Jose Canseco’s former lawyer says Mark McGwire is still doing his steroid ‘coverup dance’
Jose Canseco and his former attorney received a call as they were driving to the Rayburn House Office Building on St. Patrick’s Day in 2005, just before the start of the congressional hearing on steroids and baseball.
Rep. Tom Davis, the chairman of the committee conducting the hearing, was on the phone.
“We received a call from Tom Davis telling us that (Mark) McGwire’s attorney was requesting immunity,” Robert Saunooke, who represented Canseco at the time, told the Daily News late Tuesday. “I don’t know why he would be requesting immunity because we weren’t aware that he had committed a crime.
“But it was clear to us at that moment that McGwire had something to say.”
Saunooke said McGwire clearly had something heavy he wanted to get off his chest – and that is why Saunooke said the former single-season home run king’s lightweight mea culpa before Bob Costas on the MLB Network on Monday seemed so unsatisfying.
Saunooke said he thought it is interesting that while minority players who have been linked to steroids – including Canseco and Barry Bonds – have become baseball pariahs, McGwire, whom he dubbed “the Great White Hope,” is being welcomed back into the fold.
“I find the entire explanation and McGwire’s contrition far less credible than he’d like it to be,” said Saunooke, referring to McGwire’s claim that he took small doses of steroids to recover from injuries, not to enhance performance. “He is still doing the same baseball coverup dance he did in front of Congress that day.”
McGwire may have acknowledged that he used steroids during his career, including the historic 1998 run at Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, but he continues to say Canseco lied when he wrote in his book “Juiced” that the two former Bash Brothers used to inject each other with performance-enhancing drugs in a bathroom stall when they were teammates with the Oakland A’s.
During an interview with ESPN radio Tuesday, Canseco stood by the allegation and challenged McGwire to take a polygraph test.
Canseco was scheduled to appear on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Tuesday night, but canceled at the last minute, telling the talk-show host’s staff that he was “emotionally drained” and tired of defending himself.
Saunooke no longer represents Canseco – the attorney sued the slugger in 2008 to collect more than $340,000 in unpaid legal fees. Although Canseco has said he regrets outing other players as steroid users, Saunooke said his former client was motivated to write the book for the right reasons. Canseco believed Major League Baseball, Saunooke said, needed to confront the truth about its steroid problem.
“Jose did what he thought baseball needed.”
Saunooke said that before the hearing, he believed Major League Baseball supported Canseco’s efforts to confront the truth about steroids. But McGwire refused to talk about the past, Rafael Palmeiro denied ever using steroids, Sammy Sosa forgot how to speak English and anti-steroid advocate Curt Schilling unexpectedly toned down his rhetoric, and Saunooke said he sensed something was wrong. He believes MLB officials told the other players to make Canseco look bad. The lawmakers, meanwhile, shot hostile questions at his client.
During a break, Saunooke told Davis that they would leave and risk a contempt of Congress charge if the attacks continued. After that, everything changed. The lawmakers hit McGwire for his refusal to talk about steroids and Schilling for his flip-flops. One representative said MLB owed Canseco a great deal of gratitude “because he saved baseball.”
