From BALCO to Bonds

Aug. 8, 2007 — -- There was something symmetrical about the beginning and the end of my first three-year contract as a journalist with ABC News. I began with BALCO and finished with Barry Bonds.

After arriving in New York, in the fall of 2004, my first story for ABC was an investigation into the steroids and sports scandal. The story featured an exclusive interview with Victor Conte, the San Francisco-based nutritionist who was president of BALCO and who told me he supplied performance enhancing drugs to Olympic star Marion Jones (who earned five medals at the Sydney Games in 2000) and the fastest man on earth, world record holder at 100 meters, Tim Montgomery. I had also obtained calendars that Conte said showed how and when Jones and Montgomery used the drugs.

Marion Jones denied the allegations and filed a $25 million defamation suit against Conte about the statements he made to me. The lawsuit was later settled on undisclosed terms. Tim Montgomery retired from track after receiving a two year doping ban.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2007. It's Tuesday night and, just as the "Nightline" titles rolled at 11:35 p.m., studio director Jeff Winn told me that he would keep an eye on the feed of the Giants game from AT&T Park in San Francisco and would issue information and instructions as necessary. The entire country was waiting to see whether Bonds would break Hank Aaron's record of 755 home runs.

"You focus on the current lineup," said Jeff, "and I'll update you. … But I think you should know — I'm feeling lucky tonight."

Although a largely unassuming and restrained character, Jeff becomes something akin to a seasoned tank commander when the show is live. His words are always carefully judged, precise and without equivocation.

I have learned to trust him entirely in every situation, such as last week when we broke into the network's primetime programming and delivered a special report on the Minneapolis bridge collapse and when we extended "Nightline" to an hour after Seung-Hui Cho brought murderous mayhem to Virginia Tech University.

Tuesday night's show started with my report about a place called Ave Maria, a new town being built on former swampland in Florida. At the heart of the new community are a massive church and university, both of them paid for and bequeathed by Tom Monaghan, the founder and former CEO of Domino's Pizza.

As Monaghan started to explain why he had turned his back on business and invested all his money in a kind of Catholic heaven on Earth, Jeff explained that Bonds was looking hungry for Aaron's record, even though he'd doubled and singled his first two times at-bat.