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Bash brother bashes teammates and opponents
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:30...baseball, with his tell-all book, Juiced, Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.
00:36Not only did Canseco pontificate on the virtues of steroids, but he named names, and some big names, like Mark
00:43McGuire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Juan Gonzalez.
00:46While some touted his book as the ball four of the new millennium, others questioned the former All-Star's motives
00:51and credibility.
00:52Over the next half hour, we'll try to explain why you can't blame Jose Canseco for outing Major League Baseball
00:58on the steroid controversy.
01:00But before we begin our countdown, let's investigate the author.
01:06Canseco bids for the second homer of the inning.
01:09It's fair, he's got it.
01:10It settles into the upper deck.
01:14Jose Canseco was the new age baseball player.
01:17Great field. Canseco.
01:20Got it.
01:21He probably was the best player in the game at that time.
01:24He could hit, he could hit with power, he could run for a big man.
01:28He is going on the pitch, the throw by Pena, he is safe at second pace.
01:33Things are starting to change the way people view offensive guys.
01:37Here's the pitch.
01:37Swung on, long drive, left field.
01:40Oh, going back, home run, Canseco.
01:44He's hitting ball.
01:47That's great.
01:48I mean, that was a specimen.
01:50The media would sit down and interview me.
01:52I would catch him looking at my legs and my arms like, are you human?
01:56It's showtime here at the Oakland Coliseum.
01:58Jose Canseco is in the batting cage, wowing the crowd.
02:02Major League players, their jaws would drop when this guy took PP.
02:05It wasn't just a casual fan.
02:06It was his peers marveled at him.
02:08He was that good.
02:17In 1988, Jose Canseco became the first player in Major League history to hit 40 homers and
02:24steal 40 bases in the same season.
02:26Then the American League MVP, complemented by fellow Bash brother Mark McGuire, led Oakland
02:31to its first World Series appearance in 14 years.
02:35In game one against the Dodgers, Canseco blew out the circuitry.
02:40And there's a drive to center.
02:42Back to Shelby, to the wall.
02:44It is gone.
02:46Grand slam home run.
02:49When this ball smokes off the camera, you'll see me jump.
02:53I don't know if it would have took my glove off or not had it been hit straight at me
02:56because
02:57it was an absolute missile.
02:58The camera had a huge dent in it, like if a hammer had hit it.
03:01The next day, the cameraman approached Jose before the game and said, I'd like your autograph.
03:08And Jose wrote on the camera, Jose Canseco, Grand Slam.
03:14Over the next four seasons, Canseco led the A's to a World Series title, two American League
03:20pennants, and made three All-Star teams.
03:22But with such early success came a public life in the fast lane.
03:27Any 21-year-old, 22-year-old in America, if you give him five million bucks, the first
03:32thing he's going to do is probably buy a fast car, live in a penthouse, and go out with
03:36girls.
03:37Pretty much that's all he did.
03:38Never traveled with a rock band, but I would say it would be pretty close to that.
03:41He walked through lobbies and stopped in there.
03:47From Hammer to, you know, guy with a hammer, well, the way he swings his back.
03:59Hammer's an Oakland native also.
04:03At the time when he got a speeding ticket because he was testing rocket fuel in his car.
04:10He had domestic issues.
04:13He faces aggravated battery charges in Miami following an incident last month when he rammed
04:18his Porsche into his wife's BMW.
04:20He had the bad boy in his town with his wife and situations and rumors with Madonna.
04:24He seemed to be a little bit more interested in being a celebrity, and it led to his demise.
04:30I remember him as the guy who convinced me that the phrase, sure, Hall of Famer, can never
04:36be used again.
04:36Because after three years, he was a sure Hall of Famer.
04:40And three years after that, he became a cartoon character.
04:44High fly ball, right field deep.
04:46Canseco back to the track.
04:47Look it up.
04:48It is off his head.
04:50It looked like.
04:51And on top.
04:52A home run.
04:53No major league baseball player wants to have a ball conked off his head and go over the
04:58wall.
04:59You know, he looked so helpless.
05:01We all had a great hoot watching it, but the thing in the back of your heads is, well,
05:07who else in baseball could that happen to?
05:09And the fact is, he was the only guy.
05:21He made one all-star team in his last 10 years after he was going to the Hall of Fame.
05:31Pitiful.
05:32And tainted by continued rumors of steroid use.
05:36Jose is leading the game here in the second inning.
05:41There was something unnatural about Jose, and you could see that.
05:44It was obvious.
05:45People knew that Jose Canseco and other players were using some sort of performance-enhancing
05:51substances as far back as the late 80s, early 90s, and yet nobody really did anything about
05:56it.
05:57But it's long been suspected.
