Juiced (24 page)

I know I'm no angel. But I truly believe that, ever since that incident with Esther, I've been tagged unfairly by the media as a violent person. As anyone who really knows me can tell you, I've never started a fight, not once in my whole life. I've never instigated a fight verbally, and I've walked away from a lot of potential fights.

But because of who I am, and the success that I've had, it's been very easy for the media to turn a couple of marital spats and bar fights into a supposed reputation for aggression and violence toward women.

In this society, once you're labeled as a person who is aggressive, that's it. If you're known as someone who goes out and gets into fights, people look for you because you're an easy target. I could be standing at a bar, get knocked out by a guy out of nowhere, end up in the hospital, and this is what would you read in the paper the next morning:

CANSECO GETS INTO ANOTHER
BAR FIGHT.

Which brings me to what happened in 2001. The whole horrible experience began when my brother, Ozzie, and I went out one night in Miami. Ozzie was with his fiancee, and I was with a date, a lovely young woman named Amber. It was Halloween, and three of us were dressed up as vampires; Amber was dressed as an Indian squaw. At one point Amber left the group to go to the bathroom with some other girls, and this guy I'd never seen before reached down, lifted up her skirt, and grabbed her ass. So Amber got into an argument with him-and Ozzie and I walked over to see what was happening. When the guy saw me coming, he made what looked like an aggressive move toward me. I didn't want to get into it with him, but he had a bottle or something in his hand, so I put my hand up to stop his advance.

"Get away from me," I told him.

When one of his buddies stepped forward, my brother intercepted him and started pushing him back to the bar area. There were lots of people there, and I lost track of who was doing what, but I know that I was acting in self-defense. Eventually, the guy I was dealing with went to help his buddy, who was scuffling with my brother. My brother knows martial arts; he was able to take care of them pretty easily. The bouncers came and escorted us out, but at the time it seemed like no big deal. When the cops showed up, no one seemed interested in pressing charges, and we all went home.

Thirteen days later, though, the police called and asked me and Ozzie to come down to the station to give our side of what happened-and when we showed up they arrested us on the spot. They said they had talked to witnesses who said they saw me grab both guys by the throat and punch them. That was a complete lie, but it didn't matter.

I even took a polygraph test-a professional, serious polygraph test, administered by one of the leading polygraph examiners in the country and the same examiner used by the State of Florida in its criminal cases-and passed it perfectly. I challenged the other side to take a polygraph, and even offered to pay for it. They said no. (You can guess why.)

So then it went to a jury trial, and that couldn't have come at a worse time for me. I was going through custody proceedings with Jessica as part of our divorce, and my attorneys convinced me to plead out the charge. "Jose, if you get convicted, you're going to lose your daughter," they told me. "You might have to go to jail for fifteen years, and your daughter will hardly know you when you're finally released." That was enough to scare me into taking the deal-and accepting the probation terms that have dogged me for the past several years.

The next blow came when I was in California to see Josie and attend a charity golf tournament, and through a misunderstanding on my part I missed a probation date. I got a call from my attorney: "Jose, there's a warrant out for your arrest in the state of Florida," he told me.

So the following day I flew back to Florida and went before the judge. He put me in jail for a month, with no chance for bail. Then, when I came out, they gave me two years' house arrest with three years' probation. While I was under house arrest, they subjected me to a urine test, which actually came up negative for steroids but contained a minuscule metabolite remnant that could have been left over from prior use. The amount was so small that even the State's expert was later unable to identify the time of use. But when the State got the results it jumped the gun and arrested me. And who was it that nailed me with the steroid charge? The same prosecutor's office that went after me back in 1992. Same justice system, same result: Jose goes to jail.

I had a terrible time adjusting to jail. I had a cell to myself, but it was only about eight feet long by five feet wide. There was a regular door with a Plexiglas screen on it; the bed was a slab of metal, with a thin layer of cushion over the top. It was terrible.

You ended up getting sores all over your body, no matter how much you tried to squirm to find a comfortable position.

The food was awful. It sure made me appreciate those fine meals I'd been eating for years, both in restaurants and at home with Jessica, who is one hell of a cook. In jail, you would get whatever cold slop they wanted to give you. You could order extra commissary, but that was basically garbage-chips and candy bars, pure junk food. I would rather go hungry than put that kind of stuff in my body, and I did. I lost forty pounds in jail.

Before the arrest, Jessica and I had been talking about getting back together again. She was already my ex-wife at that point, but we were talking about reconciling-mostly because of Josie, so we could both be there for her. Then one day I was talking to Jessica on the phone from prison, and in the background I heard a man's voice.

"I'm in love with somebody else," she told me. "I want to be with this man. Nobody knows how long you're going to be in jail."

Even before I was in jail, Jessica explained later, she thought it was over between us. We had been separated for three years at that point, and she says now that by the time I went to jail she was ready to move on. But on that day, when Jessica told me she was in love with somebody else, I had a nervous breakdown in jail.

I'm not using the term nervous breakdown lightly. I've gone through bad periods before, but I have never experienced anything like that, and I hope I never will again. It all became too much for me. It felt like something inside me was being crushed.

Everything hit me all at once, and I completely lost it. They called the medical help line there in jail, but they never showed up. That's how it is in jail: You're a number. You have no rights whatsoever. It can get very tough to handle.

Only a year or two earlier, I'd been as happy as I had ever been. My second wife, Jessica, had given birth to our baby girl.

Then, all of a sudden, I was in jail, and Josie wasn't allowed to visit. I went through a long period when I didn't see my daughter at all. And that just about killed me.

The whole thing was a complete nightmare, and it's still going on. Every month I have to fly back to Florida from southern California, where I live now, just to see my probation officer. We talk for five minutes, and then I leave until the next month.

