Jose Canseco's book which comes out this week has become the mainstream's equivalent of the new porno tell-all on the market.
WWW- Jose Canseco's stick-and-tell memoir continued to shock the baseball world yesterday with veiled accusations against one of the game's most respected pitchers - seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.
The book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big," suggests Clemens' late-career success comes from steroids, while also pointing a meaty finger at home-run kings Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, 2002 AL MVP Miguel Tejada and several journeymen as steroid users. His allegations about those players are not based on first-hand knowledge, he admits.
The book was available in some New York stores yesterday and is the subject of a "60 Minutes" segment to be broadcast tomorrow night.
Randy Hendricks, one of Clemens' agents, responded angrily to any suggestion of steroid use by the former Yankee star, saying, "Neither Roger nor I have seen the book, but any such suggestion is absurd on its face."
As the Daily News first reported Sunday, Canseco's book claims he injected steroids with some of the biggest names in baseball - Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez.
He also claims that President Bush, the general managing partner of the Texas Rangers in the early '90s, had to be aware of steroid use on his team but did not address it. Earlier this week, the White House said Bush was not aware of drug use by Rangers' players.
Of the Rocket, who has always denied using illegal performance enhancers, Canseco writes: "I've never seen Roger Clemens do steroids, and he never told me that he did. But we've talked about what steroids could do for you, in which combinations."
He also remembers thinking that the former Yankee ace's late-career improvement is one of the "classic signs" of steroid use.
Clemens' agent, after learning of Canseco's comments, said, "It's a wonder Canseco didn't name the Pope, given he named President Bush.
"Roger has not taken any illegal drugs or substances," Hendricks said. "He has passed all tests and will continue to do so in 2005. In 2004, with stricter testing, he passed the tests and won a record seventh Cy Young Award."
Canseco is vague when discussing Sosa, again saying that he has no direct knowledge that the All-Star outfielder was juicing. "I don't know Sammy Sosa personally," he writes, "so I can't say for a fact that he ever took steroids."
But he says he remembers "thinking" that Sosa's body changed dramatically before the home-run summer of 1998. "It seemed so obvious, it was a joke," Canseco writes.
"No comment," Sosa agent Adam Katz said.
About Bonds, Canseco says flat-out, "the simple fact is Barry Bonds was definitely using steroids." He cites Bonds' testimony before the BALCO grand jury as proof.
He says he gave the Orioles' Tejada advice on how to use steroids. He also claims that Seattle's Bret Boone, who grew noticeably bigger before the 2001 season, hinted that he was using steroids.
Canseco says he injected pitcher Wilson Alvarez and outfielder Dave Martinez when they were teammates in Tampa. He writes that Tampa pitcher Tony Saunders, who made national news when his arm snapped in mid-pitch during a game, abused steroids. Alvarez's agent, Jaime Torres, told the Daily News Canseco's allegations are not true; reps for the other players did not return phone calls.
