Amid all the sanctimonious, holier-than-thou hand wringing from radio’s sports talk cesspool of the unwashed and unemployed, lies something that none of these mouth-breathers can deny:
Jose Canseco’s Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big is rooted in truth.
The former Bash Brother, and, briefly, baseball’s best player, admits that he took steroids throughout his Major League career. He credits these chemicals for filling out the statistics that adorn the front of the most controversial book to hit baseball since Jim Bouton’s Ball Four in 1970.
Don’t get me wrong…the two titles aren’t in the same league, save for the fact that you’ll likely find them next to each other on the “Baseball, Alphabetized by Author” subject shelf. But, more than a generation ago, the innocence of America’s idealistic baseball fans was shattered by Bouton’s unflattering portrayal of Mickey Mantle and other heroes of the day.
Eventually, Ball Four became Bouton’s own ballast as the tales he told were gradually accepted as gospel and baseball’s background of booze, broads and drugs became a box score, of sorts, for much of the current generation of fans.
So, based on this, can we not, at least, give Canseco the benefit of the doubt?
Juiced… is an undeniably easy read. The uncredited ghostwriter doesn’t linger on any one subject for too long, which, of course, isn’t always a good thing. Sure, there’s lots of salt thrown on the names of supposed steroid shooters, but this is, first and foremost, an autobiography on Canseco’s life, which, at times, is really quite fascinating.
Long before Al Pacino’s turn in Scarface and George Steinbrenner’s turn in Checkbook! made caricatures of the Cuban immigrant experience, Canseco’s family fled the Castro regime as it was first coming into power. The reader doesn’t get the sense of their struggle, though, as Canseco makes it seem like a seamless transition to life in America.
Another unexplored avenue is Canseco’s relationship with his father. It’s obviously a contentious one, but you get the feeling that Jose is holding back, or even repressing some of the pain from dealing with a man whom he could never seem to satisfy. On the other hand, Canseco’s memories of his mother are more memorable (both for Jose and the reader), while the few paragraphs dealing with her death are one of the book’s few genuine moments.
It’s on his mother’s deathbed that Canseco claims to have promised her that he would become the game’s greatest athlete. And, so begins Jose’s 20-year relationship with performance enhancing drugs.
This is the show that everyone came to see, but it’s not a story that has much of a background in the context of the book. Canseco was a decent, if unspectacular prospect for the Oakland A’s who began shooting up (in more ways than one) after the 1984 season. He hooked up with a high school friend, there were some slices of pizza involved and that was it. Juiced… doesn’t give up much more than that.
Canseco does name names, but anyone who’s watched ESPN or 60 Minutes in the last week has heard all the dirt there is to dish. Like the movie trailer that gives away all the best parts for free, the anecdotes involving the alleged anabolic activities of Mark McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez and others felt like old news even though I purchased the book the day it was released.
One thing that was unexpected was Canseco’s stance on steroid usage. There’s a little blurb in the beginning telling the reader that this book doesn’t “condone or encourage the use of any particular drug…” Then, for the next 275 pages, Jose does everything but hand-deliver the ‘roids to your front door. He recommends them, he endorses them, hell, he even tells you which players should’ve been taking them.
Not surprisingly, Canseco glosses over nearly every negative experience in his career. Every arrest was the fault of an overzealous officer, while a recent failed drug test was the result of someone switching the piss cups on him. That incident landed Jose in prison and, to his credit, he paints a picture that could easily substitute for the Scared Straight program.
While we’re handing out a little praise, Jose also takes a handful of Major Leaguers to task for their perceived “phoniness”. Like him or not, Canseco makes some salient points about the cloyingly crafted corporate character that is Alex Rodriguez, as well as the undeniable double-standard for Cal Ripken, whose separate superstar treatment went entirely unreported for most of his career.
Sure…you’ll roll your eyes at his incessant accusations of racism and you’ll scratch your head at the maddening gaps in the timeline of his playing career. You’ll wonder why he was always coming back from an injury, if steroids, as he constantly claims, turned him into Superman.
And, you’ll read and re-read the paragraphs where Canseco contradicts himself…on the color of his daughter’s eyes.
Juiced… is modern-day sensationalism in all its garish glory. Jose Canseco’s credibility and character aren’t enough to carry his preposterous prose throughout 25 chapters (does he really say that steroids will one day help humans to live to be 130 years old?)
Sure, your hands will feel a little dirtier after this read, but I hear that Canseco has quite the cure for that, too.
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