Juiced
I went to the library Monday after work and took out Jose Canseco's notorious book Juiced : Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big. On the drive home I read some pages of the introduction at stoplights and was hooked. I read the entire book, cover to cover, that night. It's light reading, obviously not editted, but it mesmerized me.
I would characterize it as Canseco being more right than wrong. And if nothing else, being in the forefront of bringing public scrutiny to steroids usage in baseball deserves serious respect. I remember before the book was written, when I worked in radio and listened to ESPN radio daily. At that time, Canseco was trying to get back into baseball and called the Dan Patrick Show to claim he was being blacklisted for what he characterized as a dirty baseball secret. He threatened to write a tell-all book and Dan Patrick tried repeatedly to convince Canseco to respect the privacy of his peers and not break the unspoken agreement to keep silent on the affairs of other players. Thanksfully, Canseco did not listen.
Sure, he is not the best writer. He has a skewed focus that upholds himself as the godfather of steroids and that this is in fact a good thing for the entertainment industry known as baseball. He interjects personal experiences, relaying his perception of racism against Cubans and minorities in social double standards, women and their lure, his endorsement deals, and so on. Removing his autobiographical bias and his simultaneous bitterness and glory over his notoriety as a public figure, Canseco outlines some salient points. This comes in 2005, before Congressional Hearings on steroids in professional sports, before Barry Bonds/BALCO book, before Bud Selig's pet commission to investigate steroids in baseball. There was literally an entire decade where any number of journalists could have researched and attacked the subject matter. For whatever reasons, it never came as loudly and as clearly until Canseco put it out there in public view.
Canseco pulls no punches in his book, dropping names and telling stories that resonate with an aura of truth. It becomes hard to imagine this as entirely fictional given the unceremonious testimony of Mark McGwire before Congress, given the incident where Rafael Palmeiro blamed his positive steroids test reults on teammate Miguel Tejada, given the complete absence of lawsuits against Canseco by any of the players he implicates.
As sad as it made me, it was a great read. Of course, as a diehard baseball my idea of entertainment differs a bit than most people. Canseco paints himself out in a curiously contradictory light throughout the book, but his ability to write from a first hand experience is enlightening. He even claims to have educated official team trainers in his substance abuses. I used to doubt baseball players would resort to steroids, but Canseco outlines a cohesive argument for their benefits and eventual widespread usage. Going back to 1988 (Canseco's historic MVP season), there have been 36 MVP Awards in MLB (18 for each league). Two went to self-admitted steroids users (Canseco and Ken Caminiti). Eight went to players under examination in the BALCO case (Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi). Five went to players Canseco points out in his book as steroids users (Miguel Tejada, Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, and Sammy Sosa). That's 10 confirmed with 5 more suspected, or 28-42% - a stagger figure.
I am now going to read the Fay Vincent book to see what the perspective of baseball could be from the last commissioner the sport has, from the man who first addressed steroids (and George Steinbrenner) as critical problems facing the sport.
I would characterize it as Canseco being more right than wrong. And if nothing else, being in the forefront of bringing public scrutiny to steroids usage in baseball deserves serious respect. I remember before the book was written, when I worked in radio and listened to ESPN radio daily. At that time, Canseco was trying to get back into baseball and called the Dan Patrick Show to claim he was being blacklisted for what he characterized as a dirty baseball secret. He threatened to write a tell-all book and Dan Patrick tried repeatedly to convince Canseco to respect the privacy of his peers and not break the unspoken agreement to keep silent on the affairs of other players. Thanksfully, Canseco did not listen.
Sure, he is not the best writer. He has a skewed focus that upholds himself as the godfather of steroids and that this is in fact a good thing for the entertainment industry known as baseball. He interjects personal experiences, relaying his perception of racism against Cubans and minorities in social double standards, women and their lure, his endorsement deals, and so on. Removing his autobiographical bias and his simultaneous bitterness and glory over his notoriety as a public figure, Canseco outlines some salient points. This comes in 2005, before Congressional Hearings on steroids in professional sports, before Barry Bonds/BALCO book, before Bud Selig's pet commission to investigate steroids in baseball. There was literally an entire decade where any number of journalists could have researched and attacked the subject matter. For whatever reasons, it never came as loudly and as clearly until Canseco put it out there in public view.
Canseco pulls no punches in his book, dropping names and telling stories that resonate with an aura of truth. It becomes hard to imagine this as entirely fictional given the unceremonious testimony of Mark McGwire before Congress, given the incident where Rafael Palmeiro blamed his positive steroids test reults on teammate Miguel Tejada, given the complete absence of lawsuits against Canseco by any of the players he implicates.
As sad as it made me, it was a great read. Of course, as a diehard baseball my idea of entertainment differs a bit than most people. Canseco paints himself out in a curiously contradictory light throughout the book, but his ability to write from a first hand experience is enlightening. He even claims to have educated official team trainers in his substance abuses. I used to doubt baseball players would resort to steroids, but Canseco outlines a cohesive argument for their benefits and eventual widespread usage. Going back to 1988 (Canseco's historic MVP season), there have been 36 MVP Awards in MLB (18 for each league). Two went to self-admitted steroids users (Canseco and Ken Caminiti). Eight went to players under examination in the BALCO case (Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi). Five went to players Canseco points out in his book as steroids users (Miguel Tejada, Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, and Sammy Sosa). That's 10 confirmed with 5 more suspected, or 28-42% - a stagger figure.
I am now going to read the Fay Vincent book to see what the perspective of baseball could be from the last commissioner the sport has, from the man who first addressed steroids (and George Steinbrenner) as critical problems facing the sport.
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1 Comments:
I saw an advertisement for this year's presumably Hollywood blockbuster, the DaVinci Code starring Tom Hanks. It reminded me of how an author can skirt the truth enough to warrant attention. There's many books to disprove major and minor aspects of the popular fiction.
This reminded me of the Canseco book. Why?
Because no one ever came out to disprove him and he argued strongly despite Canseco vehemently for his veracity.
A piece of fiction comes out that dangles outdated theories already disproved and there is a large movement to react to the piece of fiction. A piece of work claiming to be nonfictional that names real people and events and illegal activities, but there is no fallout.
As in almost all things that go awry in MLB, I blame Bud Selig...
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