Juiced (22 page)

Some of the players, I'm sure, are thinking of quitting just because they're afraid of being caught. But that's always been a fear, and we were always careful. One obvious precaution most of us did take was doing the majority of our injections at home-that is, not taking them on the road with us. On an especially long road trip, we might make an exception, but in general the trips were eight or ten days, so the players knew they'd be fine if they injected right before the trip started and again right after we got back.

But the average baseball player shouldn't really be ashamed of his steroid use. Because the people who really abuse steroids aren't baseball players at all. It's the bodybuilders, football players, and contenders in world's-strongest-men competitions who have pushed things too far and given steroids a bad name. They're the ones who apparently believe that more is always better-when actually more is usually too much.

Carefully controlling the amounts of steroids you take, administering them at the proper time-that's the way to make them work for you, without risking your health. Like most chemicals that can help you, steroids would be dangerous if used in too large a quantity. Just consider the example of Botox, whose popularity has now spread from Hollywood.

As most people know, Botox is used to paralyze muscles to stop the aging process in the face. But Botox is also poisonous-it's a form of botulism, the poison, which can kill you. The key is knowing how to use it without taking undue risks. That's exactly the way to think of steroids: Sure, they can be deadly if used in ridiculously large amounts, the way some out-of-control weight-lifters do. But if you're smart, and careful, and know what you're doing, you can use them to reach your true potential.

21. "Not Really Here to Play"

You could sense that everybody's stopped what they're
doing just to watch him hit.
-
JOE MORGAN

It's a general pattern with the media. Certain people in baseball develop these huge reputations, and then all of a sudden they can do no wrong. Take Tony LaRussa, the former A's manager, for example. You have eggheads showing up from Washington so they can lurk on the infield grass during batting practice, hoping to get two minutes to stand there and listen to what the great man has to say about the art of managing. Tony's an intelligent guy. He even has a law degree. But the simple truth is that being smart can help you with only one part of the job of being a major-league manager. If you're a jerk, it doesn't matter how smart you are.

People are always talking about LaRussa making pitching changes and outthinking another manager, and that's great for reporters looking for easy angles. That's the kind of thing that's pretty easy to follow from a distance, even if you don't know much about what's actually happening with a team. But let me tell you, any story like that looks a whole lot different from the other side. As a player, you pay attention to the relationships a manager has. Do his players like him? Do they respect him? Do they want to keep him happy? Do they want him to keep his job?

LaRussa uses a lot of psychology to control his players. One thing I never liked was the way he'd jump on a player who had made a mistake-and usually do it just as he was coming back into the dugout, so he was sure all the other players would hear. A manager's criticism should always take place behind closed doors.

Tony LaRussa has won a lot of games as a manager. He has also lost a lot of clubhouses. You'd be amazed at how many of his ex-players just can't stand the guy. I'm not saying this out of spite. Tony and I had our differences, but that was a long time ago. I haven't talked to the man in years, and that's just fine with me. But he's a good example of this same pattern of big names in baseball who get a free ride in the media most of the time.

To me, the real details of what people are like are a lot more interesting than these established media storylines, which are usually tilted so far toward the purely positive or negative that they get boring fast. Managers, like superstar ball players, are human beings with ups and downs and moods, good days and bad days. They are individuals before they are media caricatures.

Here, for what they're worth, are my own insider's observations on a few of the more interesting people in baseball.

JOE TORRE

I spent only a couple of months playing for the Yankees, and that's not much time to get to know someone. But I respect Joe Torre a lot, because he was straight with me.

"Jose, you're not really going to play," he told me when I first joined the team. "I'll try to get you in, but you're not really here to play."

I was glad he told me that. "I know," I told him. "I know why I'm here."

In 2000 the Yankees had claimed me off waivers, and picked me up from Tampa Bay, mostly to prevent both the Red Sox and he A's from doing the same thing. As an added bonus, they would have me there as insurance in case someone got hurtand maybe to pinch-hit now and then, though I'm not much of a pinch-hitter.

The Yanks didn't want the Red Sox or A's to get me because they knew I'd hit the Yankees' left-handed pitchers really well-especially Andy Pettitte, and he was a big reason they made it through the playoffs to the World Series. I've hit so many home runs against Pettitte, it's a laugh. I remember hitting two home runs against him in one game; then, the next time I faced him, I homered again. I just destroy him. He sees me and he melts. He knows he has no chance against me. So that was the main reason why the Yankees traded for me, just to keep me from whaling on Pettitte and the other lefties. From their perspective it was a great move.

But that was the worst time I ever had in baseball, sitting and watching the Yankees those last two months of the season. I played only once in a blue moon, and I couldn't stand it. It was the first time in my career that I was completely, 100 percent healthy. I could have helped out the organization with my bat and carried the team-but I wasn't getting to play.

The few times they did get me some at-bats, the Yankees put me in the outfield, even though I hadn't played out there in I don't know how long. Those were very tough times for me in New York; I lived in the city, in this horrible small apartment that was constantly under construction. (What is it with Manhattan, anyway? It seems like nothing there ever comes easy.)

In Tampa, back before the trade, I'd had a foot injury that left me with a little heel problem. But once that healed up, I ran the forty-yard dash in 3.9 seconds. "My God, you're fast," they said, but that didn't get me into the lineup.

The media made it look like I was injured and that's why I wasn't playing for the Yankees. They wanted to present some reason besides the obvious: that the Yankees had traded for me just because they're the Yankees and they could, not because they wanted me in the lineup. Joe Torre believed in the players he already had-David Justice was hot, and Glenallen Hill was hitting pretty well, too-and there was nowhere for me to play.