05:58Jose Canseco admits for the first time he used steroids during his record-setting playing
06:03day.
06:05In 2005, four years after he played his last major league game, Canseco authored his best
06:11seller, Juiced.
06:12The book not only put a face on the game's undercurrent of race, but he also named some
06:19of the biggest stars as steroid users.
06:22I believe Canseco's the kind of guy who would sell anyone out just to get ahead.
06:26We all knew why Jose Canseco was doing this, because it was going to make him money.
06:30It was going to give him the notoriety.
06:32I think you can blame him for violating the codes of Clubhouse.
06:36One thing that you know about this game, you know, what you hear here, what you see here,
06:40what you do here stays here.
06:41The guys and just names that are mentioned, whether they're guilty or not, are going to
06:45have to answer questions in spring training and always have doubts as well.
06:48I think he's a liar.
06:49I think that what he did was grossly overstate a situation to make himself not look as bad.
06:56I thought the guy was lying through his teeth.
06:59He had said at one point that he didn't do steroids, and here he was saying, now I did
07:05do steroids and so did everybody else.
07:10Well, there's so much more now to this story.
07:12In a few minutes, we'll count down the top five reasons you can't blame Jose Canseco for
07:17outing baseball on the steroid issue.
07:19But first, here are some arguments that just missed the cut.
07:21We call them the best of the rest.
07:25Ball four.
07:26Jim Bouton's groundbreaking 1970 bestseller, with its tales of late-night carousing and
07:32amphetamine used by players, paved the way for future tell-all books.
07:37How fabulous are greenies?
07:39The answer is, very.
07:40Greenies are pep pills, and a lot of baseball players couldn't function without them.
07:45The reaction was the same reaction as from Jose Canseco's book, as far as the public was
07:51concerned.
07:51That's nothing compared to some of the things that are written today.
07:55But at the time, that was the first and caught everybody off guard.
08:00Our other best of the rest, the former third baseman sent shockwaves through baseball when
08:08he publicly admitted to steroid use.
08:11When Ken Caminiti spoke, he was believable.
08:14People who knew Ken Caminiti knew he was telling the truth.
08:18I think it took people like Caminiti and like Canseco, who had been users themselves, to
08:24come forward and start talking about it before the lid came off Pandora's box.
08:31Major League Baseball.
08:33Despite rumors of steroid use during the home run boom in the 1990s, Major League Baseball
08:39officials failed to act.
08:41It wasn't until the 2003 season that a steroid program was in place.
08:47I certainly blame baseball for not addressing the issue sooner.
08:52Baseball has lagged behind in that area.
08:54And for that reason, I think people have gotten away with steroid use in the past.
08:59We all know what was going on in the game.
09:01We all knew players.
09:02I was a guy that played year to year for my contract.
09:04I knew other players that were taking it.
09:07No one in baseball, trainers, owners, coaches, no one approached me about it.
09:14No one cared.
09:16Could it be that baseball was too busy playing catch-up to clean its own house?
09:21After suffering financially from lost revenue during the strike of 1994-95, the game's problems
09:27were compounded when attendance dropped 20% in its first season back.
09:33Major League Baseball was recovering from a dramatic strike.
09:38I think they were looking for any stimulant to get fans back interested.
09:46Baseball needed some momentum.
09:48Home runs really got the game back on focus.
09:53The juice that kicked the game back to prominence may have been an overdose.
09:58In 10 seasons, beginning in 1993, 50 or more homers were hit 18 times,
10:05equaling the number of times the feet had been hit in the history of the major leagues.
10:12I observed people getting stronger and hitting more home runs the older they got.
10:22When I play baseball, just the opposite happens.
10:31Baseball turned a blind eye because it was cash and checks.
10:34And check cashing is always the most popular thing in baseball.
10:38In November of 2005, nine months after Canseco's book was released,
10:44baseball passed a new steroid policy,
10:46which included a 50-game suspension for a first-fail test
10:50and a lifetime ban for a third.
10:53If Jose Canseco does not write the book,
10:56then Major League Baseball has the same rules on drugs
10:59that they had five years ago, which mean nothing.
11:03It held up a mirror to baseball.
11:05Maybe that mirror was a little bit foggy.
11:06Maybe every detail wasn't exactly right.
11:09But baseball needed to be called on it, and Canseco did that.
11:13One down, four to go.
11:15Here is reason number four.
11:18Fear of fear.
11:20Despite whispers of wide steroid use in the majors,
11:24Donald Fear, president of the Players' Union,
11:26was unresponsive to proposals of stricter testing policies.
11:31I say the Players' Union is to blame for the steroid problem
11:34because they never wanted to confront it in collective bargaining.
11:37The Players' Union has been standing in the way
11:39of Major League Baseball having effective drug policies.
