"Barry Bonds' former girlfriend testified Monday that the ex-Giant confessed to her that he was using steroids, contending that "other players" were also using drugs to succeed in big-league baseball.

Kimberly Bell, who says she dated the ballplayer for nine years, told the jury in Bonds' perjury trial that baseball's home run champion blamed a 1999 career-threatening elbow injury on his steroid use.

The drugs "somehow caused the muscles and tendons to grow faster than they could handle and (the elbow) somehow blew out," Bell said Bonds told her after the 1999 baseball season.

Bell, a San Jose graphic artist for much of the relationship, said Bonds told her he used banned drugs infrequently, saying, "He didn't shoot it up every day like bodybuilders did." She also said Bonds told her that "other players do it."

Of the other players, Bonds said, "That's how they were getting ahead, that's how they were achieving, by doing steroids," Bell said.

Speaking in a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Bell spent about an hour describing the course of her stormy relationship with Bonds to federal prosecutor Jeff Nedrow.

BALCO probe

She said it began with a chance meeting in the Candlestick Park players' parking lot in 1994, continued through Bonds' first divorce and second marriage, and ended with an extraordinarily bitter breakup in 2003, months before federal agents raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame.

Bonds is accused of lying under oath to the federal grand jury that investigated steroid dealing at BALCO. He testified that he had never knowingly used banned drugs, only products supplied by his trainer that he thought were arthritis balm and flaxseed oil. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His trial is in its second week in federal court in San Francisco.

In her testimony, Bell acknowledged that Bonds spoke to her about steroids only once.

But after that, she said Bonds underwent changes that experts say are consistent with the side effects of using large doses of steroids to enhance sports performance."