February 14, 2005
Questioning Canseco
Will Carroll has read Jose Canseco's book and seen the 60-minutes interview (I have done neither). Will has some good questions for Jose, especially this one:
2. How did you get access to hGH in 1985, just as it became available to the public as Humatrope? At an estimated cost of $30,000 for a therapeutic dose (presumably much smaller than used for performance enhancement), why would he share it?
Also, check out Will's article on Yes where he fact checks the book as much as he's able.
Posted by David Pinto at
06:53 PM
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I gotta say, his questions are interesting but I found the piece over at the Yes Network weak. It is reactionary with poorly developed arguments. The quick kneed responses by Canseco critics would do well to take more time and check their facts before claiming to be able to draw conclusions. I am going to wait until I have a chance to more closely analyze the claims before I speak to Canseco's creds.
It's disappointing how it seems everyone is ready to shred Canseco and his claims without even considering that SOME of them might be true. It's too bad we're looking to "save our sport" instead of searching for the truth. If the truth tarnishes baseball, then so what? I've been a baseball fan for 30 years now, if these players took steroids (and other PED) then I WANT TO KNOW! I want to know that all the records of the past 15-20 years are false. I want someone to get to the bottom of all this. We know that players took illegal drugs - to deny that fact is naive. I want MLB to face the truth, not cower from it and its possible consequences. As far as I'm concerned, most baseball players are on the juice until proven otherwise.
Certainly some of what Jose Canseco has said is true; Jason Giambi has admitted he took steroids. I'm willing to go farther and say some of his other names are true. Didn't Bonds admit to taking the clear & the liquid, "without knowing what they were" (which is a crock in my book.) I'm sure there are many ballplayers who've taken steroids, same as with football players, despite their testing program.
Unfortunately it is impossible for a player to prove he didn't take anything 3-4 years ago, unless he's got blood samples from that long ago. It's been a sad chapter in baseball, but I'm not going to get too worked up about it. There's a new season starting, that's what I want to focus on.
Oh, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are the only two players to have hit 700 home runs, and Roger Maris has the record at 61.
"Oh, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are the only two players to have hit 700 home runs, and Roger Maris has the record at 61."
I totally agree. And, remember, booze SLOWS DOWN your reflexes. ;)
Am I really really dense? He offers us a chart of the "accused" players' stats over four years and says they show no sign of PEDs, yet all three players showed a sharp jump in slugging in 1993...
I have very little emotional involvement in the whole thing, and I find a lot of what are said to be Canseco's claims to be not so plausible... but Carroll seems to think that steroids users' charts would show differences of 150 points or something?
"Unfortunately it is impossible for a player to prove he didn't take anything 3-4 years ago, unless he's got blood samples from that long ago"
Unfortunately, isn't also impossible to prove that a player DID take anything 3-4 years ago?
"Oh, Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth are the only two players to have hit 700 home runs, and Roger Maris has the record at 61."
Only Babe Ruth did it in a segregated era, and Aaron and Maris played in a time of rampant amphetamine use.
Arbitrarily slapping asterisks on any statistic is the path to madness.
Yes, Ruth did it in a segregated era, but who else in that era was even CLOSE to him in stats and ability? No one. And throw in his amazing pitching numbers and no one will ever outshine Ruth's greatness.
I'm not arguing Ruth wasn't a great player, the greatest of his era, or even the greatest player ever.
What I am saying is that once you start pretending a stat doesn't count for one contrived reason -- which is what you're doing when you pretend that Barry Bonds hasn't hit 700 home runs -- it won't take too much effort to find other ways to do the same thing to other players.
Where I come from, a Snitch is a Snitch. It's one thing to admit that you've done something wrong, and another thing to try to drag others down with you, whether or not it's true. It simply shows bad character. I for one have lost any respect I may have had in the past for Conseco. Am I crazy, or does he appear sort of desperate for some reason?
If Canseco is trying to expose a MAJOR problem in MLB, then why would I lose respect for him? Sure, maybe his chosen method isn't the best, but no one is doing anything about it otherwise. No one listened to him when he came out and told everyone that 50% of the players were doing steroids (or other PEDs). So he wrote a book. Baseball really needs to face this issue head on instead of just trying to discredit Canseco.
Eileen, Are you saying that mobsters shouldn't out other mobsters? Terrorists shouldn't be snitches about other terrorists? Snitch is just code for trying to shutup whistleblowers. Sorry, but leave the peer pressure stuff for high school.
Seamus,
I want mobsters to rat out other mobsters. However, that doesn't make mobster #1 worthy of praise. Might get him a reduced sentence for his own crimes but no praise. I am not saying Canseco is lying about everything. There is too much smoke not to have some fires. Having said that, he could also be embellishing the truth in order to sell books. I won't give him a penny.
"Only Babe Ruth did it in a segregated era, and Aaron and Maris played in a time of rampant amphetamine use."
How about Ralph Kiner with 54 in 1949?