Bond’s trial on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice by lying to a 2003 grand jury investigating BALCO, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative which had been manufacturing tetrahydrogestrinone (“the Clear”), a then-undetected, performance-enhancing steroid.

Back then, Bonds said under oath that he had never knowingly taken steroids.

Bell  has now testified under oath that while she never saw him use steroids, he admitted to her once that he took steroids,  just not every day like some players.  She said she didn’t ask again about it because she was fearful of him.

She said the subject  came up in 1999 when Bonds told her an elbow injury was caused by steroid use, that he said the muscle and tendons were growing faster than the joint and it “blew out.”

ex-girlfriend tells jury how Bonds lost that "swing"

Kimberly Bell, the girlfriend who spanned the years of both of  Bonds’s two marriages, acknowledged taking money from him for a house in Arizona,  and also introduced jurors to the concept of “wife cities” and “girlfriend cities” for those families making summer vacation plans. (Now that’s something big  for the Travel Channel!)

Beyond the tawdry testimony, Bell spoke softly of her growing fear of Bonds and his behavior, the description of which the rest of us have called ‘roid rage.

“More than once,  he threatened to “cut my head off and leave me in a ditch,” she said.

She said he also threatened to “cut out my breast implants because he paid for them. … He was very controlling.”

Predictably, defense attorney Cris Arguedas sparred with Bell on cross-examination trying to portray her to the eight women and four men on the jury as a vindictive, attention-seeking  gold-digger who posed in Playboy, spoke vulgar language on the Howard Stern Show and wants to sell her book.

In redirecting his witness, prosecutor Jeffrey Nedrow asked her, “Is it fun testifying in front of all these people?”  She choked up and answered, “No.”

IN DEFENSE OF SHRINKING TESTICLES

I think its probably less fun for Barry Bonds whose defense team had to attack his ex-girlfriend’s assessment of his shrinking testicles by telling jurors the only accurate measurement of testicular atrophy is from a medical instrument called an “orchidometer.”   According to reports, this left some jurors rolling their eyes, others suppressing giggles.

I’m not on the jury, but I say the woman knows her man’s testicles without a calibrator.

But speaking of measurements, the Giants’ equipment manager, Mike Murphy, also testified yesterday that Bonds’ baseball cap size grew 1/8th of an inch, from 7 1/4 to 7 3/8, something prosecutors say if evidence of human growth hormone use.

Still ahead  this week: results from a positive drug test, and an eye-witness to a steroid injection.  Bonds’  former personal shopper, Kathy Hoskins, is expected tell the jury that she saw Greg Anderson inject Bonds in his navel. Anderson has refused to testify and remains in  jail in Dublin, Calif. Read the rest of this entry »