It was even worse in the post-season. I wasn't eligible to play in the American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners, which the Yankees won in six games. Then it was on to the Subway Series, against the Mets, and even though the Yankees put me on the active roster for that series, I spent most of my time sitting on the bench doing nothing and feeling worthless.

In game six, though, I was sitting there on the Yankee bench on a cold night at Shea Stadium. Roger Clemens was sitting to my right, and Andy Pettitte to my left, and I was sure I wouldn't be asked to play. But all of a sudden, in the sixth inning, Torre called down to me.

"Canseco, you're hitting," he said.

Roger and I looked at each other, both of us totally surprised.

I hadn't been in a game since the regular season; I hadn't even taken batting practice that day. I was half-asleep. If it hadn't been for the cold, I'd probably have fallen asleep altogether.

"Holy shit!" I thought. So I stood up kind of slowly, hunched over with stiffness, my back all cramped up. Roger started pretending as if he had an oil can in his hand, and he started oiling me like the Tin Man.

I played along, making a squeaky little voice. "Oil me here," I squeaked. "And oil me here."

Pettitte started playing along, too, and soon all three of us were cracking up. But that didn't last long. I went up to the plate to pinch-hit for David Cone, and it was bad. Three strikes and you're out. I never even saw the ball. I never took a swing. I hadn't played in a week or two, so to me it was like the first day of spring training. That was the worst time in my life, being completely healthy and yet never even reaching first base.

Even when they won the playoffs, I never felt like I was part of the Yankees. When they won the World Series, I kind of hid in the room. What was I going to do, celebrate? I didn't help them win anything. I wasn't even on the roster for the divisional series, for God's sake. I felt completely out of place. I just let them celebrate.

But they did give me a World Series ring, which was generous of them. And it's a beautiful thing.

ART HOWE

Another manager I liked was Art Howe-again, because he was very honest. I played for Art when I returned to the A's in 1997, and I always felt that he was telling me the truth. His attitude was a lot like Kevin Kennedy's, in the sense that he just let the guys go out there and play the game. Players respected him a great deal. He did a lot with the organization, working with the players and letting guys be themselves. He was a very easy-going, quiet guy.

It's not always the best approach to be a nice guy, but so long as it works, why not? If the team doesn't respect you, then you have to change your approach, but the players I knew all had a lot of respect for Howe.

The media gave Howe no chance to do anything as As manager, none at all. But in 1996, his first season managing the team, the As finished 78-84-which meant that they had won ten more games in Howe's first year than they did in any of LaRussa's last three seasons.

But it soon became clear in 1997 that the A's owners, Steve Schott and Ken Hofmann, weren't really interested in winning. I found that out the hard way, and I'll always be thankful to Art Howe for being straight with me. I went on the disabled list that August with back spasms. When I came off the disabled list and was healthy again, Howe gave me a heads-up.

"Listen, Jose, I'm probably not going to play you, because the organization doesn't want you to get your at-bats," he told me. I had a clause in my contract that if I reached a certain number of at-bats for the season my salary automatically kicked in for the following season at $5 million plus. But the A's were eager to avoid that if they could. So even though I could have helped the team win more games if I'd been in the lineup, they decided they'd rather save money than win more ball games. If you look at my stats for that year, I finished with 388 at-bats, compared to 600 or more during each of my first three seasons with the A's-yet I still had 74 RBIs and twenty-three home runs.

Once they'd given me the word that I wasn't going to play, I realized there was no changing their mind. "Well if you're going to sit me, then just send me home," I told the A's. "Don't have me here not playing."

So that's what happened-I went back to Florida. Only the organization couldn't let fans know what was really going on.

Instead, they had to make it look like I was injured. For example, one of the trainers told reporters I was still having back trouble.

"He's seeing a physical therapist," the trainer said. "I talk to him almost every day."

Yeah, right. Even now it makes me mad just to think about that, because it helped cement another myth about me-that I was injured all the time. Again, beware the difference between perception and reality. Probably 30 to 40 percent of the time I was reported as "injured," I wasn't really-it was just that I belonged to an organization that didn't want to play me, either for money reasons or because they'd only acquired me in the first place to stop me from going to another team.

It happens all the time in baseball that teams ask a player to be on the DL, even if the player doesn't have an injury. Usually it's because they need to open up a spot on the roster for another player. But they don't mind lying to the public about what they're actually doing. There are an awful lot of hypocrites out there in baseball. When the A's had traded for me, they'd been talking about wanting to win. When it came down to it, though, Schott and Hofmann were so worried about money that they kept me out of the lineup.

I don't know if that made them hypocrites or just stupid, but either way it sure didn't sit well with me.

DUSTY BAKER

I've never played for Dusty Baker, but we were teammates in Oakland right at the end of his career. My rookie year, 1986, was his last year as a player, and as a young, inexperienced kid I remember being amazed by him. I mean, that dude could party.

The one time he asked me to go out with him, I told him no thanks: the alcohol-poisoning escapades of my minor-league days were still fresh in my mind, and I knew enough not to risk temptation.

It's funny for me to come across guys like Dusty, who could really party, and then a few years go by and all of a sudden they're wearing glasses and becoming managers and leading organizations to division titles. But I can see how Dusty would be a great manager, because he was a good player and he understands the player's life on and off the field. He has a real knack for protecting a player and getting the best out of him. I would have liked to have had a chance to play for him.

RICKEY HENDERSON

Rickey Henderson was a genetic freak, a man with such incredible legs and arms that even past his fortieth birthday he looked like a mini-bodybuilder. To me, he was one of the best players in the game, and maybe the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. He was a good teammate to have, too. He just played the game, worked hard, and busted his ass every day.