Canseco details steroid use
in new book, ‘Juiced’

Another scandal has enveloped baseball, and once again it revolves around steroid use, thanks to former baseball player Jose Canseco's new book. In "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big," Canseco writes that he helped make steroid use a norm in the sport and explains why he thinks the drugs are the future of the game. Read an excerpt.

A Look to the Future
These past few years, all you had to do was turn on a radio or flip to a sports cable channel, and you could count on hearing some blowhard give you his opinion about steroids and baseball and what it says about our society and blah blah blah. Well, enough already. I’m tired of hearing such short-sighted crap from people who have no idea what they’re talking about. Steroids are here to stay. That’s a fact. I guarantee it. Steroids are the future. By the time my eight-year-old daughter, Josie, has graduated from high school, a majority of all professional athletes — in all sports — will be taking steroids. And believe it or not, that’s good news.

Let’s be clear what we are talking about. In no way, shape, or form, do I endorse the use of steroids without proper medical advice and thorough expert supervision. I’ll say it again: Steroids are serious. They are nothing to mess around with casually, and if anything, devoting yourself to the systematic use of steroids means you have to stay away from recreational drugs. I was never into that stuff anyway, cocaine and all that, but if you’re going to work with steroids, you have to get used to clean living, smart eating, and taking care of yourself by getting plenty of rest and not overtaxing your body.

I’m especially critical of anyone who starts playing around with steroids too early, when they are barely old enough to shave and not even fully grown yet. Your body is already raging with hormones at that age, and the last thing you want to do is wreak havoc with your body’s natural balance. If you want to turn yourself into a nearly superhuman athlete, the way I did, you need to wait until you have matured into adulthood. That way your body can handle it. And you shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that all you need to do is just read a few articles on steroids, either. What you need to do is to absorb every scrap of information and insight on the subject — to become an expert on the subject, the way I did.

We’re talking about the future here. I have no doubt whatsoever that intelligent, informed use of steroids, combined with human growth hormone, will one day be so accepted that everybody will be doing it. Steroid use will be more common than Botox is now. Every baseball player and pro athlete will be using at least low levels of steroids. As a result, baseball and other sports will be more exciting and entertaining. Human life will be improved, too. We will live longer and better. And maybe we’ll love longer and better, too.

We will be able to look good and have strong, fit bodies well into our sixties and beyond. It’s called evolution, and there is no stopping it. All these people crying about steroids in baseball now will look as foolish in a few years as the people who said John F. Kennedy was crazy to say the United States would put a man on the moon. People who see the future earlier than others are always feared and misunderstood.

The public needs to be informed about the reality of steroids and how they have affected the lives of many star baseball players, including me. Have I used steroids? You bet I did. Did steroids make me a better baseball player? Of course they did. If I had it all to do over again, would I live a steroid-enriched life? Yes, I would. Do I have any regrets or qualms about relying on chemicals to help me hit a baseball so far? To be honest, no, I don’t.

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