Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big (review)

Although he was prone to striking out and was plagued by injuries, Jose Canseco was one of the great players of his time. He was rookie of the year in 1986, American League Most Valuable Player in 1988, and a six-time All-Star. He won a World Series title with the Oakland Athletics in 1989 and the New York Yankees in 2000. He was the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season, and he ended his seventeen-year career with 462 home runs.

Despite previous denials that he used steroids, in Juiced Canseco not only acknowledges his steroid use but contends that several other sluggers were users as well. Trumped up by Canseco's appearance on the television show 60 Minutes, the book became an instant best seller. More importantly, it shattered Major League Baseball's conspiracy of silence about performance-enhancing drugs and was instrumental in bringing about highly visible Congressional hearings on the subject.

In the book, Canseco rats on former teammates Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Juan Gonzalez, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez, Wilson Alvarez, and Dave Martinez. He also writes that he suspected Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, and Bret Boone, among others, of using steroids. Because he turned numerous players on to steroids, even personally injecting them at times, Canseco became known as the godfather of steroids, the Chemist, and the Typhoid Mary of steroids. He relishes these nicknames in the book and is an unabashed advocate of steroid use in sports, contending that performance-enhancing drugs will become even more widespread among athletes in the future.

While Canseco may be admired as a whistle-blower, he also comes across in the book as lacking in common sense and integrity. His admission that he began using steroids in 1984, when he was twenty years old, taints his entire professional career. David Letterman is quoted in the book as saying "If you're a baseball purist like me, you know that the season doesn't really begin until Jose Canseco gets arrested." In 1992 he was arrested for repeatedly ramming his new Porsche into his ex-wife Esther's new bmw. A few years later he pleaded no-contest to a domestic violence charge after hitting his second wife Jessica. Canseco was also arrested for having a gun in his car. Found guilty for his role in a 2001 brawl at a Miami Beach nightclub, he was sentenced to two years' house arrest. Subsequently, Canseco was jailed for violating his probation and failing to attend anger-management classes. Then, in 2003, he spent sixty-seven days in jail after testing positive for steroids, another violation of his probation.

As to each of these incidents, Canseco argues his innocence or cites extenuating circumstances to exonerate himself from blame. It is difficult, however, to accept the notion that his well documented behavior is in any way honorable or excusable. Canseco sincerely wants to be believed and liked, but he makes an unconvincing case for it.

Thus we have this juiced-up former jock, who can't control his own life, giving opinions on the usage of steroids and human growth hormone. In a chapter titled "Forever Young," Canseco proclaims, astonishingly, that "What I've learned is that there is a way to stop the aging process, or at least slow it down by 90 percent." This kind of naive medical baloney is dangerous, because kids read it and may take it as some kind of valid evidence. Worse yet is Canseco's claim that steroids, if used properly, are perfectly safe.

(Interestingly, he backed away from his position in the book in later testimony before the Congressional committee.)

Public attention has focused on Juiced because performance-enhancing drugs are the number one topic in baseball. The giddiness of the home runs and glamour of the steroid era is ending with a...