Jose "the Juice" Canseco and his Traveling All 'Roid Team...

As I wrote on Saturday, the steroid era has reached the gates to the Hall of Fame, which means we can now look forward to at least five years of steroid related histrionics, morality speeches, and what not, but for those of us with Sports on the Brain, it also offers something else. A little time to ponder how an All ‘Roid Team would look. Who would we pick? Are there enough players linked to drugs to create an all star type team? Or are they mostly first basemen? Well, as it turns out, things are looking pretty positive for us in this pursuit, just as the tests of these dudes would have looked pretty positive had any of them peed into a cup during the late nineties or early millennium. This is all in fun, so nobody should go into a ‘Roid induced rage. We acknowledge that most of these guys have never tested positive, nor will they. However, they have all been linked one way or another to drugs.

C - A surefire Hall of Famer, Ivan Rodriguez has grown into a well respected elder statesman, the result of his work with the 2002 Marlins and last year’s Detroit Tigers, but lets be realistic here: Pudge played in Texas with Jose Canseco, the great steroid distributor. As if that weren’t enough, Canseco dropped his name in his articulate, factual tell-all book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. Now, lets be honest, Canseco isn’t exactly the world’s greatest witness. His recounting of things, is, perhaps, a bit surreal, but Pudge didn’t do his reputation any favors when he reported to camp in 2005 (the first season with testing) looking more like Nicole Ritchie than Hulk Hogan. Suspicious? Sure, but we here at Achanceyougottatake Sports judge not, we are just happy to have such a great catcher on the team.

1B – Pick your poison. Do you want something lighter and breaded, like a McChicken, something meatier like the Quarter Pounder, or do you just want to go traditional and get yourself a Big Mac? First base is the Mecca for steroid use: you have one guy who wont talk about the past, one who apologizes for… something(?), and another who brazenly asserts that he never used steroids, and… promptly fails a test two months later (oops, my bad!). I mean, obviously any All ‘Roid team is going to be from the modern America League, which means that we get to pick ourselves a hulking DH as well as a hulking first baseman, so lets take the best two of these three wieners, err… I mean burgers. Without that guilty test, Rafael Palmeiro would have been a surefire Hall of Famer, as he’s the fifth man to ever reach three thousand hits and five hundred home runs. But lets face it, his marks are built more on longevity than good wholesome mashing power. And nothing doesn’t say All ‘Roid team like the word longevity. Giambi had some good years, two in fact that were extremely good, but this category is really all about the BIG MAC and Mark McGwire. With 583 home runs in only 6187 at bats, Big Mac is top of the heap all time in home runs per at bat. That’s right, better than Ruth, better than Aaron, even better than that Giant Head out West. Obviously with that kind of production, McGwire’s our man. Maybe Giambi can DH and Palmeiro can point fingers at kids in the stands.


2B – Where in the world little old Bret Boone gained his ‘roid link I don’t know, but one day he was a middling utility infielder and the next, at 31, he was a power hitting number three hitter who (bonus) just happened to be a second baseman. Should we judge him on his sudden increase in home runs? Or his .200 point improvement in OPS? Or his incredible decline in that magic summer of 2005? However we judge him, I think it’s pretty obvious that Booney’s our two bagger.

SS – Well, he played with Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, and Rafael Palmeiro. Worse, he also played with Jose “just bend over and drop you pants, while I poke something pointy into you” Canseco. Worst yet, when Palmeiro went tits up, he cast blame upon Miguel Tejada for injecting him with “B12” shots… Hhmmm… well, it’s just not good any time somebody’s suggesting that you injected them with something, anything. It just doesn’t matter what. Shots are for Doctors and those incredible little nurses who make such great girlfriends… (and Mothers… and, er, uhmmm… I guess Fathers, even though he’s bald). Anyhow, Tejada’s numbers haven’t appreciably changed one way or the other, nor has he ever had any other association with drugs, but a little game of hide the pointy thing with Palmeiro, hey, that’s how quickly these things can turn sour in the ‘Roid Era.

3B – This team obviously needs some leadership and despite all his demons -- demons which ultimately claimed his life -- Ken Caminiti had a moxie which all of his teammates rallied around. He was a huge presence in the clubhouse and that, plus his role in bringing the steroid issue out of the closet and to the forefront of discussion makes him our team captain.

