BOSTON – Ever since Barry Bonds’ name was first linked to the BALCO steroids-trafficking investigation, Major League Baseball has been at a loss as to how it should handle him.

That task became more complicated on Saturday when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, who is under indictment in the case, was secretly recorded last year discussing Bonds’ steroid use.

“It seems to be just another manifestation that we need a stronger drug policy in this sport,” commissioner Bud Selig said Saturday night while attending the Yankees-Red Sox game. Selig indicated he was prepared to use the revelations to pressure the Players Association to strengthen the testing policy.

“We are moving inexorably toward a stronger drug policy in baseball,” Selig said.

Based on what the Chronicle reported, baseball might be forced to do just that in order to stem a public relations disaster. In one of the recorded passages, Anderson is alleged to have described how Bonds, who is a strong candidate this season for his seventh National League MVP award, avoided testing positive for performance enhancers. “The whole thing is, everything that I’ve been doing at this point, it’s all undetectable,” Anderson says on the recording about the drug he allegedly was providing Bonds in 2003. “See the stuff I have, we created it, and you can’t buy it anywhere else, can’t get it anywhere else, but you can take it the day of (the test), pee and it comes up perfect.”

Anderson also discussed MLB’s 2003 steroid-testing program, which he indicated he was monitoring on Bonds’ behalf. He said he understood that baseball had tested “25 players random, supposedly in spring training.”

“So those guys have already been tested twice,” Anderson says. “They got tested, and then a week later got tested again. So . . . those guys are pretty much done for the year. They never have to get tested again.”

In 2003, MLB conducted “survey” testing, in which every player was tested once and one-third were tested twice. Under the current policy, a player who has never tested positive – and sources say Bonds has not – may only be tested once every year.

Anderson also made reference to knowing when Bonds might be tested. “It’s going to be in either the end of May or beginning of June, right before the All-Star break, definitely,” he is recorded as saying. “So after the All-Star break, (expletive), we’re like (expletive) clear.”

Under the current policy, even if it had proof that Bonds took steroids at the time of the alleged conversation, MLB probably would not be unable to punish him. Under baseball’s labor contract, only incidents in the past 12 months can be used to invoke the game’s “probable cause” testing, which allows the league to test a player at its discretion. Two weeks ago, after the Yankees’ Gary Sheffield admitted to unknowingly using a steroid cream from BALCO, MLB senior VP Rob Manfred said the commissioner’s office could not take action against him for that reason.

Sources have said MLB has tried to get as much paperwork as possible from the BALCO investigation, hoping to build a case against any player named in court or other law enforcement documents. But because of the current limitations in the collective bargaining agreement, MLB can do little with anything it collects, even if Anderson’s tapes prove to be authentic.

According to one source, MLB’s attempts to shore up its testing policies are being hindered by the continued leaks in the BALCO case. “One of big problems is the prosecutors who keep leaking stuff,” the source said. “It hurts us with the Players Association.”

A member of the BALCO defense team, who claimed to be familiar with the recording, described it as an illegal wiretap, and said it had been referenced in a defense motion to dismiss filed last week charging the government with misconduct.

The government is trying to compensate for a “weak case” by trying to win a public relations war, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“This is cheating to win – the exact same thing of which the athletes are being accused,” the source said.