Authors: Jose Canseco
It was understood by then that teams knew all about steroids in the game. There was no question that George W. Bush knew my name was connected with steroids-the story Tom Boswell had written in 1988 wasn't the last word on the subject-but he decided to make the deal to trade for me anyway. And then, not long after I got there, I sat down with Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, and Ivan Rodriguez, and educated them about steroids.
Soon I was injecting all three of them. I personally injected each of those three guys many times, until they became more familiar with how to use a needle and were able to do it themselves. Bush and Tom Grieve, the general manager, would have seen all three of those guys getting bigger before their eyes, starting within weeks after I joined the team. But they never made an issue of it, or said anything to me or to any of us about steroids.
Was I surprised that no one ever brought it up? Come on. You never really get to speak to the owners or the GM on a daily basis. They spend their days off by themselves, attending to business behind closed doors; they don't spend a lot of time mingling with the players. I never had any sort of conversation with Bush. I shook his hand and met him once, but that was about it. He was around a lot; you saw him on his way in or out, but always just briefly. We were busy practicing or playing baseball. Bush did gravitate toward Nolan Ryan a bit, probably because he was a legend, and also closer to him in age. He didn't talk to us Latinos much.
And, given how quiet he was about the subject at the time, I was pretty surprised years later when Bush actually raised the issue of steroids in his January 2004 State of the Union address. By then, it seemed to me that a lot of people, Bush included, were trying to turn this into a witch hunt-even though they themselves had played a role in helping move the steroid revolution forward, by giving a berth to me and other steroid-using players during my heyday, and benefiting from our enhanced performance.
I'm not a big fan of CNN, but that guy Paul Begala-you know, bald, with beady eyes-was actually on the money when he talked about the issue shortly after Bush gave that speech.
"In an otherwise lackluster State of the Union address, President Bush had one genuine moment of passion," Begala said on Crossfire on January 22, 2004. "But when he was the owner of a baseball team, Mr. Bush did nothing about steroids. Although other sports were cracking down on steroids, Mr. Bush and his fellow baseball owners refused to do a thing.
"In fact, Mr. Bush even traded for Jose Canseco, bringing him to the Texas Rangers-a man who one sports agent told the UPI
was 'The Typhoid Mary of steroids.' Perhaps Mr. Bush can get some advice on the steroid crisis he's just discovered from the man he has repeatedly praised, California Governor and former steroid abuser Arnold Schwarzenegger."
I don't know about Typhoid Mary, but I don't think there's any question that when I arrived in Texas the other Rangers saw me as a useful resource. Everyone in baseball knew by then that I was the godfather of steroids. I was the first to educate other players about how to use them, the first to experiment and pass on what I'd learned, and the first to get contacts on where to get them. I taught the other players which steroid has which effect on the body, and how to mix or "stack" certain steroids to get a desired effect.
Palmeiro, Gonzalez, and Ivan Rodriguez all started asking me a lot of questions about steroids soon after I joined the Rangers.
And after I'd given them a little schooling, they told me they all wanted to get some and give them a try. So I got them each a supply through my contacts, and helped them get used to the injection process. None of them at that point wanted their wives to know about it. They would bring their steroids to the ballpark and I would inject them there, the same way I used to inject McGwire back at the Oakland Coliseum.
That was pretty typical of most players, not wanting people to know-their wives especially. So we would go into the bathroom stalls or the video room or a back room, wherever you could find a closed area, to do the injecting, and I would show them where to make the injection on the glute muscle.
Raffy, Juan, and Ivan were definitely scared the first time I injected them, but after a while it became no big deal to them, either. And throughout my time on the team, they were on a combination of growth hormone and steroids-mostly Deca and Winstrol, but with a small dose of testosterone. Combining water-based and oil-based steroids that way, they needed two separate needles, too. (They didn't take any pills. Those are probably the worst to take.)
