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Canseco: Steroids made baseball career possible From staff and wire reports
Jose Canseco says he and fellow slugger Mark McGwire were never "buddy buddies" as teammates on the Oakland Athletics, but had at least one thing in common that they talked about regularly: Using steroids.
Canseco also admits in an interview with 60 Minutes that he would never have been a major league-caliber player without using the drugs. "I don't recommend steroids for everyone and I don't recommend growth hormones for everyone," Canseco tells Mike Wallace. "But for certain individuals, I truly believe, because I've experimented with it for so many years, that it can make an average athlete a super athlete. It can make a super athlete incredible. Just legendary." The interview was broadcast Sunday on CBS, one day before the release of Canseco's book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. "The national pastime is juiced," Canseco told Wallace. Canseco said he and McGwire weren't close, but often injected together and treated the subject of steroids as casual shop-talk. "Mark and I weren't really in a sense of buddy buddies," Canseco said. "But there are certain subjects that we could talk about like obviously steroids and so forth." McGwire, who has repeatedly denied steroid use, said in a statement to the television news magazine: "Once and for all I did not use steroids nor any illegal substance. The relationship that these allegations portray couldn't be further from the truth." Canseco also told Wallace that steroids give athletes an edge besides increased size and strength. "A lot of it is psychological," he said. "I mean, you really believe you have an edge. You feel the strength, and the stamina." Canseco also says he introduced steroids to former Texas Rangers teammates Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez. All have publicly denied using performance-enhancing drugs. "I injected them. Absolutely," Canseco said. Tony La Russa, who managed Oakland when McGwire and Canseco helped the A's win a World Series, has stood behind McGwire's denial, telling 60 Minutes that the first baseman got his strength and size from weightlifting and a careful diet. La Russa was skeptical of Canseco's version. First of all, I think he's in dire straits and needs money," La Russa said. "I think secondly ... I think there's a healthy case of envy and jealousy." McGwire was also supported by baseball's executive vice president Sandy Alderson, who was Oakland's general manager when Canseco played for the A's. Alderson, speaking Sunday, told USA TODAY he wasn't aware of steroid use: "If you go back 15 years, we were all less knowledgeable, less aware of these kinds of possibilities. That's not an excuse, but we're all much more aware today on what impact this kind of drug use can have." Alderson said McGwire had diligent workouts with Oakland coaches and his weight gain was "far more gradual than one would suspect if he used steroids. Canseco made statements before that haven't been entirely true. It's possible these are not." Tom Grieve, general manager for the Rangers when Canseco was in Texas in the early 1990s, said he didn't suspect steroid use was going on. He told USA TODAY teams at the time were more worried about players using cocaine than steroids. "I am not going to say that Jose Canseco is a liar, but I don't know if he's telling the truth," said Grieve, a Rangers broadcaster. "Who knows? We know that steroids use is widespread and has to stop." 60 Minutes planned to air more of Canseco's interview in its Wednesday program. Canseco hit 462 home runs in a major league career from 1985-2001. A few years ago, he claimed that 80% of major leaguers had taken steroids. Baseball recently adopted a tougher steroid-testing program after the sport came under increased scrutiny about the drugs. Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi testified before a federal grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative known as BALCO. *** Contributing: Hal Bodley and Mel Antonen, USA TODAY; The Associated Press |
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