Friday, March 11, 2005
Canseco is taking case to the people
CARLSBAD – Next week, according to the subpoena, he will be seated behind a desk on Capitol Hill to plead his case before the Congress of the United States.
Yesterday, the seat and table were set up in a Costco in North County. In order to get a copy of ex-player Jose Canseco's controversial book "Juiced" and the author's signature, people were lined up almost long enough to fill two center lanes at the wholesale store, winding past the fake plants and the inkjet-printer cartridges and the Thomas Bros. guides and the reading glasses.
The tell-all book, Canseco said, is what prompted the House Government Reform Committee to summon him and 10 other baseball people to testify on the matter of steroids in the national pastime. Several of the former and current players – Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Jason Giambi and Rafael Palmeiro – were alleged to be steroid users in Canseco's book.
"If the Major League Baseball (officials) and players don't show or take the Fifth, then you'll know this is the truth," said Canseco, meaning the book. "We're finally going to find out what Major League Baseball is trying to hide."
Wearing sunglasses inside for the 6 p.m. signing – but taking them off to check out plasma TVs before issuing autographs – Canseco said that eventually other players will come forth and confirm his charges that steroid use has been rampant in the majors.
General managers "all knew" about the steroid problem, Canseco said, but "they didn't care."
The only team official included in the 11 subpoenas was Padres General Manager Kevin Towers, no doubt due to the fact that Towers reiterated his suspicions about the steroid use by former Padres star Ken Caminiti and has regretted not doing anything about it since Caminiti's drug-related death last year.
"You should commend Kevin Towers," Canseco said. "He may have saved somebody's life. It could be your child."
Most of those lined up for autographs were adults, one of them wearing an Oakland Athletics cap and an A's jersey with Canseco's name on the back.
"I'm a Canseco fan, but a bigger Mark McGwire fan" said Alex Stencel, a 27-year-old courier who resides in Escondido. "I grew up with Canseco and McGwire. I played baseball. I know he's telling the damn truth. He was the only one able to say anything, to speak his mind. Nobody else had the (courage) to speak out. This will ruin baseball's reputation, but he speaks the truth."
Yet, in his book, Canseco effectively brings down the legend of McGwire, citing an incident in which he and Big Mac shot up steroids in a bathroom stall. Asked if he believed McGwire was juiced when breaking the single-season home run record in 1998, Stencel wasn't so adamant.
"I don't know, I can't say," he said. "For me to say anything like that would be gossip."
