Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big

Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big

To fully understand this book, people must go behind the book and find the true state of mind of the author. Unfortunately in this case, the author is the one and only Jose Canseco. Jose Canseco is what I like to call, “The black sheep in the family of baseball.” Canseco’s history can be related to such incidents of drug using, heavy drinking, numerous sexual encounters with hundreds of partners, and unreasonable acts of violence. This book goes into grave detail on how steroids have changed his life and how it is currently changing baseball.

Juiced starts off with what appears to be a legal disclaimer. "This book does not intend to condone or encourage the use of any particular drugs, medicine or illegal substances." Yet the author spends most of the time doing nothing but repeating his assertions that taken under proper supervision, these drugs can enhance everyday life. Jose Canseco says he wrote Juiced because he wanted his fans to listen to him and hear him out on what he has to say about the current state of baseball and it’s future. I believe this former 40-40 had another reason for writing this book and it’s plain and simple…money. Money encourages the human mind to perform selfish and somewhat outlandish stunts in order to achieve wealth.

I believe that Jose Canseco’s mind consists of slop and greed. It’s a proven fact that this 1988 Major League MVP has a truly unstable mind. One incident in his book that proves this is the time he went “deep sea fishing.” The story begins with Jose Canseco’s wife leaving him for Kansas City Chiefs’ all-star tight end, Tony Gonzalez. Mr. Canseco reacted by grabbing his 12-gauge shotgun and taking his boat out to sea where he decided to shoot sharks with his shotgun when they surfaced. This incident is one of the very many incidents that question the complete truth in Juiced.

Jose Canseco is best known for several things: A fly ball bouncing off his noggin and landing over the fence, dating Madonna, his tape measure home runs, having numerous run-ins with the law, being the first man to ever hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season, and his bulging biceps. In Juiced, Canseco recalls other steroid user’s stories within the sport of baseball. One of the accounts is how Bret Boone suspiciously bulked up and improved his power hitting by a large percent. He also continues to relate the usage of steroids with the money contracts throughout the league.

Jose Canseco seems to very bitter about baseball and his links with the sport. He tends to point the finger at everything in baseball except himself. He goes from describing the racism involved in the game and how he was affected because of his Latin American roots. He goes on with his bitterness by badmouthing Cal Ripken and Sammy “The Diva” Sosa. The media is also used throughout the book about becoming the dark side of baseball with it’s playing the favorites and leaving poor old Canseco in the dust.

The biggest controversy that this book creates whether or not the majority of major league baseball players are using steroids to boost their performance on the playing field. This issue arises in Juiced, Canseco tells about an incident about the Mr. America of baseball, Mark McGwire. Mark McGwire was the leader of baseball’s revolution in 1998 where he went on a rampage with his monstrous homeruns bypassing Roger Maris’ record of a remarkable 61 homeruns in one season. Mark McGwire was accused and found to be using androstenedione before major league baseball banned the substance. Jose Canseco says that he injected Mark McGwire with steroids and introduced several other major league sluggers to the drugs. Since this book’s