The 1992 landmark steroids in sports investigation codenamed Operation Equine by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) resulted in the convictions of Curtis Wenzlaff and over seventy individuals for steroid distribution and trafficking and the seizure of more than 10 million anabolic steroid dosage units. FBI Special Agents Bill Randall and Greg Stejskal uncovered evidence linking steroids to Major League Baseball (MLB) players including Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire; they even obtained details of steroid cycles purported used by McGwire. The steroid-using athletes were ignored at a time when the federal government targeted steroid dealers (”Discovery’s ‘Undercover: Double Life’ features ‘Operation Equine’,” March 30).
“It’s amazing to see the snowball effect all these years later. I believed in (Operation Equine) and I think it’s come full circle,” Randall told the Daily News on Sunday while grilling steaks outdoors at his suburban Michigan home. “The thrust of Equine was to get traffickers, which is kind of unfortunate. I think we could have gone further, but the problem was the mind-set then. It was like, ‘It’s just steroids.’”
The federal government has taken the opposite approach with the recent BALCO steroid investigation. Fewer than a handful of individuals were convicted of steroid distribution and professional athletes like Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, and Tammy Thomas have clearly been targeted by the government. IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky has become a media superstar and bonafide anti-steroid crusader. Operation Equine Agents Bill Randall and Greg Stejskal did not receive any such celebrity treatment and had become somewhat obscure characters in the war on steroids. But that is changing now that hunting steroid-using athletes has become a priority for the federal government. Now, the Discovery Channel is paying tribute Agents Randall and Stejskal in the series Undercover: Double Life “Bill Randall: Operation Equine” on the cable network Discovery Investigations Read more
Former amateur bodybuilder Jay McGwire, the youngest brother of baseball player Mark McGwire, is fighting for the honor of being the first person to have introduced and injected Mark McGwire with anabolic steroids. The younger McGwire is trying to sell a manuscript entitled “The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a Slugger, and Ultimate Redemption” that details Mark McGwire’s use of performance enhancing drugs (”Mark McGwire’s One-Eyed Baby Brother Reveals The Not-So-Startling Truth,” January 21).
“Shortly after I won the Contra Costa Bodybuilding Championships in May of 1994, Mark took the plunge. I accompanied him to Sacramento where we met with my supplier and trainer, who explained to him how the different drugs would work on his body and answered a myriad of questions from Mark. Given Mark’s curiosity and lack of knowledge about steroids I saw from Mark, I would be shocked if Mark did something like what Jose Canseco claimed happened back in the early years….[M]ark began to use, but in low dosages so he wouldn’t lift his way out of baseball. Deca-Durabolin helped with his joint problems and recovery, while growth hormone helped his strength, making him leaner in the process. I became the first person to inject him, like most first-timers he couldn’t plunge in the needle himself. Later a girlfriend injected him.”
Jay McGwire seeks to take credit for designing Big Mac’s first steroid cycle that incorporated Deca Durabolin as well as human growth hormone (HGH). Jay McGwire also took credit for introducing his brother to androstenedione shortly after Associated Press reporter Steve Wilstein published the story “Drug OK in Baseball, Not Olympics” announcing the discovery of the legal anabolic steroid supplement in Mark McGwire’s locker in July 1998 Read more
Steve Kettmann, the ghostwriter for Jose Canseco’s autobiographical memoir that exposed the use of anabolic steroid in Major League Baseball, reviews the Manhattan Theatre Club production of playwright Itamar Moses’ dramedy about the steroids in baseball scandal. The off-broadway play “Back Back Back” is a fictionalized portrayal of the relationship between Bash Brothers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, and the use of anabolic steroids during their baseball careers (”New play examines relationship between Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire,” November 15).
Steve Kettmann’s over-familiarity with the source material gives him a unique perspective on the relationship between Canseco and McGwire. Kettmann covered the Oakland Athletics baseball team for the San Francisco Chronicle between 1994 and 1998 and was on friendly terms with the Bash Brothers Canseco and McGwire. Kettmann’s relationship with Mark McGwire became much less friendly when he asserted that McGwire used anabolic steroids in a New York Times editorial entitled “Baseball Must Come Clean on Its Darkest Secret.” But Kettmann stayed in Canseco’s good graces eventually hanging out with him extensively to ghostwrite the explosive steroid expose “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big” which featured descriptions of Canseco injecting McGwire with steroids.
So when Itamar Moses reflects upon the reasons the Jose Canseco proxy “Raul” wrote the book that destroyed the hall of fame chances teammate Mark McGwire proxy Kent, Kettman finds the discussion “deeply fascinating and irresistible.” Read more
Jose Caseco is writing “Vindicated,” a new book about anabolic steroids in baseball. It is the sequel to the bestselling book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big” that ignited the steroids in baseball scandal. It has sorta become a historical document in baseball for its role in baseball’s steroid scandal. Canseco claims he will include information about additional baseball players, such as Alex Rodriguez and likely Roger Clemens, not included in his original expose of steroid use. Canseco identified several professional baseball players as users of anabolic steroids in Juiced including Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Iván Rodríguez, and Juan González.
The new steroid book, scheduled to be released on Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season, was originally to be co-authored by former Sports Illustrated reporter Don Yaeger. He was the ghostwriter for Canseco’s Juiced. After Yaeger took a look at Canseco’s materials, he quit the project telling the NY Daily News:
I’m passing… I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco (material) that he provided me. I don’t think there’s a book there. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod… There’s no meat on the bones.
Officially, the publisher has diplomatically cited “editorial delays” as the reason for not publishing the book.
By mutual agreement with José Canseco, we have decided not to publish his book ‘Vindicated…’ After much consideration, we have agreed to part ways due to editorial delays that made it impossible to maintain our original publishing schedule.
So, Jose Canseco has been forced to changed publishers and find a new ghostwriter selecting Pablo F. Fenjves, a former National Enquirer writer; Fenjves was the ghostwriter for O.J. Simpson’s book outlining how he would have killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/sports/baseball/17canseco.html?ref=baseball