And now, just to add insult to injury, the guys from that barroom brawl are suing me now for millions of dollars. They admitted in a police report that the one guy grabbed the girl's ass, which started the whole thing (though the guy later denied that he'd done so). Yet still they're suing me. This world is completely bizarre to me.

It took me a long time-not until I'd spent three months in jail-for me to realize just how willing the media was to bury me, how few people there were actually willing to stand by me when things got tough. It was a real eye-opener, let me tell you. My time behind bars probably taught me more about society and about people than I had learned in my entire life to that point.

As profound a learning experience as it was, though, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Jail doesn't make you better, it makes you worse.

Before jail, any of my friends will tell you, I was the nicest guy in the world. I'd give anything to my friends, or even just to people off the street. I'd try to help all kinds of different people, even bums off the street. I was the biggest sucker.

Now I'm completely the opposite. I'm a total businessman.

Nobody can run anything by me and get away with it. Before, I was such a nice guy. I would put myself in harm's way for everybody. But what my time in jail taught me is that nice guys do finish last. I've had my education. I'll always associate being a nice guy with being set up, having no one come to my defense, and ending up in jail. And that's not for me, not anymore.

Shortly after my breakdown, though, the case was dismissed and I was released from jail. Why? Because the evidence was dubious and it also turned out that the chain of custody on my blood test was full of holes. I was put in jail for no reason-for three months.

When Judge Leonard Glick, of the Miami-Dade Circuit Court, gave the word that they were releasing me, he added: "Good luck to you." As he was speaking, I reflected that I had lost my daughter, I had $130,000 due in attorney's fees, I'd lost endorsements.

And there he was, wishing me good luck.

We are now suing the laboratory that turned in the questionable results.

I can't prove it, but I can't help feeling that, behind the scenes, some people in Major League Baseball were working to help bury me-to keep me in jail as long as possible. I've heard as much from people who were in a position to know, and I believe them, even if I'll never be able to convince the world of what was actually going on.

Think about it: When I was arrested after that bar fight, it was because I was defending a woman. But now we're going to a civil trial, and the case against me is based on their claim that steroids have made me aggressive. They're trying to make it out that I go to nightclubs all the time, beating up men and women alike.

The only people who really stood by me when I was in prison were my brother, Ozzie, my dad and my sister, and my nephews and niece. Everyone else disappeared. That taught me a lot.

And because of it all, except for my probation visits, I will never again set foot in the state of Florida.

24. Did
He
or
Didn’t
He?

At first I felt like a cheater. But I looked around, and
everybody was doing it.
– KEN CAMINITI

Of all the bad information that's been spread about steroids, one of the worst misconceptions is the idea that everyone who takes steroids loses their mind and turns into a nutcase. People who know me will tell you that I'm a very calm, even-tempered individual. It's very difficult to piss me off. I've had times when I've gotten angry, sure-but who hasn't? That has nothing to do with steroids. I mean, seriously, if a person is taking steroids, he's not ever allowed to get angry? And if he does, then it's got to be "'roid rage"? To me, that's just ridiculous.

Even people close to me have wondered whether steroids would eventually change my behavior. My second wife, Jessica, used to ask me all the time whether she should expect to see the steroids producing any side effects. I told her not to worry about it, and gave her a primer course on the nature of steroids and how they work.

I've never seen any sign of this so-called 'roid rage in any other baseball players, and I've never felt anything like that affecting me. Does using steroids ever alter your moods? I'm sure in some ways it can, yes. Any chemical, if used incorrectly, can alter your mood. Then again, a lot of things can do that.

Spending too much time in traffic can do that. Or eating too much of one food. But people love their stereotypes, and the steroid-crazed athlete is one that's been spread by the media for years.

The anti-steroid crowd has gone to some lengths to convince the public of the emotional dangers of steroids. But there's always a specialist in a white coat out there somewhere to verify such a claim. Do such specialists really know more than I do, after personally experimenting with steroids for twenty years?

No way. They may know what the books say, but have they felt it in their system? I know what works and what doesn't, through experience. I've never had mood swings, and I've never been afraid I would get them from steroids, either. I'm just not that kind of guy.

It's all about knowing your dosage. Baseball players don't need to take steroids in amounts so large that the chemicals themselves begin to change. Baseball players-at least those who know what they're doing-are shooting more for stamina and strength than for sheer bulk. It's when you see a guy gaining 100 pounds in a year that you have to worry-and, yes, there have been a few guys who have gone a little overboard.

I was very sad when the news came in October 2004 that Ken Caminiti had died, in New York, under questionable circumstances. I couldn't believe it, and like most people, at first I didn't know what to think. But I knew Ken had been having a lot of problems with drugs. Cocaine will kill you faster than anything It's just so sad to see a fellow baseball player pass away so young.

Ken was just a year older than me, and broke into the big leagues only a couple of years after I did, but he spent his whole career in the National League and I spent mine in the American League, so I never really knew him. He was a big, powerful, good-looking guy, and always kind of quiet.

I remember being surprised when he told Sports Illustrated that he had used steroids. The timing seemed strange, and I wondered why he did it. I just couldn't understand; he didn't seem to have anything to gain by revealing his usage. Later, after he died, you heard all kinds of talk that his death was somehow related to steroids, even though no one had a shred of proof. To me, Ken Caminiti's death was a real tragedy-someone so full of life dying so young-but if people want to link his problems to his experimentation with steroids, they're barking up the wrong tree.

People always mention Lyle Alzado, who died tragically of a brain tumor, as another supposed steroid tragedy. But how do they know that? Scientists have done a lot of research, and up to this time they've never really tied steroids with cancerous tumors. Any time an athlete gets sick, it's easy for the media to point to steroids. But they're never doing more than guessing, because there is no scientific proof.