Mark McGwire admitted something on Monday that every sensible sports fan already knew: He took steroids. He’s sorry and in time we’ll forgive him, just like we’ve forgiven Andy Pettitte and even Alex Rodriguez for coming clean.
What’s interesting is that we’ll forgive those that admit taking steroids, just as long as their names aren’t Jose Canseco.
You remember Jose Canseco right? He was the guy that helped (I say “helped” because Ken Caminiti had a hand in it too) bring the steroid era to light in 2005 with his book entitled, “Juiced.” He was one of the first to come clean about taking steroids and he’s offered full disclosure on the topic since then.
When his book was published, we called Canseco a snitch and a media whore who was only looking for his 15 minutes of fame and a wad of cash. And guess what? He was all of those things. The guy was willing to name names for a price and is so egotistical that he calls himself the godfather of the steroid era, yet also makes himself out to be a pariah for bringing the topic to light. He claims he wanted to save baseball and that’s why he wrote the book, yet he was a big reason that the game needed to be saved in the first place.
But through all this, Canseco has to feel vindicated. After all, the names that he mentioned in his books (“Vindicated” was the name of his second book) were actually on steroids. A-Rod, McGwire, Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, etc, have all either admitted to juicing or have been linked to performance-enhancers.
He might have embellished a little (or a lot), but in the simplest of terms Jose Canseco was right about everything. Granted, he was right about everything because he was teaching guys about how to use steroids, but he was right nevertheless. In some respects, “Juiced” is a groundbreaking revelation into the world of steroid use in baseball and Canseco deserves our praise for that.
We’re much closer to a steroid-free game now then we’ve ever been and Canseco is a big reason for it. I’m not suggesting we throw the guy a parade for helping introduce steroids and then making money off of ratting everyone out. But he’s the only one that has told the truth from the beginning and let’s not forget that guys like McGwire stood in front of the media many years ago and flat out called Canseco a liar. Then Big Mac crawled in a hole for almost a decade before finally admitting that he was the liar all along.
He may have done it for all the wrong reasons (i.e. money, fame, attention), but the bottom line is that without Canseco and his book, we might not be where we are today in terms of baseball’s steroid problem. Maybe we should be thanking him.
