With Roger Clemens returning to baseball at age 44, and having fired trainer, Brian McNamee (who presumably put Jason Grimsley in touch with Kirk Radomski) rumors of past steroid or other performance-enhancing drug use continue to swirl. There is great debate about Clemens’ place in Baseball’s Steroid Era in the media and in forums all over the world. Many people are unclear as to what Canseco actually said about Clemens in his steroid tell-all Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.
To clear up any discrepancies, here are verbatim references to Clemens in Juiced with regard to performance-enhancing drugs. Below that are a few mentions unrelated to performance-enhancing drugs that describe the nature of Clemens and Canseco’s relationship having been teammates on three separate occasions beginning in 1995.
Page 211
It was so open, the trainers would jokingly call the steroid injections “B12 shots,” and soon the players had picked up on that little code name, too. You’d hear them saying it out loud in front of each other: “I need to go in and get a B12 shot,” a player would say, and everyone would laugh. (Of course, that was the kind of joke you really only made around other steroid users, because obviously they were in the same boat as you. What were they going to do, tell on you? Not hardly.)
Page 211-212
It was the pitchers that kept the “B12” joke going. For example, I’ve never seen Roger Clemens do steroids, and he never told me that he did. But we’ve talked about what steroids could do for you, in which combinations, and I’ve heard him use the phrase “B12 shot” with respect to others.
A lot of pitchers did steroids to keep up with hitters. If everyone else was getting stronger and faster, then you wanted to get stronger and faster, too. If you were a pitcher, and the hitters were all getting stronger, that made your job that much more difficult. Roger used to talk about that a lot.
“You hitters are so darn strong from steroids,” he’d say.
“Yeah, but you pitchers are taking it, too. You’re just taking different types,” I’d respond.
And sometimes Roger would vent his frustration over the hits even the lesser players were starting to get off good pitchers. “Damn, that little guy hit it odd the end of the bat and almost drove it to the wall,” he would say. He would complain about guys who were hitting fifty homers when they had no business hitting thirty. It was becoming more difficult for pitchers all the time, he would complain.
I can’t give chapter and verse on Roger’s training regimen. But I’ll tell you what I was thinking at the time:
One of the classic signs of steroid use is when a player’s basic performance actually improves later in his career. One of the benefits of steroids is that they’re especially helpful in countering the effects of aging. So in Roger’s case, around the time that he was leaving Boston—and Dan Duquette, the general manager there, was saying he was “past his prime”—Roger decided to make some changes. He started working out harder. And whatever else he may have been doing to get stronger, he saw results. His fastball improved by a few miles per hour. He was a great pitcher long before then; it wasn’t his late-career surge that made him great. But he certainly stayed great far longer than most athletes could expect. There’s no question about that.
Quotes About Clemens Not Related to Performance-Enhancing Drugs
About Women – Page 91
Here’s something you probably don’t know about Roger Clemens: He’s one of the very few baseball players I know who never cheated on his wife. I was amazed by him, to be honest. His wife should be very proud of him. You see all these other guys- oh, my god, every chance they got, they would be hitting the strip clubs. They would have extra girls staying in the team hotel, one room over from their wives, so they could go back and forth from room to room if they wanted. They would have their choice of women in damn near every city imaginable.
Roger was the exception to that. I went out with him a bunch of times when there were beautiful women around, and he had a lot of opportunities and never took them. I was with him enough times to realize: This man never cheated on his wife. He was one of the rarities, the anomalies, in baseball. I can hardly think of anyone else who never cheated on his wife. I wish I could count myself as an exception, but I can’t.
About Umpires – Page 162
Roger Clemens, who’s a lock for the Hall of Fame, was always very conscientious about taking care of umpiring crews. One thing he would do was use his pull to get them on the best golf courses. I know, because Roger and I used to play golf together a lot of the time when we were teammates with the Red Sox, so I was out there with him. He always made sure the umps got a good starting time at courses like Bluer Hill Country Club in Canton, Massachusetts.
About the 2000 World Series – Page 232
In game six, though I was sitting there on the Yankees bench on a cold night as Shea Stadium. Roger Clemens was sitting to my right, and Andy Pettitte to my left, and I was sure I wouldn’t be asked to play. But all of a sudden, in the sixth inning, Torre called down to me.
“Canseco, you’re hitting,” he said.
Roger and I looked at each other, both of us totally surprised. I hadn’t been in a game since the regular season; I hadn’t even taken batting practice that day. I was half asleep. If it hadn’t been cold, I’d probably have fallen asleep altogether.
“Holy shit!” I thought. So I stood up kind of slowly, hunched over with stiffness, my back all cramped up. Roger started pretending as if he had an oil can in his hand, and he started oiling me like the Tin Man.
I played along, making a squeaky little voice.
“Oil me here,” I squeaked. “And oil me here.”
Pettitte started playing along, too, and soon all three of us were cracking up. But that didn’t last long. I went up to the plate to pinch-hit for David Cone, and it was bad. Three strikes and you’re out.