11:43They didn't want to deal with it,
11:44hiding behind this issue of privacy rights.
11:47That was their big thing.
11:48You can't expect us to submit the test.
11:51In 2002, Major League Baseball attempted to broach the subject
11:54during its collective bargaining negotiations with the Players' Union.
11:57When the owners proposed a policy of random testing,
12:01the Union strongly opposed it.
12:03It was a very hot item during the 2002 negotiations.
12:09While we weren't satisfied with what we got,
12:12I didn't think the industry could take another work stoppage.
12:16It was another way of the Union and Donald Fear saying to baseball,
12:21we got our way.
12:22Donald Fear is one tough SOB.
12:25He's a tough guy to deal with.
12:28After the 2000...
12:31The Union proposed its own steroids policy.
12:34Players would be tested solely to determine whether steroid use was a problem,
12:39with a proviso that Major League Baseball wouldn't release the results.
12:43Just how seriously are you taking it
12:46when you're going to embark on testing
12:48and then not do anything with the results?
12:50I don't think Donald Fear did a very good job at all on this particular issue.
12:56He used his power and the Players' Union's power to cover up a very serious problem.
13:02They wanted no part of this issue.
13:04They demeaned the issue.
13:05They told reporters who asked about it this was not an issue.
13:08In March of 2005, Donald Fear appeared before a congressional hearing on the topic of steroids in baseball.
13:15The Players' Union needs to step forward so we can save baseball from this disgrace which you all put it
13:21in.
13:23I will go back to my members and I will consult with them about it.
13:27That's the most I can do.
13:28Drug testing would have been in this sport 10 years before
13:31if the Players' Union had not protested it as strongly as it did.
13:36You can absolutely blame the Players' Union for this controversy
13:39because while Donald Fear has served his union well, he was dead flat wrong on this.
13:49Mark McGuire.
13:51While Canseco was viewed by the media as baseball's bad boy,
13:55his former Bash brother was hailed as an American hero.
13:58Yeah, people loved Mark McGuire at that time.
14:03And I was like, and I'm like, uh, nobody questioned why he's that huge.
14:14McGuire was bigger than I was.
14:16McGuire was a mammoth man.
14:18And all the media would do is focus on me.
14:20We liked Mark McGuire.
14:22He brought baseball back.
14:23Jose has always been seen more as egotistical.
14:25Mark McGuire is more apple pie.
14:28He was McGuire.
14:29He was squeaky clean.
14:30He was, you know, playing in middle America.
14:32He was hitting 70 home runs.
14:35In 1998, McGuire won an epic home run race against Sammy Sosa, finishing with 70.
14:43Swing!
14:44Get up, baby!
14:45Get up, get up, get up!
14:46Oh, Lord!
14:47He's done it again!
14:4970 home runs!
14:53They did steroids.
14:55They did steroids.
14:58But even as America cheered, controversy loomed when a reporter discovered that the Cardinal's slugger had been taking the supplement
15:06androstenedione.
15:09It's legal stuff, sold over the counter.
15:13Anybody can go in there and buy it.
15:16There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
15:18In your body, when you make testosterone, you first have to make androstenedione, and then you convert androstenedione to testosterone.
15:24Testosterone is clearly an anabolic steroid.
15:27By that, it means it can promote muscle growth and muscle mass.
15:31Mark McGuire and Tony LaRusso were both furious at the story.
15:34Mark McGuire complained about a reporter snooping in his locker.
15:38I was that reporter.
15:39I wasn't snooping.
15:41The media was the one who was attacked for broaching the story.
15:43It wasn't a question of McGuire using a substance that was banned by everybody else.
15:47It's, let's attack the messenger.
15:49Just three years later, in 2001, McGuire retired 17 home runs shy of 600.
15:56The whispers surrounding his record-setting season of 1998 were front and center during the congressional hearings of 2005.
16:05In the year you were breaking the home run record, a bottle of Andro was seen in your locker.
16:13Well, sir, I'm not here to talk about the past.
16:16There are certain phrases that go down in American history.
16:21I'm not here to talk about the past.
16:22Presumably there was something in his past they didn't want to talk about.
16:25There's a five-year statute of limitations on steroid use, and Mark had been out of the game for four
16:29years.
16:30Let's assume for a minute that he had taken steroids.
16:32He couldn't come forward and say it without immunity or he'd be prosecuted.
16:36You don't want to comment?
16:39Are you taking the fifth?
16:40I'm not here to discuss the past.
16:41I'm here to be positive about this.
16:43That really added credibility to Canseco's charges.
16:48There's no question Canseco was vindicated by testimony in Washington.
16:52I just remember vividly watching McGuire's performance and seeing Canseco sitting there and thinking just how amazingly these two guys
17:00had changed places.
