JOSE CANSECO?

[Sudz]

what are your thoughts on his allegations?

[webdanzer]

There was touching involved.



-and, I just want to thank Sudz for giving me that widely applicable new forum reply...


Seriously, while steroids are no doubt all around in baseball, I'm guessing Jose saw that much would be coming to light, and wanted to make a quick buck off of it before these stories start surfacing from everywhere. Huge grains of salt, but no doubt some of it is true.

[RobVarak]

I have no blinders on regarding the steroid issue, but Jose Canseco makes that Joe Isuzu guy look like Abe Lincoln. The substance of his comments and the manner in which he delivered them were laughably unbelievable. Even as he decayed before our very eyes, Mike Wallace was able to trip him up on a ridiculous inconsistency. The way he stammered, bought time, and his general tone were just incredible, literally.

My favorite was when Wallace asked him to name the Rangers players whom he claims to have injected. He paused between each name, contemplating carefully. Jose, dude. You are publishing a book TODAY which has been endlessly hashed over in the media because of these various allegations. Minimum wage workers in Crawfish, Louisiana can name the names mentioned in your book, and you want us to believe that you're trying oh-so-hard to recall them for Mike Wallace? Either your lawyer didn't prepare you for the interview by having your review the most dramatic allegations in your book, or you're having a hard time keeping your story straight. ZERO credibility, IMO.

That said, I don't buy the hilarious attempts by LaRussa and the baseball world to discredit the allegations by their nature. With respect to Big Tony, he's now besmirching the name of the very man whom he spent so many hours defending from steroid charges years ago. The general tone of GM's of shocked indignation at the entire steroid problem, coupled with Canseco attacks is hilarious and no more credible than Jose himself. I applaud the GMs who have stepped forward and said, "Yeah, we knew something was up." At least they minimize the cognitive dissonance and retain some credibility. They are accurately placing the blame on the responsible parties, the players who cheated and MLB/MLBPA for failing the game.

Finally, Jose's preposterous advocacy for the use of steroids was misguided and ill-considered. Despite the conclusions and assumptions which plague this issue, there are many open medical questions with regard to both the benefits and health impact of performance enhancers. I would advise any client of mine to refrain from advocating the use of illegal drugs to advance from "superstar athlete" to "legend," for its impact on youth alone. Just stupid.

[grtwhtsk]

I don't think anyone doubts that there was/is a good deal of steroid use in MLB (and other sports). I may not agree with Canseco throwing names out there, but it does make you wonder even more about those homerun records. I love the game of baseball, and am sickened by the fact that the record books will always be stained.

[kicko]

i agree Jose is doing this for the money, hard to believe that these wealty blow money so bad they have to seel books and seen on tv items. i think he sould name names as long as its true, if he's BS'in or may have heard something from the grapevine then he's wrong. Hopefully this will clean up things, straighten up the sport, i even hated the division changes when they added the central division ( i know it seems to have been for the better but baseball is history) Look at the old-timers....Mantle, William, Arron...half of those guys improved their game with some wiskey.

[matthewk]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ess/050214

Good article related to this topic.

Last week when I first heard of his book, I thought exectly what LaRussa said. He's a has-been that needs money and is jealous of McGwire. Perfect time to bring out a book when Giambi admitted (although not publicly) to taking steroids.

I really like McGwire, and most of me believed him when he said he only took stuff that was legal to take at the time. I still WANT to believe him, but the more time goes by, the more I begin to doubt him.

Good or bad, what I want most is the truth to come out. There is a truth to what really happened, and hopefully we will be satisfied that we've gotten that at some point. From what we know as pretty much fact already (Bonds, Giambi, Caminitti, and Canseco were juiced up), there are MVP awards and HR records in question. As a stats fan, that alone forever stains the record books. Now I want to know just how much blood is on them.

[pk500]

Don Imus summed it up nicely when he had Mike Wallace on "Imus in the Morning" this morning: If Canseco is lying, then why isn't everyone he implicates in the book suing him or at least threatening to sue?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that McGwire was on steroids, and I believed that before Canseco's allegations. The guy never was as big as an A's rookie as he was during his record run with St. Louis. Diet, schmiet -- that was 'roids, all the way. Same with Bonds.

Take care,
PK

[Slumberland]

Will my created player in MLB 2006 have access to "the cream"? If my character's head doesn't grow from season to season, I ain't buying it.

[bphilipb]

We already know that Jose is doing this for money. I also know that this has been a problem for a long time. I don't have my head in the sand about this issue. Whether I like Jose or not is not important. He has turned on the light to something we have heard rumors about and seen features on for the last few years. Real Sports with Bryant Gumble did a piece on this a long time ago. They showed how easy it is to get the steriods from Mexico. They had a couple players come on and talk about it as well. Rember the sports illustrated article that had players saying that 50% of the players were doing steriods. Somebody needs to explain how Brady Anderson hit 50 homeruns during a season and his previous high was only 12. This is nothing new.

