Mission Accomplished, Mr. Canseco

Call me angry. Call me selfish. Call me bitter.

Today, the game I love, the game of baseball, was dragged back into a steroid debate when former slugger Mark McGwire admitted to something many of us fans already suspected.

Earlier today in a statement released to the press, McGwire admitted to using steroids for much of the 1990's, including his record shattering season in 1998.

McGwire apologized, and even stated that he regretted ever using steroid and even went as far as to say he regretted playing in the steroid era.

After refusing to talk about the past in front of Congress in 2005, McGwire finally came clean today, after watching his Hall of Fame chances continue to dwindle for a third straight year, and at a time that McGwire will re-enter Major League Baseball as the St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach. Aside from possibly being too little and too late, it also seems very convenient.

Call me a cynic, but that's what the steroid era has made me. That's what the steroid era has made most of us baseball fans, and we have one man to thank for it.

Jose Canseco.

Jose Canseco's 2005 book "Juiced", originally thought to be a piece of fabricated trash, has since been proven truthful each and every time it's tested. Canseco's book, in which he boastfully admits to introducing some of the games biggest stars too steroids, seemed to open a Pandora's Box with each and every player that has admitted or been caught using steroids.

Canseco, however, should not be painted as the great savior of America's pastime.

Jose Canseco had gone from being one of baseball's best players, to an absolute joke. He was black listen from baseball and was figured to have no chance at induction into the Hall of Fame. Canseco was bitter and jealous, especially of the aforementioned McGwire, and he decided to exact his revenge on the game and it's biggest stars.

Sure, in a perverted way, Canseco's book helped clean up the game of baseball, but at what cost?

I will be 32-years-old this February, meaning that I was between the ages of 11 and 20 during the years that McGwire was using steroids. The same years Jose Canseco said steroids ran rampant in baseball. In other words, while there will be no asterisk by any records that have been broken during that time period, there will forever be asterisks next to the baseball memories of my youth, when I dreamed of roaming center field at Shea Stadium and matching the feats of my heroes.

Now, as a parent of a baseball playing 11-year-old, it's difficult to talk about the greatness of the players I grew up watching with same passion that my father talked about Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. I cringe whenever I hear that a player has admitted to using steroids. I worry that the next name I hear will be Mike Piazza, my son's favorite all time player (my son's also a catcher), and how I will explain to him that the player he so wants to be like is not a person he should pattern himself after.

With each and every player who has tested positive for steroids, or has admitted to using them, Jose Canseco gets a few more minutes in the spotlight. He has successfully made himself a part of baseball's history, and has made sure that McGwire's legacy will forever be linked to his. Now the only way either enters Cooperstown is with a paid admission.

And to think, all it has cost us was our memories and our baseball heroes.

And while today may have been Mark McGwire's turn to come clean about his steroid use, in essence, it was as much about Jose Canseco as anything else. Come to think of it, pretty much every baseball steroid story has lead back to Canseco and his God-forsaken book. We'll never know for sure, but I bet Canseco couldn't have planned it better.

You took down baseball, Mr. Canseco. Mission accomplished.