In 1970, a baseball classic entitled \Ball Four"" was written by former New York Yankee Pitcher Jim Bouton, who examined the behind the scenes lives of Major League Baseball players. The book covered various issues, from players cheating on their wives to the art of contract negotiations without an agent.
The book lit a fire inside the secret society that was the baseball world. Baseball writers labeled Bouton a Benedict Arnold and a ""social leper"" for the information he gave to the public. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn even tried to force the author to sign a statement saying that the book wasn't true, while one team actually burned a copy of ""Ball Four"" in protest.
To this day, Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimers' Day at Yankee Stadium.
Could it be possible that in less than a week, a rebirth of ""Ball Four"" could shock the sports world once again? Not likely.
Former Oakland Athletic great and 40/40 man Jose Canseco is set to release his own take on baseball Feb. 14, appropriately titled ""Juiced:Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.""
According to the New York Daily News' review of the book, Canseco writes that he personally injected Mark McGwire with steroids, that he saw McGwire and Jason Giambi inject each other, and that President Bush ""had to have been aware"" of rampant steroid use among the Rangers when he owned the club in the early 1990s.
Others names that Canseco alleges he introduced steroids to include Raphael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez. A few years ago, Canseco claimed that 80 percent of major leaguers had taken steroids. However, last spring, he said, ""I think the numbers may have changed. Who knows? Maybe the numbers have diminished.""
The creditability and motives of the author has immediately come into question as numerous people have come out to discredit Canseco.
HarperCollins posted a book description on its web site that said Canseco ""made himself a guinea pig of the performance-enhancing drugs"" and added the 1988 AL MVP ""mixed, matched and experimented to such a degree that he became known throughout the league as 'The Chemist.'""
In light of this, I hope this is the lone comparison ever made between these two drastically different books. Boutons account of baseball in the '50s and '60s was groundbreaking because it was original and was not designed to bring others down with him as he slowly shrunk from baseball's limelight. Bouton showed that his sport was often imperfect, but his accurate story pokes fun at the game, rather than attempting to destroy its foundations.
Canseco's version may indeed prove to be valid in the future, but the reasons behind the book are appalling. Keep in mind that Canseco still feels he is being ""blackballed"" by baseball's inner circle in his quest to reach 500 home runs. He hit 462 home runs between 1985 and 2001, playing with the A's, and a host of other teams in a quest to reach the milestone. Since then, he has been attempting to re-enter the game with any team, with his lone intention to reach the milestone.
This is a man who is, and always will be, an egomaniac that is always on the lookout for easy money. This book is reminiscent of a stunt he pulled a few years ago when he tried to auction off a day with him and his brother Ozzie while the two were on house arrest after a bar fight.
Canseco brings up topics that the baseball world has already been all-too-familiar with in the past months with Ken Caminiti's death, Barry Bonds and Balco, and Jason Giambi's account of his steroid use.
No one wants to hear this from a man of his character, and he will continue to fall short of his goals in life, just as he will in reaching 500 home runs.
-espn.com contributed
to this report.
Jon is a Junior majoring in English and journalism and can be reached at jrmcnamara@wisc.edu
