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USA TV Talk Sports with Justin Mazzarese
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4/20/05
SORRY TO SAY BUT CANSECO IS RIGHT
Justin Mazzarese
Sports Editor
His book is number one in the box office for one reason; he�s right! Jose Canseco�s tell all book, �Juiced: Wild times, Rampant Roids, Smash hits and how baseball got big� is a true story of baseball in the mid 90�s.
People question his credentials because they ask �Who would sell out their friends like that?�. Well the truth of it is that desperate times call for desperate measures and Canseco was a desperate man. He was not only desperate for attention like some toddler throwing his food on the ground, but the all mighty dollar played a very large role in the question of why he sold out all of his friends.
Few people remember that a couple of years ago he played an extra year just to promote his �book� that he was writing. Chris De Luca of the Chicago sun times writes �At least once a week during his half-season stint with the White Sox in 2001, Jose Canseco would raise his eyebrows and utter the same teasing phrase: "Read the book when I write it.'' This was when he was asked about steroids in baseball, so this has been a storm brewing for a long time.
The storm has been brewing since the age of the bash brothers. Canseco claims to be the �Godfather� of steroids because he was the first player to bring them into the league. This is an accurate description because who else before Canseco would have even considered using steroids? This is a rhetorical question for those who try to answer. Picture him has the first one of your friends who tried cigarettes or drank liquor. A little peer pressure and before you know it not only you, but everyone was doing it.
As the days went on after his announcement of his books, it seems that more names were being mentioned by the media. Huge names like Pudge Rodriguez, Rafeal Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez were being named. They all stayed consistent, all but Juan Gonzalez. For those who remember the days of Juan �Gone�zalez, he was always in the running for the leagues Most Valuable Player.
Then something happened, I don�t know what but something happened. Juan �Gone�zalez simply became Juan �Gone�. He struggled to make big league rosters and is now currently playing at a minimum salary on the Cleveland Indians. His body just kind of fell apart. It is as almost if some �parasite� took over his body. Wait, could these be the same symptoms of the poster boy of steroids Jason Giambi. They both reached the heights of their careers and then took a free fall into mediocre.
Another player that was mentioned in the book was Brett Boone. Let�s look at Brett Boone�s numbers for 2001, they read off like a power hitting first baseman rather than a single hitting second baseman. He hit 37 home runs and drove in 141 runs, those were both career highs. 2001 was also the same year the Bonds hit his 73rd home run beating out Mark Mcgwire for all time in one year. Coincidence?
These show a pretty strong correlation in numbers and Canseco�s remarks in his book. Now that the storm as passed, the dark days of baseball are over and in 30 years from now this will be looked simply as the �steroid� era.
Copyright 2006 Justin Mazzarese. All Rights Reserved.
Reprint without permission is prohibited.
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