"Lawyers for home run king Barry Bonds made one last pitch Monday to wipe out his obstruction of justice conviction, urging a federal judge to either throw out the verdict or give him a new trial on the charge.

In court papers, Bonds' legal team argued the April conviction was flawed for a variety of reasons, and maintained that the government's attempt to preserve the obstruction charge amounts to a "fevered effort to gain a celebrity's conviction."

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is scheduled to hold a hearing Aug. 26 to consider Bonds' bid to set aside the conviction for obstructing justice in statements to a federal grand jury in December 2003 about his use of performance enhancing drugs. The obstruction charge specifically alleged that Bonds misled the jury in a rambling answer about whether he'd ever been injected with a syringe by his former personal trainer, Greg Anderson."