A Few Juicy Tidbits Congress Overlooked

Near the end of a March afternoon on Capitol Hill, Congress having wind-whipped baseball on the issue of steroids for hours, a handful of superstar ballplayers were beginning to eye the door, liberation a few pointed questions away.

Before they were excused, however, Rep. C.A. Ruppersberger (D-Maryland) glared down at them from his chair in the second row and said, “I guarantee you Jose Canseco’s not going to win any popularity contests with the players, but he’s the best thing to happen to you all.”

So Canseco was gallant. Yet Mark McGwire did not appear appreciative.

When I went looking for Canseco on my bookshelf this week, he was beside the Reader’s Digest “New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual,” which explained why I hadn’t seen him in a while. It also presented an odd juxtaposition: “Juiced,” the story of a career built entirely by professional drug dealers, and “New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual,” the story of amateurs turning their homes into crooked messes.

But -- and here’s the thing -- Canseco’s tell-all was in the bookstores by the time baseball’s new steroid policy was ratified, was on the discount racks by the time Commissioner Bud Selig went to the “three-strikes-and-you’re-on-the-Burger-King-swing-shift” strategy, and was keeping the homeless warm before Rafael Palmeiro hit his second home run, which hasn’t happened yet.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but of the 15 or so players Canseco accused of taking steroids, some by Canseco’s own steady hand, many appear to have momentarily misplaced their abilities to strike baseballs hard, including a few who suddenly can’t get off the disabled list. The rest are retired. Or Roger Clemens. Or Miguel Tejada.

So maybe Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi, Bret Boone and Palmeiro found the same month to slump, and Barry Bonds, Juan Gonzalez and Wilson Alvarez just got hurt together. Careers are dying all over baseball, baseballs are dying all over warning tracks, and Selig’s drug program has caught four fringe players and a relief pitcher.

In a first month in which -- surprise -- home runs, slugging percentage, batting average and runs were down leaguewide, we wondered how the rest were getting along. ...

* Mark McGwire:

Canseco: “What we did, more times than I can count, was go into a bathroom stall together to shoot up steroids.”

McGwire: “Once and for all ... I did not use steroids or any other illegal substance.”

Update: Living in Irvine.

* George W. Bush:

Canseco: “There was no question that George W. Bush knew my name was connected with steroids.”

Bush: “I appreciate the fact that baseball is addressing this, and I appreciate the fact that the Congress is paying attention to the issue.”

Update: Rooting out WMD -- Ways of Muscle Development.

* Rafael Palmeiro:

Canseco: “Raffy, who’s naturally stocky, made a reasonable gain in size and weight.”

Palmeiro: “Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids. Period.”

Update: Not yet having gotten around to that defamation suit he threatened, Palmeiro is batting .223 and was dropped to sixth in the Baltimore order.

* Juan Gonzalez:

Canseco: “Juan ... got bigger and bigger, and didn’t know when to stop.”

Gonzalez: “I am ready for any test, in front of all you reporters. I’m clear.”

Update: On the disabled list for a month because of a strained right hamstring, he developed soreness recently in his left hamstring.

* Ivan Rodriguez:

Canseco: “I personally injected each of those three [Texas Ranger] guys many times.”

Rodriguez: “I didn’t use any of that stuff. I don’t need it.”

Update: Twenty-five pounds lighter than when Canseco last saw him, Rodriguez is nearly as productive as ever, batting .310 with three homers and 13 runs batted in thru Friday.

* Don Fehr:

Canseco: “[He] had to know the truth.”

Fehr: “I think the preliminary indications are ... that the testing program we had [in 2004] had some pretty significant positive effects.”

Update: Bulking up for cage match with Bud “the Crusher” Selig.

* Jason Giambi:

Canseco: “Giambi had the most obvious steroid physique I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Giambi: “I apologize.”

Update: Um, yeah. Hitting .208 with four extra-base hits in 72 at-bats, followed a year with bad knee, back and pituitary with, recently, a sore arm.

* Miguel Tejada:

Canseco: “I started giving him advice about steroids, and he seemed interested in what I was saying.”

Tejada: “Any inference made by Jose Canseco that I used steroids is completely false.”

Update: Had an MVP month on the league’s surprise team, batting .360 with nine homers and 32 RBIs. Raised more suspicions, however, by carrying Palmeiro through the first four weeks.

