Just finished reading it. Did it in about 2 sittings tonight, over the course of maybe 4 hours. Terrific, compelling read. You don’t have like him, agree with the points he puts forth, or like where he’s going with them (speaking in an evangelical tone about the future of biomedicine and biochemical technology throughout much of the book), but I have no lingering doubts that Jose Canseco is more or less a credible person, and is telling the truth about the steroid situation in Major League Baseball. If that sentence sounds suspect, let me clarify it a bit. I say “more or less” because as we know, every athlete who’s ever told their story has exaggerated a story here and there, and mixed up a detail once in a while. It happens in fishing stories, it happens in drinking stories (trust me on this one), and it happens throughout non-fiction storytelling. If someone’s going to attempt to poke holes in someone else’s credibility by questioning minute details (like how Canseco fared in certain at-bats or when he reached second base while Bret Boone was playing in a certain season), they’re going to find a lot to work with in any story of this nature, not just Canseco’s. The fact-checker at Regan Books could have done a better job to help him bridge the credibility gap here, but I’m not going to call Canseco a liar over a few details out of an 1887 game career.
If it sounds like I’m rationalizing for any reason, I’ll do just a little more of that: going into the Congressional steroid hearings (which I watched all of save the first half hour of Jim Bunning’s testimony), there was all kinds of talk about how Canseco was going to plead the Fifth the whole time, how his credibility was shaky at best because he was a criminal and he had a grudge against the baseball establishment, and all sorts of other doomsday scenarios circulated involving him. Having watched that gut-wrenchingly long hearing, I can say in all honesty that the only person who came out of it looking better than they did when they went in was Jose Canseco. Unlike everyone else, he answered every question he was asked in the most straightforward and frank manner possible, even under the obvious duress of the situation. The only other person who came close to doing so was Rafael Palmeiro, but during the course of his testimony, he came off as a little TOO indignant, a little too pious, and the anecdotal evidence against him (examine his statistics from the day Canseco joined him on the Rangers until the testing policy was upgraded before the 2004 season, just for starters…) is pretty strong. Maybe he didn’t use steroids as Canseco alleges in his book, but he also didn’t come across as a guy who was telling the truth without a doubt.
As for why Canseco pulled the about-face, and said he’d speak out on the dangers of steroid use in front of Congress at the hearings after writing such a glowing ode to it just a few months prior, I can offer a few opinions.
First off, if it isn’t clear yet to any of you who are familiar with him, Jose Canseco loves his kid. That day, where he was probably already as nervous as he’d been in his life, and by his account, hadn’t slept right or at all in a few days, he was ushered into the chamber (and made to sit at a table full of contemporaries who were quite angry at him) after listening to two parents of kids who wanted to play ball talk about how steroid use/abuse drove their children to suicide. No parent worth a shit feels good about hearing stories of how anyone else’s kid died, but it’s gotta be especially rough to hear about kids dying because they’re trying to emulate you and your peers. If his anti-steroid stance in his statement and responses to questions seems like rushed, nervous backpedalling, imagine how you’d react if you were in his shoes.
Second, throughout the book, he stresses that steroid use is not something to be taken lightly. This is in no way inconsistent with his testimony, even with him offering to speak out about the risks and dangers of steroids. If anything, his perspective gives him a unique advantage over anyone else who would offer to do it. At no point does this book become any sort of an “Anarchist’s Cookbook” for would-be juicers; even with him giving a pretty fair amount of detail about which drugs do what, you won’t walk away from it knowing how to use steroids, growth hormones, or any other performance-enhancing drugs. In addition, he disclaims every bit of information about the drugs and any sort of regimen involving them by stating that they should only be done by full-grown adults, under the supervision of experienced professionals, in conjunction with a healthy diet and exercise routine, and restates in several points that steroid users should avoid alcohol and recreational drugs at all costs. Will the people who read this and want to take the easy road to his physique pay attention to these warnings? Hell no, but you can’t blame Canseco and Canseco alone for the inherent stupidity of human nature. He even recounts the excesses of Jason Giambi and former Tampa Bay pitcher Tony Saunders as cautionary tales during the course of the story as examples of how NOT to implement a steroid regimen.
A lot of people who read this have and will jump all over Canseco’s repeated insistence that he was the victim of bias, a person (and a player) who the powers that be chose to make an example of, and how in a lot of his troubles (and there seem to be many even by his retelling of things) he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. On these points, I’m not entirely sure where I stand. The absolute truth is probably somewhere in between his recounting of events and the media’s, but I didn’t walk away feeling like his reasons why these things have happened were a long, implausible series of excuses. I find that most people who’ve had legal and professional hassles in their lives sound like Canseco does, but his troubles and his explanations for them never come off as utter bullshit in the grand scheme of things.
Again, if any of this makes me sound like a Canseco apologist, so be it. I’ve done my best to be objective and informed. I will admit that I’ve always liked watching Canseco play, but I’ve also been a huge Mark McGwire fan throughout and beyond his career, and while I’m proud of Canseco for having the guts to speak his mind and tell his story, all I am is sad for McGwire at this point. During the course of one afternoon of testimony, McGwire managed to destroy his reputation and his entire legacy worse than Jose Canseco could ever dream of doing. I believe that Canseco is, to the best of his knowledge, telling the truth, and “Juiced” reflects this in many ways. Even if you hate the guy, you owe it to yourself to give the book a read and make up your own mind about things.
