A couple funny excerpts from the book
For Canseco, even steroids' most gruesome side effects have a silver lining. For example: "[O]ne definite side effect of steroid use is the atrophying of your testicles." Uh-oh. "But here's the point I want to emphasize: what happens to your testes has nothing to do with any shrinking of the penis. That's a misconception." Well, I suppose that's slightly less revolting. "As a matter of fact, the reverse can be true. Using growth hormone can make your penis bigger, and make you more easily aroused. So to the guys out there who are worried about their manhood, all I can say is: Growth hormone worked for me." Why, doctor, get me some steroids!
Steroids made Canseco into one of baseball's great playboys. He slept with, by his own estimation, a "couple hundred" women in 17 seasons in the majors—"but I'm not talking about outrageous numbers." Canseco would often select potential dates by inviting a few dozen women to his room for a "beauty contest"; the winners would be allowed to join him in public later that night. Even his monogamous relationships had a certain macho luster. He dated and married Miss Miami, divorced her, and then dated and married a Hooters girl. He flirted with Madonna, who invited him up to her Manhattan penthouse and sounded him out about marriage. (The New York Post dubbed him "Madonna's Bat Boy.")
In the hundreds of pages devoted to the wonders of steroids, Canseco chronicles a single moment of heartbreak. When his daughter Josie was still an infant, Canseco's estranged second wife Jessica, the Hooters girl, disappeared. He called a friend at "one of the airlines," who managed to track Jessica to Kansas City. When Canseco finally reached her, Jessica said she had left him for another jock: Tony Gonzalez, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Canseco was grief-stricken. He walked to his bedroom closet and pulled out a Street Sweeper shotgun. Canseco says he used the gun to shoot
sharks when he went deep-sea fishing —an image so comic that we'll put it aside for now. Anyway, Canseco had the Street Sweeper and was ready to do himself in when a tiny noise called him forth from despair. "Something had decided that it wasn't my time yet," he writes. Maybe it was his infant daughter. Maybe God. Or maybe—and this is just a hunch—it was the steroids, calling to save their champion.
For Canseco, even steroids' most gruesome side effects have a silver lining. For example: "[O]ne definite side effect of steroid use is the atrophying of your testicles." Uh-oh. "But here's the point I want to emphasize: what happens to your testes has nothing to do with any shrinking of the penis. That's a misconception." Well, I suppose that's slightly less revolting. "As a matter of fact, the reverse can be true. Using growth hormone can make your penis bigger, and make you more easily aroused. So to the guys out there who are worried about their manhood, all I can say is: Growth hormone worked for me." Why, doctor, get me some steroids!
Steroids made Canseco into one of baseball's great playboys. He slept with, by his own estimation, a "couple hundred" women in 17 seasons in the majors—"but I'm not talking about outrageous numbers." Canseco would often select potential dates by inviting a few dozen women to his room for a "beauty contest"; the winners would be allowed to join him in public later that night. Even his monogamous relationships had a certain macho luster. He dated and married Miss Miami, divorced her, and then dated and married a Hooters girl. He flirted with Madonna, who invited him up to her Manhattan penthouse and sounded him out about marriage. (The New York Post dubbed him "Madonna's Bat Boy.")
In the hundreds of pages devoted to the wonders of steroids, Canseco chronicles a single moment of heartbreak. When his daughter Josie was still an infant, Canseco's estranged second wife Jessica, the Hooters girl, disappeared. He called a friend at "one of the airlines," who managed to track Jessica to Kansas City. When Canseco finally reached her, Jessica said she had left him for another jock: Tony Gonzalez, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs. Canseco was grief-stricken. He walked to his bedroom closet and pulled out a Street Sweeper shotgun. Canseco says he used the gun to shoot
sharks when he went deep-sea fishing —an image so comic that we'll put it aside for now. Anyway, Canseco had the Street Sweeper and was ready to do himself in when a tiny noise called him forth from despair. "Something had decided that it wasn't my time yet," he writes. Maybe it was his infant daughter. Maybe God. Or maybe—and this is just a hunch—it was the steroids, calling to save their champion.
