Meh. I give it about a C. Books written by journalists -- specifically, newspaper reporters -- tend to be a little dry in style but make up for it with details. This book chronicles the rise and fall of BALCO, a supplement "facility" in San Francisco linked to the creation and distribution of designer steroids, with a client list reading like a who's who of elite athletes in track and field, professional baseball, the NFL and Olympians.

Some of the details/back stories were interesting, but by the last third of the book, with a federal investigation in full swing, it became incredibly boring.

Yes, I wanted to see what the authors had to say about Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, et al, but I am always suspicious of such bodies of work where this is little legitimate attribution. And when it is attributed, there are a lot of unnamed/unidentified sources. Gonna write a book? Gotta name your sources.

The information, however, is compelling. I do believe Bonds juiced up with steroids he received through BALCO. And I believe doezens of others did as well.

The tale of the Victor Conte/BALCO scandal is fascinating, and the story behind athletes who may have used steroids during an era when steroid use was rampant is pretty interesting too.

"Game of Shadows" details Conte's rise & fall, along with a good amount of recent history surrounding the steroids-sports partnership. When I closed this book, I didn't find myself detesting Victor Conte or Barry Bonds. They came across as tragic figures that might actually deserve a little sympathy. Instead, I developed a distaste for the overzealous federal agents who went on a witch-hunt, targeting certain athletes who found more success than others did while using performance-enhancing substances for their respective sports.

Written by two veteran journalists, this is a non-fiction page-turner, propelled by top-notch reporting. It's absurd that after "Game of Shadows" went into publication, several people in the sports world along with the book's two authors, ended up in jail. However, while reading this book, the overzealous federal agents and prosecutors came across as the only real villains in the ordeal. Whether intentional or not, "Game of Shadows," underscores the out-of-control, unreasonable, and unjustifiable nature of the United States' war on drugs policy.

A good accounting of a bizarre time in baseball. As a baseball fan it is a must read - although it will shed a bit of a darker light on a game I love.

A great account of the BALCO sports scandal, with a specific focus on Barry Bonds, MLB and track and field. There are few heroes in this story, even though there is much space given to the unraveling of the scandal and those who “caught” the dopers.

Bonds is arguably the main figure here and he does not look well under the lights. He claims righteousness and inveighs against a media he sees as out to get a black guy, but much of the anger is self-generated. He works incredibly hard, but that drive is not turned off around other people and manifests itself in emotional abuse towards his girlfriend. And, of course, he juiced and he lied about it. If you wanted a fuller story of how steroids insidiously entered MLB and track, you won’t get it here, but you’ll get the broad strokes. The Bonds Show, however, is what people wanted in 2006, and it’s what they/you got.

BALCO’s inter-workings parallel the Bonds story, with the key figure given center stage. It’s exactly what Victor Conte wanted: a shameless showman, he never really tried to develop any sort of veneer to mask the true goal of dealing roids. It’s quite surprising it didn’t unravel sooner, given Conte’s braggadocio and semi-public fights with track and field trainers. Not even being caught could stop Conte’s inveterate need to flap his gums.

The second half turns to the investigation by the feds and USADA. This is Game of Shadows at its most page-turny. Dumpster diving, mailed syringes, a rush to create a testing system that can better detect drugs… it’s all fascinating. Congress even rears its ugly head by the end. Unfortunately you can’t help but feel the story is incomplete, even with the afterword, since the Mitchell Report did not release until 2007. But the book is worth its salt. Mostly enlightening, somewhat insider gossip, just not willing to wait a bit longer because of the very explosive findings they had on Bonds.

Way better than I thought it would be. I thought this would be a boring petty crime story, but turned out to be well written and in depth on the shady side of Bonds and other track athletes. It was shocking to hear how much trust they out in to Conte and took his 'supplements' without any real medical advice. And for these folks, their body is their entire source of income.

