Canseco: 'My Motive Is to Attack Major League Baseball'
Exclusive: Jose Canseco says owners and Players' Union turned a blind eye.
March 27, 2008— -- It comes as no surprise that Jose Canseco has come out swinging again. The former slugger who blew the lid off steroid use in Major League Baseball with his explosive book three years ago is aiming for the rafters again.
Although "Juiced" spent seven weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, baseball did not respond well to Canseco's brutal account and seemed unprepared to admit that some of its most celebrated players may have been using performance-enhancing drugs.
"It was a pretty, pretty clear message to me that I was a pariah, I was dangerous," Canseco told "Nightline" co-anchor Martin Bashir in an exclusive interview. "I was poisonous to the game of baseball."
It seems unlikely that reaction to his new book is going to be much different, but Canseco refuses to be silenced. "I think the public needs to know the truth," he said.
Canseco's second book, titled "Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars and the Battle to Save Baseball," names more names and makes more claims. When asked if his motives have anything to do with money, he said "absolutely not."
"My motive, and I will make it clear and look you in the eyes, is to attack MLB. That's my motive."
In the book, Canseco goes after the biggest name in baseball today: Alex Rodriguez, saying that in the late 1990s he introduced Rodriguez to a trainer who could provide steroids.
Canseco admits that he never injected Rodriguez or gave him steroids, and doesn't know for sure whether that trainer -- whom he refuses to identify -- or anyone else gave Rodriguez steroids. Nevertheless, he said he believes that Rodriguez was a user, writing in the book that "I'm confident it was the 'roids. I believed it then and I believe it now. I've been down this road too many times with too many guys. I know the way it works.
"I cannot bet my life on it, because I was not involved, that Alex Rodriguez ever used steroids," Canseco told Bashir. "But in my opinion, I suspect he has, yes."
Canseco admits that there's no love lost between the two of them. He also claims that back in the late 1990s Rodriguez began hitting on his then-wife.
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