The Jose Canseco have the big lady boobs and the lil mouse balls.
There’s something to be said about a drug addict who chooses to make money by exploiting his struggles with addiction, all while enabling the addictions of other people. I’m not sure if there are proper words for it, but utterly tragic, pathetic and thoroughly reprehensible are probably good places to start. Case in point: Jose Canseco, who has been dangerously addicted to anabolic steroids in the past (and possibly still is), now dedicates his time to encouraging both current and potential steroid users through a series of videos on Steroid.com. If you’re surprised by any of this, I envy your ignorance.
Oh, and he makes his glorious man boobies dance. Did I mention that part yet? Because that happens.
Back to business though. This week, Canseco touches on the topic of which steroids are “the most awesome steroids,” which obviously are the ones that make your tits bounce, n00b. Naturally, Canseco addresses former teammates who decided not to use steroids in the unfortunately typical words of an addict who refuses to take responsibility for his own actions:
As a baseball player, if you didn’t take steroids you were just a pussy. You were just not part of the team at that time. You weren’t really trying to win. You weren’t doing everything possible to become the best baseball player out there and help your team win. It was like a sacrifice in a way, you really had to do everything possible to help your team win.
I’ll leave that one for the comments section to tear to shreds. What’s arguably the most interesting quote comes at around the seven minute mark, where Jose Canseco confronts a fan who says that baseball “was a pure sport” until players like Jose came along:
Let me tell you something, you fucking hypocritical fans: You loved seeing home runs fly five/six hundred feet. You loved it when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa went on that home run barrage and they both broke sixty [home runs in one season]. You paid a lot of money in parking and concessions, in the tickets to get into that ballpark, to be entertained and we entertained you, so don’t be such a hypocrite.
Before we go any further, you’re right: It’s almost exactly what Ken Shamrock said when he blamed us for his steroid usage. It’s also incredibly weak to blame other people for your own actions. That being said, he sort of has a point – even if he’s the last person on the planet who should be making it.
As fans, we demand a lot from our athletes. We demand quick knockouts, we demand brutal slams and submissions and we demand impeccable cardio from all of our fighters. A guy who doesn’t finish fights is worthless to most fans (show of hands, how many Jon Fitch and Jacob Volkmann fans do we have here?), yet alone a fighter who consistently gasses out early. Essentially, we end up demanding the performances that very few people can naturally provide on a consistent basis from all of our professional fighters.
Yet we then act surprised when one of our favorite fighters fails a drug test, even though we’re the ones placing demands on them that very few people can meet without resorting to drugs. We’re the first people to crucify a fighter who dares to take drugs so that we’ll continue to buy tickets and pay-per-views. As much as I hate to admit it, Canseco sort of has a point when he calls us hypocrites: We watch sports to be entertained. We’re entertained by the first round knockouts. Do we still have the right to complain about a quick knockout if we later find out that one of the fighters was on steroids?
To reiterate, Canseco’s point is pretty much invalid when you consider that he’s a recovering (maybe?) steroid addict who is blaming other people for his addiction. Not to even mention the mental gymnastics that must take place in Canseco’s head to say ”if you don’t take steroids, you’re a pussy who won’t do everything for the team” in the same video where he says that the fans are to blame for the steroid problem in professional sports, all while he is telling people what steroids are best for a baseball player to take.
As fans, are we at least partially to blame for the athletes who turn to steroids? Probably. But that doesn’t make guys like Jose Canseco any less accountable for their own actions. Or their impressive, dancing knockers.