RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling Former Ranger admits steroids use

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ESPN.com news services

Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro on Monday denied Jose Canseco's assertion in his forthcoming book that he used steroids while the two were Texas Rangers teammates.

In book excerpts published by The New York Daily News on Sunday, Canseco claims he introduced the performance enhancers to Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez, and Juan Gonzalez when Canseco joined the Rangers in 1992.

"I categorically deny any assertion made by Jose Canseco that I used steroids," Palmeiro said in a statement. "At no point in my career have I ever used steroids, let alone any substance banned by Major League Baseball. As I have never had a personal relationship with Canseco, any suggestion that he taught me anything, about steroid use or otherwise, is ludicrous.

"We were teammates and that was the extent of our relationship. I am saddened that he felt it necessary to attempt to tarnish my image and that of the game that I love."

Rodriguez and Gonzalez said that they had not seen the book. Rodriguez declined comment.

Gonzalez's agent, Alan Nero, said, "Our immediate reaction is we feel sorry for Jose, that he felt he had to do this for whatever reason. And we feel badly for everyone he implicated in this.

"Juan has never used steroids and has never been in favor of their use. And, in fact, in 2000, when Major League Baseball did its survey, Juan was in favor of testing and was one of only two players that volunteered to be tested at that time," Nero said.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos also issued a statement Monday supporting Palmeiro and said he's willing to offer any legal assistance that Palmeiro would need to clear his name.

"The Orioles are solidly behind Rafael Palmeiro and have absolute confidence in him and in his denial of the Canseco story," Angelos said. "The Orioles will do everything we can to be of assistance to Raffy in meeting these allegations that have no foundation. We know him well and the kind of athlete he has been and the vigorous manner in which he has trained. He is a highly professional athlete."

According to the Daily News' account, Canseco writes in "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big," that he personally injected Mark McGwire with steroids; that he saw McGwire and Jason Giambi inject each other; and that President Bush "had to have been aware" of rampant steroid use among the Rangers when he owned the club in the early 1990s.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he spoke to Bush about alleged steroid use.

"If there was, he was not aware of it at the time," McClellan said.

"He has recognized, for some time now, that steroids is a growing problem in professional sports, particularly Major League Baseball," he said. "That's why the president has made addressing the issue a priority in his administration."

Canseco's long-awaited book was scheduled for release by Regan Books on Feb. 21. But the New York Times reported Monday night that the book will be released Feb. 14 instead.

Parent company HarperCollins posted a book description on its Web site that said Canseco "made himself a guinea pig of the performance-enhancing drugs" and added the 1988 AL MVP "mixed, matched and experimented to such a degree that he became known throughout the league as 'The Chemist.' "

McGwire, who has long denied steroid use, said in a statement to the Daily News: "I have always told the truth and I am saddened that I continue to face this line of questioning. With regard to this book, I am reserving comment until I have the chance to review its contents myself."

Ex-A's pitcher Dave Stewart couldn't say one way or another whether Canseco's claims are true.

"I could never say 'Josie' is a liar," Stewart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I don't like his work ethic, and I don't like him as a teammate. But one thing I can't say about him is he's a liar.

"As far as what Josie's saying, I can't deny it or verify it. I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen because I don't know. We weren't in the same circles, but I'd have to say he definitely knows what's going on in his circle. Nobody I associated with on the team was a steroid user [among the players Stewart mentioned: Carney Lansford, Rickey Henderson, Dave Henderson and Dennis Eckersley].

Terry Steinbach, McGwire's roommate in 1987 when the pair were A's rookies, said McGwire worked out to build his physique.

"Mark wasn't one of those guys who all of a sudden one offseason got so big you couldn't recognize him, like they say about steroid users," Steinbach told the Chronicle. "Mark loved to lift weights. ... He was in the gym regularly.

