Indictment Hammer Falls on Home-Run King Barry Bonds

Four years in the making, Barry Bonds was indicted today and charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he said he didn't take performance-enhancing drugs.

The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said during Dec. 4, 2003 grand jury testimony that he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by his personal trainer Greg Anderson. He also said he didn't ingest steroids at any time in 2001 when he was pursuing the single season home-run record. If convicted on all five counts, Bonds could go to prison for 30 years.

The 43-year-old Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record last summer when he hit career home run No. 756 on Aug. 7.

Will the perjury charge send the home-run king to jail?

"Perjury is hard to prove because you have to prove he intended to lie,'' said Prof. Jack Doppelt, legal expert at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

Bonds became the most prominent baseball figure enmeshed in a government probe which started five years ago with the raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), the Burlingame, California-based supplements lab at the center of a steroids distribution ring.

Bonds trainer and friend Greg Anderson was convicted in the BALCO case on grand jury charges, served time in jail and returned to prison when he refused to testify again against Bonds. Anderson remains in jail.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig very grudgingly attended Giants games as Bonds approached Bonds record-setting home run. Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth's career home run record in 1974, didn't even travel to AT&T Park in San Francisco to witness Bonds' feat live.

Photo of Barry Bonds by Robert Caplin

Bonds was told last month by the San Francisco Giants that the team would not resign him after his 15th year in the Bay Area. He has yet to sign with a new team. Speculation has been that he best chance to stay active would be a designated hitter with an American League team. Bonds has played his entire career in the National League.

The Hall of Fame currently has an exhibit dedicated to Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run. Bonds finished the season with 762 home runs.

"As a historic museum, we have no intention of taking the exhibit down," Hall vice president Jeff Idelson told the Associated Press.

Bonds, who set the single-season home run mark of 73 in 2001, has earned more than $188 million during the professional baseball career, which began in 1986 with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Two more questions loom:

How much of that is he willing to spend on his legal defense?

And will he ever play baseball again?