体坛英语新闻：Barry Bonds perjury trial early highlight of baseball season

TAMPA, United States, April 8 (Xinhua) -- The federal perjury trial involving former baseball superstar Barry Bonds is but one of many unusual things that are affiliated with, or have happened to the San Francisco Giants team this spring.

The Giants, winners of last year's Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series championship, were not picked by many sports analysts and commentators to repeat as champions. They lost four out of their first five games played during the 2011 season which began last week.

After their first game, which was played in Los Angeles against the home team Dodgers, two men wearing Dodger-decaled clothing physically assulted Giants fan Brian Snow.

He now lies in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital and local police detectives are investigating complaints by Giants fans who attended the game that the same two male suspects previously hit other Giants fans wearing Giants-labelled clothing. The two suspects have yet to be apprehended by Los Angeles police.

Barry Zito, one of the Giants more talented pitchers, was injured in a automobile accident last Wednesday but suffered no debilitating injuries.

Yet all of this pales in overall comparison to the federal perjury case of the U.S. vs Barry Bonds, which is being held in San Francisco.

Bonds, 46, who is MLB's career home run leader with 762 and who played the final 14 seasons of his career with the Giants, faces four charges of giving false testimony in 2003 to a federal grand jury that was investigating whether he knowingly took either human growth hormone (HGH) and/or steroids during his professional baseball playing career.

He also faces, in relation to these charges, one count of obstruction of justice. Bonds has pleaded not guilty against all of the charges.

The trial, which began on March 21, has had numerous peculiar aspects, and the prosecution finished presenting their case this week. Among these unusual developments are:

Kimberly Bell, Bonds former mistress, testified that in their nine years together she saw Bonds have an acne problem on his back and shoulders, that he lost all of his hair, and that his genitalia changed -- all of which are physical traits of steroid use.

Four former MLB players -- Marvin Lenard, Randy Velerade, and the brothers Jason and Jeremy Giambi, all testified that they received HGH and or other athletic performing enhancement drugs from Greg Anderson, who was Bonds former personal trainer, and is now in jail, on contempt-of-court charges, for refusing to testify during the trial.

There seems to be unified agreement, between both prosecuting and defender lawyers who are closely watching the case, that the testimony by Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds doctor, which directly contradicted testimony given by Bonds former friend and business partner Steve Hoskins significantly damaged the validity of the prosecution's case.

Hoskins had told the trial's jury that he and Ting had at least 50 conversations about Bonds 1999 elbow injury. Hoskins also said that Ting told him that Bonds elbow injury was due to steroid use. Ting denied both of these claims by Hoskins.

The Giants, Bonds former employer, are being taciturn about the legal proceedings. "We're not commenting on the trial and we don't plan on commenting about the trial," said Staci Slaughter, Giants spokeswoman.