17:04If you haven't bought into our argument yet, maybe reason number two will help.
17:10The doublehead of Canseco's book and the federal investigation into the California-based drug lab raised the media's consciousness to
17:18a new level.
17:19The investigation breaks in the public's eye in September.
17:23People have alleged that Balco is still handing out their candy and their juice to athletes playing right now, today.
17:41We're at 2003.
17:42There's a raid of Balco, and we begin to investigate Balco.
17:46The basic shape of the case was clear to us as reporters that these athletes have been going down there
17:52to get banned drugs.
17:53We're going to quickly find out that Barry Bonds has been using steroids and that he's been receiving them as
18:00part of his connection to Balco.
18:02That's his number 73.
18:05Grand jury testimony leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle tied Victor Conti to Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.
18:12The charge that the Balco founders supplied both with steroids prompted Congress to call Major League Baseball on the carpet.
18:20I have not been reassured one bit by the testimony I've heard today, I have to tell you.
18:26Why didn't you give us that March 2nd document?
18:29That really sounds like a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil strategy.
18:34You had Canseco's book, you had the Balco investigation, and you had Congress, everything sort of coming together at once.
18:41That book played a big part in getting Congress to move.
18:46It made Balco make more sense to a lot of people.
18:50Jose saw that there was an opening there and took that memoir and recast it as a steroid book,
18:56and in so doing, really, really served the sport.
19:02And welcome back.
19:03You've seen Reasons 5 through 2, Why You Can't Blame Jose Canseco.
19:06Here is reason number one.
19:11The Truth Hurts.
19:13Say what you want about Canseco's whistleblowing book.
19:16The story that is unfolding about steroid use in baseball is bearing him out.
19:22I don't blame Canseco at all for exposing players and the steroid era because it happened,
19:26and it's the truth, or at least a good percentage of what he wrote in his book and what he
19:30said has turned out to be the truth.
19:32You don't see any lawsuits against Jose Canseco, so obviously he had some pretty good information.
19:37In 2005, the first year that included penalties for steroid use, 12 players tested positive.
19:44One was Rafael Palmeiro, who only months earlier claimed before Congress...
19:52No.
19:53Let me start by telling you this.
19:55I have...
19:56Yeah, I'm wearing an Orioles shirt as a disgrace that he had to be on the Orioles.
20:00We don't...
20:03We don't like our stars juiced up.
20:09I've never used steroids, period.
20:13You could have knocked me over with a feather when he tested positive.
20:18Here's Palmeiro, you know, pointing his finger, you know, like, I did not have sex with that steroid woman.
20:25I never used steroids in baseball.
20:28I don't know how to tell you.
20:29I don't know how to tell you.
20:30I don't know how to tell you.
20:30Rafael Palmeiro on the stupid meter was...
20:34I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
20:38It's off charts.
20:40You can't lie to the Congress and then go out and be caught.
20:46For him to test positive for steroids, I think, people looked at Canseco's book and his allegations with a whole
20:52other view.
20:53There was certainly a feeling after the hearings and after the Palmeiro testing positive that, hey, there's probably more to
21:00the book than was initially believed.
21:01In light of players' circumspection and outright lies, Canseco's image has changed.
21:07The most effective thing right now is would be for us to admit there's a major problem.
21:14All the players fell down and were basically exposed as frauds and naves and boobs.
21:22And Canseco was the only one whose story stood up under the scrutiny.
21:26Everyone else was going, I didn't know there was a problem.
21:28I've never seen anything.
21:30Ask my lawyer.
21:32I don't speak English.
21:34I can tell you, Mr. Chema, I don't have too much to tell you.
21:37McGuire looks foolish.
21:38We need to start talking about positive things here.
21:41Sosa looks foolish.
21:43To my analysis, I don't know.
21:45You didn't know.
21:47And Canseco, the guy who was everybody's fool, is the one who turns out to be the prophet.
21:52What he did was help the game.
21:53He helped the game more than any player has in the last 20 years.
21:56I think over time, we will give a great deal of credit to Jose Canseco for being the singular person
22:02who was able to say something that everybody had been whispering for over a decade.
22:07You can never blame the truth.
22:09And that's what it all lays.
22:11You tell the truth and you can't blame the individual.
22:14Well, there you have it.
22:15The top five reasons you can't blame Jose Canseco for outing Major League Baseball on the steroid issue.
22:21Whatever your opinion on Canseco, there's little debate on the impact he had.
22:24And while it was his credibility that was originally called into question, it was the credibility of some he would
22:30name that would not long after dive to depths never seen even by the former MVP.
22:35I'm Brian Kenney.
22:37Thanks for watching.
22:38What Jose Canseco did wrong, he didn't name enough guys probably.
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