Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball by Jose Canseco
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Book Reviews of Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball
Book Review: See, he told us so
Summary: 3 Stars
Fine, he was right the first time.
A lot of us scoffed when Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big came out. After all, so many of the little details (the baseball anecdotes) were flat-out wrong... who could honestly expect us to believe all of the big details (Jose's allegations about who he helped 'roid up?).
Then came the infamous 2005 Congressional hearings, and Rafael Palmeiro's tainted B12 shot, and the publication of Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports. Now, come to find out, Jose really was telling us the truth!
That's where "Vindicated" comes in. This is a slim volume, with big print and wide margins, in which Jose repeatedly tells us how truthful he is. I'm going to allow him his victory lap. If I can help him pay down his debts and keep him stocked in power bars and hair gel, and buy his daughter horseback-riding lessons, fine, I'm in. That's my punishment for lightly mocking "Juiced".
I won't say this is an artful book. "Juiced" had its problems but it had a competent ghostwriter, the same guy who gave us One Day at Fenway: A Day in the Life of Baseball in America and What a Party!: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals. "Vindicated", on the other hand, is written by the same titan of the typewriter (master wizard of MS Word?) who gave us If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer. Many details are repeated over and over again: in barely 200 pages I caught four repetitions of the story of Jose's pledge to his dying mother. How can so small a book have so much duplication?
The stuff about the lie detector tests is kind of over-the-top. To make a long story short, such testing is largely inadmissible in a court of law. Also Jose describes verbatim pre- and post-test banter with the test administrators which leads us to wonder if those two ex-law enforcement guys weren't just playing along with an elaborate gag.
Also, while Jose uses the scope of the entire book to waver back and forth between saying that Roger Clemens 'roided up, and then going so far as to sign an affidavit for the Rocket's lawyers saying that he knows nothing... he tells us that he knows for a fact that Clemens wasn't at the infamous 1998 Canseco family pool party, and yet wire reports say that a picture actually exists of Clemens at that party. The jury's still out on that one, for me at least.
Still, allow the man his indulgence. Also, a late chapter about why Jose loves baseball is actually kind of touching. Considering how little affection Jose showed for baseball in his earlier volume, this chapter actually gives him the slightest hint of something he's never shown us before: humility.
Book Review: 1 Question for Canseco??
Summary: 1 Stars
To Jose Canseco:
Have you taken steroids, growth hormone or any other performance enhancing drug(s) within the past year??? And would you take a polygraph test???
Book Review: Read the A-Rod Chapter - Forget the Rest
Summary: 2 Stars
I just finished Jose's latest. While I thought his first book was a good read and revealed the dark side of baseball, I found very little in this book that was either new or exciting.
My suggestion is to read the chapter about A-Rod and Jose's wife, and the Clemens' chapter, then give the book to a friend. The rest of the material is boring, repetitive and a re-hash of previous information.
Sorry Jose.
Book Review: The Coda On The "Steroid Era"
Summary: 4 Stars
Jose Canseco ushered in the "Steroid Era" in professional baseball through his actions in numerous clubhouses, brought it to a crashing halt with his first book, Juiced, and has now buried the sordid past with Vindicated.
Canseco again swings for the fences with additional autobiographical material, an exploration into the Mitchell Report, along with critical pronouncements on various aspects of the media, Major League Baseball and additional players not named in the first book, with an explanation on why the omissions took place.
The most explosive material is initially introduced through a series of lie detector tests Canseco took to prove the validity of his statements.
It will continue to be hotly debated on why Canseco came clean on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in MLB. But it cannot be minimized the impact he has had on forcing MLB - from the commissioner's office to the player's association - to confront the issue in public forums.
A whistle-blower who continues to be vilified in some quarters, Canseco takes the heat like a clean-up hitter and then smacks one out of the ballpark.
Book Review: A snake...maybe. A liar...nope!
Summary: 5 Stars
Jose Canseco has said himself that he wrote this book and Juiced to exact revenge against MLB for blackballing him. His reasoning was that because he was the guy to bring steroids into the game, players improved by leaps and bounds and that caused the salary structure to explode over the years. Is that true? I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was. In my OPINION, I think Jose is upset that his own body betrayed him...fell apart...and he was forced from the game. At one time, Jose was the talk of the town. HE was going to hit 62 home runs in a season. HE was going to hit 756 for his career. And now...with a career that included more trips on the DL than to the All Star game, and finishing with 462 home runs,he was removed from the Hall of Fame ballot after the 2007 voting and his career has been reduced to a footnote. He's watched from the sidelines as Mark McGwire & Sammy Sosa broke records and were cheered and it ate at him (something he alluded to in Juiced).So now he decided to do something about this. Again, my OPINION is that he felt "if I can't have the addoration of the fans anymore,neither can they"
I don't think he wrote this book as a cash grab. He made $50 million dollars in his career. I also don't think he wrote this to "save" the game. If Jose was able to play out his career as he wanted, was able to be elected to the Hall of Fame and was able to feel vindicated by his playing, he wouldn't have written these books.
But I will say this. Shortly after Juiced came out, his former teammate Dave Stewart had said "You can call Jose a lot of things...but you can never call him a liar" and I think he proved that. I also believe that a lot of what he wrote in this book will prove true in the long run.
But as far as his motives go...they're suspect at best. This book is for him and nobody else. Not MLB, not the players union or the players themselves. But for Jose Canseco and his bruised ego.