All three of them saw some gains in size, too. Raffy, who's naturally stocky, made a reasonable gain in size and weight. Juan, on the other hand, got bigger and bigger, and didn't know when to stop. Eventually, he would grow all the way up to 255 pounds.
He was very lean when he first started playing baseball in the major leagues, so when he started getting up to that size, it was too much, especially since he was playing the outfield every day. I myself never got over 250 pounds, and I'm taller than Juan at six foot four.
Before long, other players from all around the baseball world saw what was going on with me and my buddies in Texas, how strong we all were and how our strength was helping us perform. And soon those players were coming up to me and asking me for advice about using steroids. It wasn't something you spoke about with just anybody. It wasn't like I gave daily or weekly seminars in front of the whole ball team, standing in front of them all in a white lab coat and holding up a laser pointer and telling them, "Today, we're going to learn about Deca and what it can do for you." But by then it was an open secret among players: If they wanted to know about steroids, they knew who to ask.Of course, not everyone hunted me down for advice. Some wanted to know more, some didn't. But one thing I should make clear: No one ever gave me any grief for what we were doing with our bodies. I never saw or experienced any tension among players about steroid use. To put it another way: Even the guys who weren't doing steroids knew full well that it was something they'd consider doing, even if they might say otherwise to their wives or parents or high school gym teachers.I can say with confidence that every single major-league player has at least given steroid use some thought, weighed the positives and negatives. How could you not? Ball players earn their living with their bodies, after all. They all want to become bigger, stronger, and faster. Of course, they'd be tempted to do anything they could to improve those bodies. If you're an editor at a newspaper, and you can get a souped-up computer that's faster, more reliable, and can do things the old one couldn't, of course, you're going to want that upgrade. It's the same thing for an athlete: Upgrading your physical capability is central to success in your chosen field. If you get bigger, stronger, and can hit more home runs, you can make a lot more money. If you saw some little middle infielder all of a sudden hitting forty homers in a season, your choice would be clear-if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.Once I educated another player, he would usually end up learning more and more on his own, and then using his own contacts to get what he needed. That was how it went with Palmeiro, Gonzalez, and Rodriguez in Texas. After a while I assumed that they found their own sources. Steroids are everywhere. A lot of bodybuilders supplement their income by selling them. So do trainers in gyms, and sometimes the owners of the gyms themselves. I know people who have made millions and millions of dollars selling steroids. The profits can be incredible if you can get your supplies at a low rate. Pharmacists sell steroids on the side, too. Growth hormone is everywhere you look; you can see the results in every gym, in every sport, and more and more often on beaches and sidewalks wherever you live.It's one thing to complain about steroid abuse. I agree that improper steroid use can have its dangers. But the performance enhancement that can come with responsible steroid use is nothing to be dismissed. It's an opportunity, not a danger. And those who are trying to make an issue of it are speaking from ignorance.
12. Fatherhood Changes Everything
I look at my daughter every day
and just think, "Wow."
– JOSE CANSECO
In May 1993, when I was playing for the Rangers, we went to Cleveland for a series against the Indians, and some friends on the team and I decided to go get something to eat.
There was a Hooters restaurant near the ballpark, so we decided to go there. (The food isn't bad, actually, and if you don't like those tight orange shorts the waitresses wear, then something's wrong with you.)
When we sat down to order that day, there was one waitress I couldn't take my eyes off. The second I saw her, I knew I was going to ask her out. She was tall, blonde, beautiful, and confident, with beautiful blue eyes and a body that wouldn't quit.
That was Jessica. She became my second wife.
"I remember him coming in and trying to pick me up," she says now. "He does this thing with his eyebrows where one goes up and the other doesn't. It was very cute. I didn't know who he was at all. I wasn't a sports fan. But he kept asking me to lunch, and I agreed. So the next day he took me shopping and spent, like, seven thousand dollars on me at Calvin Klein."