Baseball is only upset because there is an unwritten rule, what happens in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse. Jose has broken that rule. This is a similar outcry that happened with Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four". Jim got threatened by the media as well as the players by talking about stuff that was supposed to remain quiet. (if you have not read this book please do yourself a favor by picking it up) Bouton's book is tame by today's standards but it had the same effect. He talked about how players used "uppers" to get ready for games. He also talked about how some players played hungover and looked up ladies skirts while in the bullpen. (that last part is pretty funny)

Jose isn't the brightest chimp in the zoo. He is making some money by writing a tell all book. I think he is doing something more than that (imo), he is exposing baseball. He knows nobody likes him and that people are going to say he is crazy. He also knows that he will not get into the Hall of Fame (at least not now). The question I ask myself is what does he have to lose? IMO he has nothing to lose so why not bring everybody down. I don't like it and I have never liked him but the game has/had changed. He is telling us something we all knew but didn't really want to believe.

I hope this long post makes sense.

BB

[Kazuya]

Will my created player in MLB 2006 have access to "the cream"? If my character's head doesn't grow from season to season, I ain't buying it.

LOL...

Since so many numbnuts like to fool with sliders rather than play the game, they could incorporate it as a mini-game (optional of course, like pre-season in the NFL games). Use sliders to adjust your steroid cocktail like Jose "The Chemist" Canseco. Use the analog stick to gingerly ram the needle up your (and your clean-up hitter's) butt. Then, not unlike Madden where you see how many points your attributes have gone up at the end of the preseason, at the end of Spring Training you see how many inches the diameter of your noggin has grown...

[reeche]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ess/050214

Good article related to this topic.

Last week when I first heard of his book, I thought exectly what LaRussa said. He's a has-been that needs money and is jealous of McGwire. Perfect time to bring out a book when Giambi admitted (although not publicly) to taking steroids.

I really like McGwire, and most of me believed him when he said he only took stuff that was legal to take at the time. I still WANT to believe him, but the more time goes by, the more I begin to doubt him.

Good or bad, what I want most is the truth to come out. There is a truth to what really happened, and hopefully we will be satisfied that we've gotten that at some point. From what we know as pretty much fact already (Bonds, Giambi, Caminitti, and Canseco were juiced up), there are MVP awards and HR records in question. As a stats fan, that alone forever stains the record books. Now I want to know just how much blood is on them.

Good read. I believe just about all that Jose is saying despite his dubious past. Never thought McGwire was the fair haired boy, the media and the public made him out to be. To quote Malcolm "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad".

[thebigcaptain]

Will my created player in MLB 2006 have access to "the cream"? If my character's head doesn't grow from season to season, I ain't buying it.

LOL...

Since so many numbnuts like to fool with sliders rather than play the game, they could incorporate it as a mini-game (optional of course, like pre-season in the NFL games). Use sliders to adjust your steroid cocktail like Jose "The Chemist" Canseco. Use the analog stick to gingerly ram the needle up your (and your clean-up hitter's) butt. Then, not unlike Madden where you see how many points your attributes have gone up at the end of the preseason, at the end of Spring Training you see how many inches the diameter of your noggin has grown...

they been doing that for years with the codes for "big head mode."

here's a thought...how about in games like ea's mvp, where glove, bat or sneaker icons are used to indicate a player's attributes on the field, they could put a little syringe up there next to the junkie zoning out in left field.

[JRod]

Why are so many here shocked to find Conseco is doing this for money. Gee what a shock. I guess I missed the stat that says over 70% of profressional athletes refuse a paycheck because they love their sport so much.

So what if Conseco is doing this for money. Is he saying anything, the public don't know already. It like we are fighting a battle but we refuse to see the truth.

Let's see the Homerun mark stood since '61 then came the late 90s and early 00s. Technology allowed steroids to be hidden. The technology of hiding the use of steriods surpassed the technology of detecting steroids. Couple that with a very lazy MLB. And a time where Baseball was coming off a strike and a lack of general interest in the sport. All this has formed a perfect controversy.

We know what McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Giambi have used some sort of enhancement. But the real battle is do we shatter our view of athletic heros and believe they did steriods. Or do we just sweep this under the carper and make sure roids aren't used again in Baseball but allow these records to stand so we dont' have to think that our sports heroes ahieved these records under the use of steriods.

I hope if these records then atleast these era will be known as the Steriod Era. At the very least these players should be remembered for their use of certain substances that helped them achieve these records.