Barry Bonds thought the clear was flaxseed oil

Barry Bonds thought the clear was flaxseed oil
	UNSUPPORTED
	"Baseball star Barry Bonds did not knowingly use steroids; he believed the substances his trainer gave him, known as "the clear" and "the cream," were flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm."
Domain	Sports & Competition
Tactic	False Context;
Era	Historical
First seen	2003
Origin	Barry Bonds's December 2003 testimony to a federal grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), later reported by the San Francisco Chronicle
Last reviewed	2026-10-27
	Further reading: books on Sports & Competition

The claim that Barry Bonds thought "the clear" was flaxseed oil comes from Bonds's own grand jury testimony in the BALCO steroid investigation. Bonds, who set Major League Baseball's single-season home run record in 2001 and its career record in 2007, testified that his trainer Greg Anderson had given him substances he believed were flaxseed oil and an arthritis cream. Investigators determined that "the clear" was tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a designer steroid created to evade drug tests, and that "the cream" contained testosterone. Bonds was never convicted of knowingly using steroids, and his conviction for obstruction of justice was overturned on appeal. The status here is Unsupported because his account has never been proven false in court, but it is contradicted by extensive reporting and evidence gathered by investigators.

The claim

Bonds said that he trusted Anderson and did not ask what the substances were. His defense argued that he could not be shown to have knowingly taken banned drugs.

What the evidence shows

BALCO. In 2003 federal agents raided BALCO, a nutritional supplement company in Burlingame, California. Founder Victor Conte, Anderson and others later pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges.
THG. THG was identified after a track coach sent a used syringe to the US Anti-Doping Agency. It was designed to be undetectable by standard tests.
Reporting. San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams reported on Bonds's grand jury testimony and, in their 2006 book Game of Shadows, described documents and accounts indicating that Bonds used a range of performance-enhancing drugs beginning around 1998.
Mitchell Report. The 2007 report by former Senator George Mitchell on steroid use in baseball discussed evidence about Bonds's involvement with BALCO.
Legal outcome. Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. In 2011 a jury convicted him of obstruction for an evasive answer but could not reach a verdict on the perjury counts. A federal appeals court overturned the obstruction conviction in 2015. Anderson spent time in prison for refusing to testify against Bonds.

Why it persists

The legal outcome allows Bonds's supporters to argue that he was never proven to have knowingly used steroids. Bonds was a great player before the period in question, and baseball's lack of testing until 2003 created ambiguity about what counted as cheating.

Lessons for readers

Not being convicted is different from being shown innocent.
Claims of unknowing use should be weighed against the surrounding evidence.
Designer drugs can evade testing, so negative tests may mean little.
Investigative reporting can reveal evidence beyond what a trial addresses.
Weak rules and enforcement create gray areas that obscure accountability.

Sources

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal That Rocked Professional Sports (Gotham Books, 2006).
George J. Mitchell, Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball, December 13, 2007.
United States v. Bonds, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (en banc), April 22, 2015.