"Jose? No, at least not in the gym at the Coliseum or the gyms set up for us on the road. He was phenomenal in '88. Up to that point, he showed up on time and did his drills. All of a sudden, he didn't do the extra work in the outfield, and it showed. It frustrated us as teammates. It was frustrating that 24 guys marched to the same beat and Jose didn't."

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who managed both players with the Oakland A's during the late 1980s, defended McGwire in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday.

"I am absolutely certain that Mark earned his size and strength from hard work and a disciplined lifestyle," La Russa told the newspaper. "When he was a kid in 1987, he hit 49 home runs. It's a real shame. For some people, this is going to put a stain."

Canseco hit 462 home runs in a major league career between 1985 and 2001. He played seven full seasons for the A's before being traded to Texas in '92. He also played for Boston, the Yankees, Toronto, Tampa Bay, Oakland again, and the White Sox.

McGwire's 16-year career ended in 2001. He finished with 583 home runs, hitting 196 in his four full seasons with St. Louis following a July 1997 trade to the Cardinals. In 1998, the year McGwire and Sammy Sosa took their swings at Roger Maris' record 61 homers, McGwire finished with 70 to Sosa's 66.

Three seasons later, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, a record that had been called into question long before Bonds, according to leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO hearings, acknowledged this winter that he unknowingly used steroids.

A few years ago, Canseco claimed that 80 percent of major leaguers had taken steroids. Last spring, he said: "I think the numbers may have changed. Who knows? Maybe the numbers have diminished."

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So the living history of The Steroid Era continues to be written. As an author, as in just about every other conceivable capacity, Jose Canseco has the kind of credibility not even nanotechnology could find or measure. He needs the money and the attention, and he has no friends or future in baseball, all of which make him highly toxic as a reliable source. He is easily dismissed.

But wait. Something bigger is going on here than the dirty little gossiping of one of baseball's all-time frauds. Canseco is a voice of the times. He is a product -- perhaps even the preeminent pioneer -- of the second era in the history of baseball in which the legitimacy of performance will forever be suspect. Unlike the gambling woes of the early 20th century, this one is rooted in modern pharmacology. And you can be sure that more voices will be added to those of Ken Caminiti, Jason Giambi and Canseco.

Maybe someday we will have a book, an unintended homage to Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times: The Story of Baseball Told By the Men Who Played It. But these voices are capturing The Shame of Their Times.

As passing years chip away the clubhouse code of silence, and shame or the need for money or relevance grow greater in the obscurity of retirement, more players, drug suppliers, managers or others with connections to the game's inner circle will add more chapters of The Steroid Era history.

We're talking modern archeology. The bones are there, buried under the sandy layers of lies and coverups. It is only a matter of time and who reveals them to us.

The first voice, now silent, belonged to the late Caminiti. He admitted to me his use of steroids in 2002. A few months later, not coincidentally, the players' association caved in on the idea of steroid testing. The union, with no interest in cleaning up the mess, privately lashed back at Caminiti. Dusty Baker, for one, called Caminiti a "snitch,'' a terrible insult, especially because it had absolutely no application here.

Caminiti took responsibility for his own actions. He named no other names. Baker, with most of baseball, was living a charade. Anyone with vision could see how steroids were changing the game, changing the record book, changing the strategy and how baseball is played, and yet no one in baseball wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

And so they lied. Giambi lied, at least until he had to testify under oath. Canseco lied, at least until he figured out how to goose the advance money for a book. Tony La Russa lied, at least until it fit him to fire back at Canseco. Only now does La Russa say Canseco would talk openly about his steroid use with the A's while La Russa was manager. There was no condemnation then from La Russa, no effort that we know of to clean up Canseco and the oil spill that was about to spread over the game. Canseco could help him win championships. More important, it was "his'' guy, one of "his'' players, and the ancient code of the clubhouse has to be upheld: don't ask, don't tell. Especially don't tell. La Russa covered for his star. "Protecting your player'' is the euphemism of the clubhouse.

