[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

7/5/06

NOTEBOOK

Baseball dismisses Canseco’s allegations

Wednesday, July 05, 2006


ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Major League Baseball yesterday took a stand against admitted steroids user Jose Canseco, calling the former slugger’s allegations that MLB might be playing favorites with some big-name players when it comes to positive drug tests "complete nonsense."
Canseco, who last played in the majors in 2001, returned to professional baseball with the independent San Diego Surf Dawgs on Monday. Before the game, he made critical comments about how baseball officials are handling the new, stricter steroids policy and said a "cleanup" in the commissioner’s office is needed.
Major League Baseball initially declined to react to Canseco’s latest diatribe, in which he called baseball the "mafia" and suggested the sport isn’t interested in knowing the truth about some star players’ use of performanceenhancing drugs. But one day later the league strongly denied Canseco’s statements.
"Complete nonsense," spokesman Rich Levin said.
"The policy sounds great, but that’s not the problem," Canseco said Monday. "There are major problems, not with the policies but the individuals who are instituting this policy. For example — and this is theoretical — if Roger Clemens gets tested and he gets tested positive …what do these individuals do with this policy? I think it’s going to depend on a case-to-case, player-to-player basis." Canseco’s return — he went 0 for 3 with three strikeouts and was hit by a pitch — comes some 16 months after he attracted the attention of Congress with his autobiography, Juiced, that accused several top players of steroid use.