Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 26, 2008
Canseco Excerpt

ABC New posted a long excerpt of Canseco's new book. I found this interesting as it somewhat contradicts the story that Bonds started juicing after the 1998 season:

As I drove off, I remembered an earlier meeting with Barry Bonds, and suddenly our little encounter made perfect sense. It was back in February 2000. We were in Las Vegas, for the Big League Challenge, a home-run hitting contest at Cashman Field. I was given $100,000 just to show up, and I was told that the winner would take home $600,000. I'd just had back surgery, though, so I figured I'd be lucky to hit anything at all.

When we were in the locker room, changing before going out into the field, I took off my shirt and found Bonds staring at me, his eyes bugging out of his head. "Man," he said, "you are ripped!"

I guess I was. I looked like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV. There wasn't an ounce of fat on me (if I may so myself). I was 255 pounds of chiseled, high-def power.

"You have to tell me what the hell you've being doing," he said.

"I'll tell you after the game," I said.

We went outside, and I knocked several moon shots out of the park, including twenty-eight bombs in the last round. I went home with the $600,000 enchilada.

Bonds hadn't even made the finals, and he was in a lousy mood, but he waited for me because he wanted us to have our little talk. I told him everything I knew. It was Jose Canseco's Guide to Steroids 101, and over the years I'd had that identical conversation with hundreds of other guys, players and non-players alike.

A few months later, when the regular season got underway, Bonds showed up with an extra thirty pounds on him, all of it muscle. And I'll be the first to tell you: you don't get that kind of muscle just from working out. It's literally impossible. Now, I'm not saying I saw him use the stuff, because I didn't, but I was pretty much an expert on the subject of steroids, and I can tell you that steroids had changed the man -- including the size of his goddamn head. That head was hard to miss!

And of course his performance spoke volumes. Here was a guy who'd never broken 50 home runs in a single season, and suddenly he hits 73, breaking the previous major league record, McGwire's 70.

There's also video of his Nightline interview here.


Posted by David Pinto at 06:37 PM | Cheating | TrackBack (0)
Comments

After my brother won the Mr. Alaska Contest I went back to the Gym. I put on 36 lbs of muscle and took off 34lbs of fat in 4 months working out twice a week and eating 7- 8 times a day. No roids. Granted I was not in shape when I started but some times when people say he put on 15-20 lbs during the off season, I just shrug.

Posted by: Greg Bentz at March 26, 2008 07:21 PM

Growing up an A's fan I came to baseball during the height of the Bash Brother Era. I loved the team, cutting school and going to the Coliseum, sitting in the bleachers, sitting on the grass during fireworks or anywhere in the park (before the "renovation" there were no bad seats) with family and friends. Rickey, Jose, Big Mac, Hendu, Eck... and the best of them all was Canseco, young and brash, loving the limelight he set salary and power and speed records alike. He was A-Rod before A-Rod. I never really cared for Big Mac, Jose was my man. Today it just makes me sad when I think about all that potential unrealized, wasted and taken for granted. Steroids or no, he was an electric player. And it's not like you take HGH or roids or whatev and suddenly turn into Babe Ruth.

That being said, Jose is a liar. I wouldn't believe a single word he says or writes.

Posted by: Toni at March 26, 2008 07:34 PM

Some people will say anything to sell a book.

The first publishers turned down Canseco because his allegations are rubbish.

Canseco is degrading himself further with these fairy tales and trying to pull down a real big name (A Rod) with him.

Media and commentators should not give this any airtime or mention.

Let Canseco's book bust!

Posted by: Tony at March 26, 2008 07:44 PM

Bonds gained 30 pounds over so many different off-seasons he must weight about 420 by now.

Posted by: Eddie Ashe at March 26, 2008 08:22 PM

I love when Jose mentions that he discussed steroids with hundreds of players. I have no doubt that Jose inititated the conversations, not the other way around.

He was Johnny Appleseed for drugs....and deserves our scorn.

Posted by: rmt at March 26, 2008 09:28 PM

I've read a few excerpts from the book now, and it continues to crack me up how Jose writes in compliments about himself. While he is dragging someone's name and reputation through the mud, he makes sure to toss in plenty of references to how they thought that he, Jose Canseco, was a virtual God among men due to his splendid, glistening, 'roided-up physique.

It's all reads little too pat, with a simplistic A + B = C where he can't prove anything but "just knows" what happened. And he's apparently broke. A lot of his last book turned out to be more-or-less accurate, but I would be surprised if this one has even a shred of truth to it.

Posted by: josh o. at March 26, 2008 09:32 PM

The worst part of it all was the sad and humbling realization that crept in to the eyes of my many proteges. It never failed. You can't be the best of the best when the best (me) is the one who taught you to be the best. They gotta deal with that and that's hard to deal with when your ego demands that you be the best.
I never felt sorry for them, though. It's just a fact of life. The truth hurts.

Posted by: Jose Canseco at March 27, 2008 12:23 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?