Will: is this really necessary? Your comments on BP today certainly shed enough doubt as to the nature of the substance that we really can't read enough into this to say it was steroids.

I'm sorry, I just don't see how this proves anything Canseco said, considering that it's not clear what Palmiero tested postive for or how it got in him. I enjoyed "The Juice" because it was an even-handed treatment of a complex subject that served as a valuable counterpoint to all the ill-informed caterwauling going on in the newspapers. So this post seems very uncharacteristic, given how rigorously you've approached the subject in the past.

while I'm certainly still skeptical, both of MLB's testing policy (especially the mandatory lack of disclosure, lovely -- the union kinda fucked itself on that one) and Jose Canseco's credibility, right now you have to admit the latter is so far winning pretty handily.

Atleast he was still lying about Bret Boone during spring training.

Also, he is on the Surreal Life right now, so I'm pretty sure I won't give him any kind of cred unless some deity comes down from the sky and tells me to.

Sad as it may be, the Palmerio suspension will give Canseco new life on the talk show and book signing circuit.

What I don't understand is why a player, if he was truly clean, wouldn't want to come out and say "Here are the products/supplements I was taking". The experts should be able to say if the products could metabolize into products that would pop positive.

Because he took them, some young players may have been compelled to take them as well. And maybe some high school boys and girls, too."
Richard Justice....This part is such nonsense....how many kids smoke cigaretes and will die due to lung cancer in the years a head ?? Richard tell us how many kids have died of steroid use....tell us how many kids will die this year playing football or driving drunk...gezeeeezzzzzzzzz

Good write, but leave out the BS

Canseco......
Why did Mark M retire?
It's obvious if you have any sense that the "big" bulging arms of many were created by steroid use. Palmeiro at least does not look like a freak as so many did a few years back.
May be now I can get a better deal on the 100 86'Fleer Update cards of CAnny !!

I thought Will made it pretty clear in his BP article that it had to be steroids. The only way to get a "false positive" would be for him to have taken a supplement with some steroid or steroid metabolite in it. If that was the case, I'm sure he would have shown the supplement to the arbiter, and I'll bet he would publicly say what it was if that were the case (there have been a couple similar cases in the NFL and I think the players have publicly mentioned the products they used which led to the positive tests). And Palmeiro himself, in his written statement, has said that he was unable to explain how the steroids got into his body, meaning that they likely didn't come from an obvious supplement that he takes regularly. It's not a big leap to think that he was using steroids intentionally, and that this wasn't a new thing (leading to Will's apology to Canseco).

This is no surprise - in fact it may have been on this very chat board that we discussed the fact that if no libel suits went up, you had a pretty good idea that the truth lay in there somewhere (or at least the seeds of truth).

I find the above comments pretty amusing. Its seems that some of us are in "denial". Please open your eyes. Surely we don't need to confirm Conseco's allegations with a positive test result from Palmeiro. Although you may not agree with his betrayal of trust nor do I, Conseco was the only one to come clean with it. More than one of our all american boys seems to have shared the same lifestyle as Conseco and have enjoyed the rewards that come from it. For those of you that question Conseco's credibility now, wake up! Will, I applaud your letter and apology.

Well, Canseco is 2 for 2 right now. Mac and Raffy down, who's next?

Will, it has come out that Winstrol was the drug of choice for Palmeiro. Is there any chance at all you could accidentally ingest that? I can't imagine any OTC supplements metabolizing into it but I have no real grounds to base that on.

I don't know how an Indiana insurance congolmerate that named a fieldhouse(Conseco)got mixed up in this??

Canseco is 2/3

The Boone story doesn't fit thanks to the power of the boxscore

My understanding was that Canseco never actually saw Boone use steroids, he just beleived that he did. There's a difference when someone says, "I injected that guy," and when he says, "That guy looks like he takes steroids." I'd still say that Jose is 2/2.

Marc, what's with the Bret Boone mancrush?

The bottom line is that if Canseco says Boone did, and Boone says he didn't, it's still he said/she said. We don't know who's lying. The only way to definitively know anything for sure is to have a positive test now. But lack of one does not conclusively mean any given guy didn't use in the past.

I think Mark Belanger was on the juice back in the 70's. Who's to say he wasn't, after all it's just his word against mine; lack of evidence (career .280 slugging) doesn't mean he didn't, after all he was a teammate of Davey Johnson's once and he went from 5 homers to 43 in one season, clearly a steroid user...Bret Boone never had such a jump in his homer totals......

What I really want to know is when we'll all get on the dump Gaylord Perry from the Hall of Fame bandwagon, after all a cheater is a cheater, right??

No Boone mancrush...just I think its important that no one is mentioning how Canseco devoted part of his book to a secret steroid committee handshake and eye contact dance between him and Boone out at second base that never happened regarding steroids hurts his credibility as much as picking out a steroid user helps it.

Chris-

Good point with Gaylord Perry, let's knock the grandfathered guys for the spitball out too, or better yet, lets toss all the hitters from that era who still had to face the spitball in to the Hall. unfair advantages...

I hope Raffy still gets in, as well as the other ones. I really liked Jayson Stark saying that its not the writers job to police the game, but rather to analyze the game as it was, so he would vote for Raffy using that logic.

I really don't think Perry should be bounced from the Hall, my point (I think) is that no one seemed to be outraged by the cheating in Perry's case and I wonder why there is so much outrage now over steroids.

Because Perry didn't have to consider making a deal with the devil to risk his future health for greater success.

The hot button issue with steroids is the inherent potential penalty for NOT wanting to put your health at risk.

I don't want Perry out either. I was just showing my distaste for the "unfair advantages" of the past that no one seems to mention; agreeing with your assesment of tossing the steroid guys like Raffy in with illegal spitballers.

Many pitchers in the past would be willing to make a deal with any devil to win 20 in a year. Just read "Ball Four".

I read Ball Four. What do you want me to say? They didn't get caught, it is what it is. That was the 60's, those were different times (and all the poets, they studied rules of verse and the ladies, they rolled their eyes).

I'd like to point out that until very recently steroids were not illegal in MLB, unlike the spitball which has been illegal for some time. If someone was taking steroids prior to 2001(?) or so, they weren't cheating at all.

Well, in fact I think steroids mis-prescribed (as these had to have been I would think) were illegal everywhere, they simply weren't punished by MLB.

Spitballs were against the rules but not against the law.

Steroids were against the law but not against the rules.

Draw your own conclusions of course.

plenty of steroidalikes (including HGH and andro) were perfectly legal in the US through the 90s.

And you want to talk hypocritical? Amphetamines are still legal under the current policy. I was watching the ESPN classic tape of the "Sandberg Game" (StL @ ChC, 6/23/1984) and you've got guys like Ozzie Smith with a 27" waist.. you don't think those guys were popping greenies like candy?

But no, STEROIDS are a problem. wah wah.

If Congress is serious about throwing out the same old "We're doin' it for the kids bullshit", they should check the papers---in my neck of the woods amphetamines are a MUCH larger problem than steroids.