Chapter[ VII. Major League Baseball and the BALCO Investigation ]
Section[ B. 2. g. Gary Sheffield ]
g. Gary Sheffield
On March 16, 2006, a federal magistrate judge from Idaho, Judge Larry M. Boyle,
wrote a letter to Commissioner Selig in which he enclosed a copy of an earlier letter he had sent
on February 26, 2004 to the United States Attorney for Idaho. In that earlier letter, Judge Boyle
351 IRS Memorandum of Interview of Jim Valente, dated Sept. 3, 2003, ¶ 6.
352 IRS Memorandum of Interview of Greg Anderson, dated Sept. 3, 2003, ¶ 4
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reported that on June 11, 2002, after a flight from Boise to Minneapolis, he boarded a shuttle bus
and was seated across the aisle from a man who later identified himself as Greg Anderson.
Boyle had a conversation with Anderson during the ride in which Anderson said he was in
Minneapolis because his “best client wanted him to help his close friend Gary Sheffield who was
in a slump and struggling at the time.”
According to the letter, Anderson told Boyle that Sheffield’s team was playing the
Twins that week and Anderson had “come to work with him.” When Boyle asked what in
particular Anderson did for his baseball player clients, Anderson responded:
[H]e will usually reserve the hotel exercise facility and work
privately with Sheffield on body mechanics, weights and also take
a blood or urine sample, test it to determine if his body chemistry
is what it should be, and then give him nutritional supplements.
Anderson confirmed to Boyle that his “best client” was Barry Bonds. Boyle concluded the letter
by stating he “felt his conversation was sufficiently important to report it to you in light of the
legal proceedings pending in another federal district.” 353 Through his lawyer, Boyle confirmed
to us the events described in his letter.
In September 2003, when federal agents executed a search warrant on Greg
Anderson’s condominium, they cited a February 2003 FedEx receipt from Gary Sheffield to
BALCO as evidence of probable cause to conduct the search.354 In his 2007 book entitled Inside
Power, Sheffield acknowledged he had received a bill from BALCO for what he called
353 Letter from Magistrate Judge Larry M. Boyle to Allan H. “Bud” Selig, dated Mar. 16,
2006.
354 See Affidavit of Special Agent Brian Watson in Support of Request for Search
Warrants, sworn to on Sept. 3, 2003, ¶ 10.
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“vitamins” and claimed he did not know whether the “cream” he acknowledged using during his
grand jury testimony had contained steroids.355
In his book, Sheffield recounted his grand jury testimony as follows: “‘I applied
this cream to my knees.’ I told them ‘I didn’t know it was steroids. Whatever it was, it didn’t
make me stronger.’”356 Sheffield then claimed in his book: “I had no interest in steroids.
I didn’t need them, and I didn’t want them.”357 His book asserted that he “never touched a
strength-building steroid in [his] life – and never will.”358
In his book, Sheffield attributed the increase in home runs in Major League
Baseball after the 1994 strike to widespread steroid use, and he claimed that at the time he asked
the Commissioner to investigate the issue, only to be ignored.359 Selig denied that he ever
received such a request from Sheffield.
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