People, including Canseco, have found it convenient to blast owners for willingly allowing The Steroid Era to germinate and thrive. More runs equal more fans equal more money, goes the conventional math. But the eyes and ears of the owners know almost nothing of the clubhouse culture. It is their lieutenants -- the managers, coaches, players and trainers across every level of professional baseball -- who first know what happens in the foxholes and choose to do something or not.

This winter, former player Johnny Orsino bragged to a Florida newspaper about the prevalent use of greenies back in the 1960s. Trainers readily provided them to players. It is not the sort of thing a player would chat about to the media after a game. "Well, I was sitting on a fastball at 2-and-1, just put a good swing on it and, oh, by the way, the trainer hooked me up with some awesome beans before the game.'' It was always there. Time has blown away the sandy layers.

So now that the money and science have improved, we get steroids and we get Canseco. Unlike Caminiti and Giambi, he fingers others, which is why several publishing houses listened to their lawyers and passed on this book, a lawsuit waiting to happen. It eventually gets published because someone is willing to take that chance on the he-said, she-said game. Canseco can tell private tales he claimed to be a part of, and without witnesses to verify or challenge, it's his word against someone else's. May the best lawyers win.

Canseco injected a needle into Mark McGwire's butt in the clubhouse bathroom stall? Canseco said it happened. McGwire, given his initial statement, will deny. The face of it, one must admit, is laughable. Here were two guys who by the accounts of teammates were not even that friendly -- Canseco was, in fact, said to be jealous of sharing the spotlight with McGwire -- and McGwire is going to allow him to put a needle in his butt? And they will do it not in the privacy of a home or hotel but in the clubhouse? Makes no sense to me.

Sorry, but I can't buy Canseco's effort to take down other players with him, not without any corroboration, which I suspect will never come. The credibility gap is way too big with this guy. So go ahead and attack his motivation, his ethics and his desperation.

But I am not throwing away Canseco wholecloth. His voice, at least as it relates to his own choices, is an important one in The Steroid Era.

There was a time when Canseco was the best player in baseball. There was a time when he was the richest player, a time when he was the most popular, getting more votes than anybody in 1990 All-Star balloting. He hit the farthest home runs. Steroids helped him be all that and nobody said boo about it, nobody asked him to pee in a cup, nobody held out even the smallest threat of a consequence. You don't think other players noticed?

On such inaction was built The Steroid Era. Maybe the latest testing agreement brings a close at least to the unfettered era, though you'd have to be naive or ignorant, given established ways to cheat tests and the money to be made in next-generation designer steroids, to think baseball has rid the game for good of perfomance-enhancing drugs.

An effective testing program will at least end the run of free reign. We can look back at baseball at the turn of the century -- the late '80s through the initial years of this century -- and wonder how much of what we saw was real. It sounds unfair to the clean, but such is the coverage of the shadow of the doubt. At least three former MVPs are dirty -- four if you happen not to believe the "Flaxseed? Whatever, dude'' defense of Barry Bonds. The history has just begun to be written.

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Top Ten Messages Left On Jose Canseco's Answering Machine

10. "Barry Bonds here. Can I get your leftover junk?"

9. "This is Andy Reid. Thanks for helping people forget the Eagles choked."

8. "It's the national baseball hall of fame. Any hypodermic needles we could display?"

7. "Jose, could you lift my car so I can change a flat?"

6. "Bill Buckner here. Welcome to the club."

5. "It's Bud Selig. Thanks for not making fun of my hair."

4. "This is President Bush. What's this I hear about me owning a baseball team in the '90s?"

3. "Hey, it's your agent--I thought you were dead."

2. "This is Jim from Jiffy Lube. Are you coming to work or not?"

1. "Mark McGwire. Why'd you tell everyone you injected me in the ass?"

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jafabian said:


"I categorically deny any assertion made by Jose Canseco that I used steroids," Palmeiro said in a statement. "At no point in my career have I ever used steroids, let alone any substance banned by Major League Baseball. As I have never had a personal relationship with Canseco, any suggestion that he taught me anything, about steroid use or otherwise, is ludicrous.

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