Baseball: McGwire is 'juiced' claims author

RALEIGH - Former Oakland Athletics slugger Jose Canseco portrayed baseball as a sport "juiced" with performance-enhancing drugs in a television programme yesterday.

"[It] is juiced," he said in an interview on the CBS network's 60 Minutes.

"It is, and it's reality," added Canseco, whose credibility has been seriously questioned inside and outside the game.

Canseco, an admitted steroid user, was promoting his book Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big.

In the book and the interview, he accused elite players Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriquez and Raphael Palmeiro of using steroids. He even said he injected Oakland team-mate and former single-season home run record holder McGwire.

All have denied the accusations.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig called reports of the book's contents "absolutely sheer nonsense".

Canseco described the use of steroids by players in the 1990s as common.

"It wasn't a big deal," he said in the interview and the book.

"It was common ground."

Asked to comment on his first-hand experience of using steroids with McGwire, Canseco replied: "Just the first time injecting them in his buttocks," he said, laughing, "it was-but-it-wasn't like you gave a lot of thought. It was ... something so-so common. "

McGwire, in a statement to CBS, strongly denied taking steroids.

"Once and for all, I did not use steroids nor any illegal substance," he said. "The relationship that these allegations portray couldn't be further from the truth."

McGwire has previously admitted using androstenedione, a testosterone-producing supplement, which was available over the counter and was legal in baseball at that time.

Giambi, who now plays for the New York Yankees, admitted to a federal grand jury in the Balco case that he used steroids, but not before 2001, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported.

Asked last week about Canseco's book, Giambi said: "I think it's sad. I think it's delusional".

Former Oakland manager Tony La Russa told CBS: "I don't think there's any doubt that it's a fabrication."

Canseco said in the interview he believed it would have been difficult for him to accomplish as much as he did in baseball (he hit 462 home runs) without performance-enhancing drugs.

"Do I believe steroids and growth hormones helped me achieve that? Yes," Canseco said.

"Were there a lot of other players doing it that I had to compete against? Yes. "

He also continued to endorse the use of steroids.

"I don't recommend steroids for everyone and I don't recommend growth hormones for everyone," he said.

"But for certain individuals, I truly believe, because I've experimented with it for so many years, that it can make an average athlete a super athlete."

- REUTERS