Words Weren’t His Only Poor Choice

As it turns out, Jose Canseco might not have been the least credible finger-pointer to testify about steroids on Capitol Hill in March.

The image of Rafael Palmeiro angrily punching the air with his index finger as he swore he had “never used steroids” was all over the television airwaves Monday after Major League Baseball announced Palmeiro faced a 10-day suspension for testing positive for steroids.

A gripping TV moment -- Palmeiro defiantly asserting his innocence in front of Congress on March 17 -- has become the latest embarrassing face on a steroid scandal that not only is rewriting baseball history but is also rearranging the future interior design of the Hall of Fame.

Five months ago, Mark McGwire and Palmeiro seemed locks for Cooperstown. Then they were called before Congress in part to rebut claims in Canseco’s spill-the-steroids book that both players had artificially enhanced their Hall of Fame resumes.

That day in front of glaring camera lights and wary politicians, the two men appeared to provide a case study on the right and wrong ways to confront a steroid charge.

McGwire sweated and stammered and refused to answer round after round of questioning, stating repeatedly, “I’m not here to talk about the past.”

Immediate public and media reaction: McGwire is either guilty or acting on the worst legal advice in history -- or both.

Palmeiro took the opposite tactic, aggressively taking the offense to build a persuasive defense.

“Let me start by telling you this,” Palmeiro began as he glared at the panel and began wagging his finger to punctuate every syllable, “I have never used steroids. Period. I do not know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never.

“The reference to me in Mr. Canseco’s book is absolutely false. I am against the use of steroids. I don’t think athletes should use steroids, and I don’t think our kids should use them.”

Immediate public and media reaction: That is the way to do it. Look convincing, sound convincing and you will convince a lot of people you are not guilty. Why didn’t McGwire think of that?

Flash ahead to August. Palmeiro has tested positive, and McGwire now has company in the same boat listing away from Hall of Fame first-ballot status.

Meanwhile, not as many people are scoffing today at Canseco and his much-slammed book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, And How Baseball Got Big.” Could it be that Canseco had it right about McGwire and Palmeiro and others on his steroid hit list?

“I think people are now realizing, or starting to realize, that every word, more or less, I said in the book is the absolute truth,” Canseco told Sporting News Radio on Monday.

Canseco said he did not believe Palmeiro was currently using steroids and is being used as a high-profile scapegoat in Major League Baseball’s public image cleanup campaign.

“In the past he has, but not now,” Canseco said. “Obviously, they are picking this time to fight this battle when there is some kind of testing policy involved, and now trying to take out Rafael Palmeiro for what he may have done in the past.”

Credibility is an issue everywhere in this saga, including the people doing the testing and handing out the suspensions. Before Palmeiro, this was the roster of big leaguers suspended for positive tests in 2005: Alex Sanchez, Jorge Piedra, Agustin Montero, Jamal Strong, Juan Rincon, Rafael Betancourt.

Not a heavy hitter or big name among them. By casting out its net and dragging in nothing but small fish, baseball’s “new and improved” drug policy was looking more laughable than ever. Who could take baseball’s get-tough program seriously until baseball produced a player who mattered?

Palmeiro became that player, but consider the timing of the announcement.

It came a day after baseball’s annual self-celebratory fest, Hall of Fame weekend.

It came 17 days after Palmeiro recorded the 3,000th hit of his 20-year career.

Good news milked for all it was worth, Monday seemed the right time to deliver some bad.

Palmeiro promptly launched into spin control, participating in a conference call in which he said that an independent arbitrator “did not find that I used a banned substance intentionally” and implied that a tainted over-the-counter dietary supplement might have been the culprit.

But Palmeiro never got into specifics, never named the supplement, never offered any evidence about what he actually ingested. In short, his defense lacked credibility.

Now Palmeiro, one of only four players with 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, joins McGwire on the hold-on, not-so-fast Hall of Fame track. Never a member of a pennant winner, never close in league most-valuable-player voting and only a four-time All-Star, Palmeiro had based his Hall of Fame candidacy almost solely on a career’s accumulation of statistics -- statistics that now must be viewed with skepticism.

Palmeiro was a singles hitter during the early part of his career, hitting more than 22 home runs only once in his first seven seasons.

Enter Canseco, who became his Texas Ranger teammate late in the 1992 season. In 1993, Palmeiro jumped from 22 home runs to 37, from 85 RBIs to 105. Canseco has claimed this was no coincidence, that Palmeiro transformed himself into a power hitter after Canseco introduced him to steroids.

From 1995 through 2003, an era now being scrutinized because of its institutional lack of steroid control, Palmeiro had his nine greatest home-run seasons, averaging 41.4 home runs after turning 30 in late 1994 -- until baseball began testing for steroids in 2004. Palmeiro’s home run total dropped from 38 in 2003 to 23 in 2004.

Before Monday, a lot of people looked at Palmeiro’s Hall of Fame credentials and suggested that something didn’t seem quite right. Now, they can put a finger on it.