Chicks Dig the Long Book: Another Canseco Memoir Hits Shelves

This past February marked the three year anniversary of the release of Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, the seminal memoir of former MLB player turned author, José Canseco. For the cave dwellers out there who aren't familiar, in Juiced Canseco proclaims himself the "Godfather of Steroids" and discusses how, during a career that spanned three decades, he introduced some of Major League Baseball's biggest stars to steroids. From his old Oakland bash brother, former home run champ Mark McGwire, to everyone's favorite member of the lovable losers, Sammy Sosa, to the greatest pitcher of his generation, Roger Clemens, no name proves too sacred for mention in Canseco's tell all memoir.

Juiced became a New York Times bestseller, simultaneously rescuing Canseco from bankruptcy and hurling him into the national spotlight. At first the media discredited him, calling him out as an exaggerating opportunist, as he had recently been so broke that he sold his Rookie of the Year trophy and World Series ring for quick cash. It wasn't until one of the key players he named, Rafael Palmeiro, failed a drug test in August 2005 that people finally started to believe Canseco. They figured if he was right about Palmeiro,then maybe he was right about the others too. From that point on Major League Baseball focused all of its energies toward the still ongoing purge of steroids from the sport. The investigation culminated this past December with the release of the now infamous Mitchell Report, a convoluted, 310 page, he said, she said account of steroid use in baseball.

Now Canseco is peddling a new book called Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball. A continuation of Juiced, Vindicated is Canseco's attempt to clarify the names left out of the Mitchell Report, among them two more of America's favorite players, Ken Griffey Jr. and Álex Rodriguez.

Some might question the real motive behind Canseco's new publication. Does he genuinely want to help clean up the sport? Or is it all about keeping his name in the headlines and making more money? While some signs may point to the latter, given how after Juiced, Canseco's publisher told him he didn't have enough facts left for another book, we have to keep in mind that this is the same Canseco who once hit forty homers and stole forty bases in a single season. Any guy who sets a record like that, must truly care about his sport. Therefore, perhaps the title says it all for the book. Vindicated

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