The next day, I was playing in the outfield when a funny thing happened. I ran back toward the wall, chasing after a ball hit by Carlos Martinez. As I went back, I lost track of the ball for just an instant, and it hit me right on the head and bounced over for a home run. That had to be the most embarrassing moment of my career, but even so, it was a fluke-the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. But because I was Jose Canseco, they turned it into a huge sensation; they'll probably be replaying that sequence long after I'm dead. It became like Madonna one of those subjects that people always ask me about when they meet me for the first time.
Three days later, I finally got to do something I'd always wanted to do. My whole time with the A's, I was always telling them I could pitch; I'd thrown 90-mile-an-hour fastballs, too.
But there was never an opportunity to give me a shot-until that May, when we were getting blown away by the Red Sox, and the Rangers' manager, Kevin Kennedy, decided to let me pitch.
It was harder than it looks, I'll tell you. I retired the side the one inning I pitched, but I also gave up three walks, two singles, and three runs. Even now, if you look up my statistics, before it says anything about my home runs, it lists my pitching stats: I have a major-league career earned-run average of 27.00, based on that one inning.
Later in the season, my right elbow started giving me trouble, ending that season early and forcing me to have ligament replacement surgery in my elbow. The know-it-alls in the press always said I'd messed up my elbow while pitching that one inning, and for all I know they're right. The point is: They really don't know. They're just guessing. And for the rest of my life I get to say that I pitched in a major-league game, something none of them can say. And Jessica was there to see it, too.
"He flew me to Boston that weekend," Jessica said. "Within six or seven days, I was head over heels in love with him. My friends warned me about him, saying they'd heard stories about him and he was a bad seed, but I didn't care.
"T'm going to marry this man!'-That's what I told my friends within a week. He liked animals, and I grew up on a farm and I'm an animal lover. I always liked his sense of humor, and he liked mine, so we always laughed a lot together. Plus, I liked his exciting lifestyle."
Jessica and I had a stormy relationship, breaking up and getting back together more times than I'd like to remember. Two years after that amazing first meeting, we were thinking about separating when Jessica said she had something to tell me. I didn't know what to expect. Had she met someone else?
That wasn't it. "I'm pregnant," she told me.
I was so happy, I couldn't believe it. Here I thought we were just heading for another of our disagreements; instead, here was this great news she had for me. Suddenly everything made perfect sense. I'd never really wanted to break up with her, and this seemed to give us the fresh start we needed-even though neither of us had been thinking much about becoming parents.
"I was shocked to find out I was pregnant," Jessica says now.
"I really hadn't planned on that."
Our wedding wasn't what you would call storybook. My back had gone out on me again so we had to hold the ceremony flat on our backs in bed. That was fine with me; I like to hang out in bed. I actually conduct a lot of my business from the phone by my bed. But to Jessica, that ceremony in Florida in August 1996 left a little something to be desired. "It wasn't much of a wedding," she says. I tried to make it up to her in other ways.
Just a few months later, that November, our baby girl Josie was born. I'll never forget that night. Jessica is so strong that once she went into her contractions, that was pretty much that.
She's one of those genetic freaks: Once the doctor said "Push!" it was all over but the shouting.
When Josie's head popped out, she was so dark I couldn't believe it. You know how, when babies don't have any oxygen in their bloodstream yet, their heads are a kind of purple color? Josie was a very dark purple. "Hmmm," I was thinking. "Why is this baby so dark?"
They held up the umbilical cord, and I cut it. As soon as the nurse slapped her on the butt and she started crying, you could see the oxygen turn her from a dark purple to pink, pink, pink, and right away you could see her blue eyes. It was amazing. That moment blew away everything I had experienced in my life. You never know what it's all about, being a father, until you experience it for yourself.
"My life changed from then on," Jessica says. "I had her to think about, as well as myself, and it was challenging. I think both Jose and I had to do a lot of growing up after Josie was born. She brought us closer together and made us a family."