RF – Another bastion of ‘Roid happy players. Sammy Sosa is the only man to hit more than 60 home runs three times. Gary Sheffield was hanging out with Barry Bonds one summer, when Bonds started rubbing a clear substance on Shef’s leg… Might have been drugs, might have been moisturizer, might have been one of those “happy” moments between teammates that are best left behind closed doors. Then there’s Juan Gonzalez who had a couple incredible years, years in which he won a pair of MVPs. He also happened to play with a certain Surreal someone… And finally, we have the grand Daddy of them all, that surreal, leopard skin undie wearing, book writing, name dropping, Cuban heartthrob:

Apparently, Jose Canseco was doing the drugs as early as 1988, making him the Flava Flav of steroid use. He also claims to have personally stuck his needle in McGwire, Gonzalez, Palmeiro, Rodriguez, Dave Martinez, Tony Saunders, and Wilson Alvarez, while also pointing a judging finger at Giambi, Barry Bonds, Sosa, Boone, Brady Anderson and Tejada. So, if he’s not actually on the team, well, he has to be the General Manager.

CF – Ok, we just dropped his name (or really, we just quoted Canseco dropping his name, but who’s keeping score anyhow), so what about Brady Anderson? He was a gritty, gutsy player, who one year hit 16 home runs and the next hit 50… Huh? What? Well, I’m not much with the math-er-a-matics, but I think, I think that’s a difference of, ahhh… well a big difference anyhow. The next year he was back down to 18. Nice. So, obviously Brady used for a year and then decided that he wasn’t wild about allowing Canseco to wave things around his backside.

LF – Let me introduce our starting left fielder, Mr. Barry Lamar Bonds! (wild, crazy applause) He’s good, but just wait, like the Reebok Pump, you just tug on his ear, his head inflates to seven times its original size and he’s the Mohammed Ali of Baseball.

RHP – Well he never played with Canseco (actually, I have to look this up, they both played so long, for so many different teams that I find it hard to imagine they never played a year in the same place… just wait… still waiting… BAM! Money!). Ok, scratch that first sentence, Canseco was in the locker room with Roger Clemens in Boston when Clemens was looking finished in 1995, and he was there in Toronto when Clemens was winning back to back Cy Young’s in 1997. Clemens is a notorious work out warrior, and obviously an incredibly gifted athlete, but… What he’s done in Houston these past three years, well, if they don’t raise an eyebrow then you’ve been in a coma for the last five years. It’s a sign of what has happened that I’ve passed the point of surprise when it comes to these guys. If Clemens was conclusively indicated with steroids, not just name dropped by Jason Grimsely, I’d barely bat an eye. The indifference is sad and the only surprising thing left.

LHP – Considering that they’re best friends, work out together, wife swap, and make all other decisions together (ok, maybe that wife swap comment was an exaggeration), well... a guilty tip of the hat for Clemens is a guilty tip of the hat for Andy Pettitte. And given his postseason histrionics, we're happy to have the lefty.

Well, you can’t pick a team without giving a lineup, so here’s how I would plug in my Drugged up team of sluggers (They are listed here with their most ‘roid-irific season):

1) B. Anderson (lh) - .297 AVG, .396 OBP, .637 SLG, 51 HR, 110 RBI, 8.67 RC/27.
2) B. Boone (rh) - .331, .372, .578, 37, 141, 8.02.
3) B. Bonds (lh) - .362, .609, .812, 45, 101, 20.11.
4) M. McGwire (rh) - .299, .470, .752, 70, 147, 13.10.
5) J. Giambi (lh) - .342, .477, .660, 38, 120, 11.89.
6) S. Sosa (rh) - .328, .437, .737, 64, 160, 12.38.
7) K. Caminiti (s) - .326, .408, .621, 40, 130, 9.43.
8) M. Tejada (rh) - .311, .360, .534, 34, 150, 6.90.
9) I. Rodriguez (rh) - .347, .375, .667, 27, 83, 9.37.

Sure this team would have some obscene pharmaceutical bills and granted most of these guys couldn’t run any longer because they suffered from mysterious joint deterioration, but with all those balls flying over the fence, who cares. Even if they arrived onto the field late for every game, because they were all crammed into one of the bathroom stalls, well we’d still love them, because they’d score more than Wilt Chamberlain at a Dixie Chicks concert. Nobody hates a champion, unless of course that champion’s the Yankees. Damn, this team would be the Yankees wouldn’t it?