Juiced by Jose Canseco Read Free Book Online Page B

ball. I had a great spring training, and thought I was going to make the A's Major League roster right then, even though I had only played as high as Modesto in the Class-A California League. I almost did, too. But they decided that I wasn't quite ready, so I was sent to Huntsville, Alabama, which is Double-A.
    To be blunt, I disagreed with them about my not being ready. I knew I was, and I didn't feel like wasting any more time in Double-A before I got to the only place where I could prove they had been wrong. That was the Oakland A's. If you look at my stats in Huntsville, they were incredible. I hit .318 with twenty-five homers and eighty RBIs, all in only fifty-eight games. I set so many minor-league records, it was a joke. I bounced up to Triple-A Tacoma, Washington, and just kept hitting. I hit the ball clear out of the stadium in Washington, something no one had ever done before, and nothing gets people talking like long home runs.
    The organization pretty much had to call me up to the A's, and I made it there in time for the last twenty-nine games of the season. Between Double-A, Triple-A, and the major leagues that season, I hit forty-odd homers with 140 RBIs, and batted over .300-and that was even though I broke my finger and missed four weeks.
    And I can tell you now: Steroids were the key to it all. I was such an improved player, and I think it was because steroids not only give you a lot of physical strength and stamina, they also give you a mental edge. Think of it this way: whenever you drink one of those energy drinks or eat one of those health bars, even before you finish the thing you're feeling better. It could just be sugar water and a candy bar, but mentally, you're feeling like you could run up a wall. It pumps up your confidence like you wouldn't believe, and for any athlete, that's a very potent combination. When your physical ability is there, your strength and stamina are there, and when your confidence level is up as well, the combination can carry you a long way. Wow, I realized, these chemicals work.
    Soon I was injecting myself, and getting good at it. You learn to turn your leg at an angle, to give yourself a better target, and you become an ambidextrous injector, because you definitely are going to want to hit both sides of your glute. One week you would hit your right side, the next week you would inject the left side. If you keep hitting the same spot, you're going to regret it, and I mean in a big way. It can get nasty.
    There are others muscles that can be used, like the quad or shoulder muscle, but if you're a baseball player you don't want to use the shoulder muscle, because you're constantly catching and throwing. You don't want to use your quad muscle, because you're running around too much. Some athletes have injected themselves in the shoulders, the quads, and the calves, but I don't do that and I don't recommend it. One time, I tried injecting myself in the shoulder, and it was very painful. It gives you a bruise and you end up with lasting pain. You only shoot yourself in the shoulder with water-based steroids, which allow you to use a smaller-gauge needle, as opposed to oil-based steroids with their larger-gauge needles.
    As I experimented more, I started trying different categories of steroids. Different types do certain things to the muscles the skin, the hair, the eyes, and your quick-muscle-twitch fibers. Every steroid played a different part. And when you combined them with growth hormones, the effect was just incredible.
    It was actually pretty funny that year, 1985, when I was having such a great run at three different levels. Back when I was at Double-A Huntsville, the fans were so excited about what I was doing, the home runs I was hitting, and my whole style of play that they started flashing THE NATURAL-you know, like the Robert Redford movie-up on the scoreboard whenever I would come up to bat. It was ironic, but the name stuck: Later, when the A's put me on the cover of