* Sammy Sosa:

Canseco: “He gained 30 pounds, just like that, and got up to 260 so fast you could see the bloating in his face and neck. It seemed so obvious, it was a joke.”

Sosa: “To be clear, I have never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.”

Update: On a pace for 24 home runs, slightly off that of the previous seven seasons, when he averaged 52.

* Brady Anderson:

Canseco: “I never saw him inject himself, but he and I discussed steroids many times.”

Anderson: Who?

Update: Spending most nights stalking Jim Palmer.

* Roger Clemens:

Canseco: “One of the classic signs of steroid use is when a player’s basic performance actually improves later in his career.”

Clemens: Anyone seen my Hummer? Burnt orange? License plate IH8TPZA?

Update: Six starts, 1.29 earned-run average, one win. Thanks, Carlos Beltran.

* Barry Bonds:

Canseco: “The simple fact is that Barry Bonds was definitely using steroids.”

Bonds: “I’m tired of my kids crying. You wanted me to jump off a bridge, I finally did. You finally brought me and my family down. ... So now go pick on a different person.”

Update: Currently on a program of weekly knee surgeries and daily website musings. Retirement speculation swirling.

* Ken Caminiti:

Canseco: “If people want to link his problems with his experimentation with steroids, they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Caminiti: Woof.

Update: Found dead from an overdose in a Bronx apartment during the last American League championship series.

* Wilson Alvarez:

Canseco: “From time to time I would inject him, usually in some isolated nook in the stadium.”

Alvarez: At least he didn’t inject him in some obvious place.

Update: Rejoined the Dodgers this week after recovering from shoulder tendinitis, still looking like a man who wouldn’t know a steroid if it hit him in the isolated nook.

* Dave Martinez:

Canseco: “I injected him the first few times, just to ease him into it.”

Martinez: “The guy approached me with them, I took a look at them, but, from the bottom of my heart, I couldn’t use it.”

Update: Retired since 2001, coaching his son’s youth league team in Pinellas County, Fla., top of his heart being held for questioning.

* Bret Boone:

Canseco: “The amazing thing was how obvious it was: All they had to do was open their eyes and take a look at this little guy, with his small frame and his huge arms.”

Boone: “Shhh. Don’t tell anybody.”

Update: Three home runs, .255 batting average, still out-hitting Adrian Beltre.

* Tony Saunders:

Canseco: “He complained to me that the growth hormone and other chemicals he’d been taking had made his body too big, too tight.”

Saunders: “Any time, any place, anywhere. I have no reason to run or hide from anything.”

Update: In extended spring training with the Orioles, where he recently experienced back spasms so severe he was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

*

George Steinbrenner has discovered that, if nothing else, $200 million will keep one’s ballclub even with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the American League East, but is no defense against the juggernauts from Toronto, Boston and Baltimore.

Through a month, Steinbrenner could throw jockey Javier Castellano farther than it would appear the New York Yankees will go in the playoffs. He won’t, of course, because Castellano could be playing left field by then, and the Yankee disabled list is already full.

While the New York media take fliers on who gets fired first -- General Manager Brian Cashman, who is in the last year of his contract, pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, or some lackey in the wrong place at the wrong time -- Joe Torre woke up Friday morning to the back page headline, “TORREBLE.”

There are so many fires burning in the Bronx, the Yankees hardly know where to turn the hose. They wonder if Giambi will ever hit again, and those are the optimists. Kevin Brown’s ERA is 8.25 after four starts, during which he has given up 41 hits in 24 innings. Bernie Williams has grown too old and achy for center field, so Hideki Matsui took over there, leaving left field for ... Tony Womack, of course.

Jaret Wright is in Los Angeles for more tests on a right shoulder that was suspect to begin with, and the Yankees are on the hook with him for $18 million -- minimum -- over the next three seasons. Tino Martinez is winding down, Randy Johnson missed a start, the back end of the rotation is as horrible as it is anonymous, and the trip from starter to Mariano Rivera is more treacherous than ever.

The papers float trade possibilities such as Todd Helton and Ken Griffey Jr., but they can’t pitch, and Clemens, but he isn’t going, and, besides, what was left of the Yankee farm system was cleared out in the off-season, so whom would they trade?

They’re not this bad. But they aren’t that much better, either. And Steinbrenner can bet on that.