Once known as the MLB’s most feared home run hitter, Jose Canseco recalled what led to his obsession to become the best MLB player. He also looked back on how and when he found steroids.
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Canseco was assured that he could have played for another five years if it wasn’t for using the performance-enhancing drugs.
A switch went off in Jose Canseco
Canseco, in his initial years in the minor league, struggled in the initial years from 1982 to 1984. In 84, he went to Modesto California, and in the mid-season, his mother passed away from a brain aneurysm. His mother never watched him play professional baseball, and that was a huge turning point in his life.
Whatever the age may be, losing a parent is never easy for anyone. It wasn’t easy on Jose, either. Watching his mother on her deathbed changed something in him.
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) July 5, 2022
On her deathbed, he said to his mother, “Mom, for you, I’m gonna become the best player in the world, and right then and there literally two or three days later, I found steroids. I started using PEDs, and I was obsessed, literally obsessed with becoming the best player in the world.”
He started taking steroids in 1984 while he was still a minor league player. And then, in 1985, he became the Minor League Player of the year.
Canseco became ‘The Chemist’
Something changed in him, and he got obsessed with becoming the best player in the world. But, in his obsession, he forgot what was right and what was wrong. In the year 2005, Major League Baseball blacklisted him after testing positive for steroid use.
His knowledge of PEDs and how he used them was so much that he got nicknamed, ‘The Chemist.’ In 2005, he wrote a book called, ‘Juiced’, which became the reason for opening and spreading the Major League Baseball’s steroid scandal.
The book had dozens of big names in it, and one of them included Canseco’s best friend, Mark McGwire. Years after the book came out, Canseco revealed he regretted writing it and betraying his friends.
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Even though Canseco regrets writing the book, he became the reason for cleaning up the sport by putting a stop to the steroid era.
