Another baseball player, another case of steroid abuse.
That’s the way it can seem sometimes for fans of the sport, with a number of high profile cases being brought to light in recent years and many more players under constant scrutiny. Jose Canseco is one example of a baseball player who has openly admitted to using steroids – going so far as to write a book called Juiced.
Jose Canseco is of course the popular baseball player who played for years in the MLB and who went on later to compete in mixed martial arts and boxing. In his book Juiced, he recounts his own steroid use as well as discussing at length the extent of steroid abuse within the MLB. This has added a lot of fuel to the discussion surrounding steroid use within the sport.
The ‘Bad Boy of Baseball’
Jose Canseco has often been called the ‘Bad Boy of Baseball’ but many were shocked when he revealed his steroid use. He was a badder boy than many thought!
In the book, he described his own use as well as naming many other high profile players. Some of those named would be called to testify before congress about their steroid use. Among the accused were Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez.
In the book, Jose claims that he would never have been able to play in the major leagues had he not used steroids. He commented that steroids could turn an ‘average athlete into a super athlete’ but doesn’t recommend the use of them to most people.
Jose claims that his motivation for writing the book was to draw attention to how rife steroid use was within the MLB. Of course the cynical among us might claim that he sold his teammates out in order to sell some more copies of his book. That said though, the book did help lead to some stricter testing programs for the MLB and several have since tested positive. More recently, Jose has apologized to the players he outed.
Jose is not repentant for his own use however. He claims that while the average Joe shouldn’t use them, athletes should consider them. This is despite suffering from hypogonadism as a direct result of his own drug abuse.
Which Steroids Did Jose Use?
While Jose doesn’t divulge the precise steroids he used, we do know that he also used growth hormone. Growth hormone is actually not a steroid but rather a hormone that triggers the growth of tissue in the human body and which leads to accelerated healing following injuries.
We can also speculate that he may have used similar steroids to some other baseball stars. We know for instance that Winnidrol is relatively popular within the sport, so this is a somewhat likely candidate.
It’s important to recognize the impact that this has had on not only Jose’s reputation and legacy, but also that of his team and of the sport as a whole. There are safer, legal alternatives to these drugs and had the athletes used these instead, the whole affair could have been avoided.