From the perspective of a reader who was fully invested in baseball during the home-run chase of McGuire and Sosa, and then later with the rise of the new power-version of Barry Bonds, this is a riveting account of not only that time in baseball but also other professional sports. It also looks at the creation of BALCO, and a bit of a history of performance-enhancing drugs. If you weren't a fan of Barry Bonds the person before this, you definitely won't be after reading it. It is a highly unfavorable (but probably not unfair) view of his demeanor. The writing is great, and the whole story is intriguing!

Just taken in by the discreet world of peds

it's nice

The BALCO steroid raid was a local headline news "event" for a number of months. I have to admit that I tuned most of it out. Around the same time as the trial I read and enjoyed The Secret Language of Baseball which among its analysis of hand signals had some chapters on previous baseball scandals. So when Game of Shadows was offered up at the local BookCrossing meeting last year, I had to give it a read.

Baseball while an entertaining sport to play and to watch is not all "Mom and apple pie" pure as some would like to believe. Heck, I'd argue that neither is "Mom and apple pie" but I digress. It's a highly competitive team sport that produces a lot more misses than hits. Those team members who can consistently hit the ball well end up being the stars of the sport. With stardom comes the big bucks. Baseball has a history of turning a blind eye to a lot of the underhanded things players and teams do get ahead in the game.

The BALCO thing is just the latest and most recent public example. Game of Shadows covers the people involved in the trial (owners of BALCO, the managers, the players, the investigators, and so forth). It is set up in three equal parts. The first introduces all the "players", the second piece is the events that lead up to the trial and the final third is the trial itself. The trial piece is by far the most interesting piece of the book and I wish more time had been given to it and perhaps to the investigatio

Just like Fainaru-Wada’s other book League of Denial, this was a very interesting and entertaining read. Although it seemed that most of the book dealt with the BALCO and track and field side as opposed to the baseball (Bonds) side, they did a great job of tying everyone together. But I was a bit surprised at the number of typos and grammatical errors.

It did bother me though when they got to the investigative section of the book (Part II). I’m of the opinion that it’s none of our business what people put into their bodies. When the main IRS agent is sifting through BALCO’s trash (I never realized you didn’t need a search warrant to do that) and voicing a strong dislike for Barry Bonds, I started wondering if they just wanted to find something on Bonds. And as it did to me back then, it really bothered me when President Bush is mentioning steroids in a State of the Union speech and Congress is having hearings on “cleaning up baseball”, although it was encouraging that most of the Bush Justice Department thought the idea of government caring about baseball and steroids was laughable. If MLB, the NFL, or NBA want to police their sport, that’s one thing. To have the Feds try to tell a private business how to conduct itself is a different story.

Bonds’s teammates and girlfriend did shed light on clubhouse atmosphere and Bonds as a person. While there was no mention of the NBA, tennis, hockey, or golf, the book pretty much gave the impression (maybe rightly so) that most professional sports are plagued by athletes doing whatever they can to get an edge. Part of that is finding chemicals that are not yet detected by drug screens.

But, I do give the book 4 stars in spite of the typos, grammar, and queasiness of having the government involved in sports. It was enlightening and very well-written, content-wise.

Wow. If even half of this is true, I can't realistically accept anyone's argument for Barry Bonds to be on the Hall of Fame ballot. Records broken by cheating are not records. Period.

This book documents the rise of substance-aided sports, most notably baseball and the Olympics.

While Barry Bonds graces the cover of this book, the main thrust of this story is BALCO and its single-minded determination to undermine the Olympics. The book is worth the price for that story alone; the Bonds material is just gravy (and relatively out-dated as the book pre-dates the Mitchell Report). The most facinating parts of the book is the detailed look at what certain drugs due to pros, why they take certain drugs and not others, and most assuredly, why the Olympics is the the grand games for not only the competitors but for the legions of doctors and nutritionists who ... help.

A very engrossing book. If you are not interested in sports the book still has something for you.