...Jose Canseco defames A-Rod's good name with unsubstantiated reports of steroid use.

Let me state upfront that I actually like Canseco - he's quite the fascinating character, what with the playing record, a marriage proposal to Madonna, his Surreal Life participation, and the rescue of a wayward owl during a Rangers game. What's more, I think that a lot of his claims most likely are indeed based on truth; after all, he did host a delightful steroids BBQ (like an 80's theme party, or a slumber party... but steroid-aliciuos!) and was obviously right in the heart of the 90's steroid culture (like punk rock, or nudism... but steroid-alicious!).

HOWEVER! I am sick to death of his incessant insistence that A-Rod was involved in the aforementioned steroid "ring." Jose's second book, "Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and The Battle to Save Baseball," on the subject is set to be released on April 1st, and A-Rod is a featured player. According to Canseco, he personally introduced A-Rod to a juice peddler. He admits that he did not ever inject him but maintains that A-Rod was in contact with the distributer and henceforth surely a user.

This all makes my YC blood boil. I can think of several reasons to disbelieve his claims just off the top of my head:

• Assuming this meeting took place somewhere in mid-1998 - since thats when the steroids bash took place - juice use would would indicate a dramatic spike in performance. Not so: every year since his full-season debut in 1995 has been similar: high batting average, good OBP, high slugging percentage. In his numbers were '98 .310/.360/.560 with 42 homers, in '99 .285/.358/.586 and 41 homers, and in 2000 .316/.420/.606 with 41. Furthermore, his numbers continued to improve nearly every year since then, and Canseco's allegations regard past drug use; he has not implied that A-Rod is currently on steroids. If he took them and then stopped, we would most likely see a subsequent decline in power at the very least.
• He has not suffered from extensive and chronic injuries that go right along with juice usage - see Klesko, Balco B, Nomaaaaaaaah, etc etc etc.
• Where is that distributor?
• His head is not the size of a watermelon.
  

On a funnier note, Canseco's anti-A-Rod ramblings include something of an even more soap opera-esque nature: he claims that A-Rod was trying to seduce his wife. JERRY, JERRY, JERRY!

Related sidenote: I didn't realize that Canseco and McNamee disagreed on whether the Rocket was at the infamous juice BBQ. McNamee testified to congress that he was present, but Canseco said he was not. Interesting... thoughts?