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A better title might be "I Told You So".
“Jose Conseco might have even preferred that title. He doesn't miss an opportunity to tell you & everybody that called him a liar & fast buck artist. This is the follow-up to his wildly sucessful "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids". I read the hard-cover version. Got it cheap, used thru Amazon. Anyway give me a vote or a comment. If you're the first that wants it & will read it, I'll mail it to you ppd. No strings, promise. I'll need your snail mail by November 9th.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-10-08.
The book is heavy padded to make it repectable size. Lots of stats of other players, pages from the Mitchell Report, his testimony & lie detector tests he took. There are also really good color photos of McGwire, Sosa, A-Rod etc. Before & after shots speak for themselves. Conseco is bitter & he throws a few more players under the steroids track, A-Rod, Ivan Rodriquez & Roger Clemens. That latter he has no proof of. He spends alot of time on Clemens, a so-called good friend & teammate for a short period of time. Conseco was on a lot of teams in his career & was always the man to go to for info on steroids. He's seen a lot of butts & injected them multiple times. He makes no bones about his own use, right from the beginning of his career. Conseco is not a good writer by any streach of the imagination. He's intelligent & might be fun to hang out with, for a short period of time. But emtionally he's a loose cannon & has betrayed lots of friends & teammates for $$$. Not very commendable. The book is an easy read & entertaining for the short time it will take. ” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Just as entertaining as Juiced
“I feel like despite people believing Canseco is a credible steroid source, most people still hate him for some reason, and thus, this book has 3-stars on amazon. Pretty absurd if you ask me.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-08-19.
Vindicated is just as entertaining as Juiced was, and sheds even MORE light on the steroids issue in Baseball. It's a perfect Part 2, to Juiced. Once again, Canseco was right, with Clemens and A-Rod being named in this book.
This book made me laugh out loud several times, made me get charged up with excitement, made me get angry.... it was an emotional rollercoaster. Craftfully written, and very, very entertaining. I'd recommend this book to ANY Major League Baseball fan. If you hate Canseco, whatever, but don't rate this book low because of it. The book is fantastic.” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Canseco reinforces what he's been saying all along...and then some
“Vindicated, Jose Canseco's 2nd baseball-steriod book is just validating everything that he has already said, or been saying, and then some.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-05-07.
Vindicated starts with Canseco talking about the media's interpretation of him when he first came out with Juiced. Even before the book hit the shelves, a transcript of the book was leaked, and the media, inparticular, baseball went on damage control, critizing Canseco and calling him a money grubbing person who had zero to no credibilty. Some outlets even compared him to Monica Lewisnky, someone only seeking attention, but Canseco points out that he wasn't aware that Monica was a liar.
He goes into how Roger Clemens name ended up not being in Juiced, or in several interviews that he did, including one with ESPN's Pedro Gomez, and above all, Canseco spoke about why he wrote JUICED and why he came out with his 2nd book, VINDICATED.
Canseco sets up his story beautifully, explaining in detail encounters he had with Barry Bonds, and how 3 months later, Barry had added almost 30 lbs of muscle and the shape of his head had grown. Canseco delves into how and why MLB knew but did nothing, and how his anger at how the media chose to not believe him, or lend any credibility to him citing money issues among things, when all along, Canseco always maintained that he was telling the truth.
The media judged on his character and never lent any truth to his story, like when Tony LaRussa backed McGwire yet said that Canseco was juicing.
Canseco touches on the Mitchell Report, and how he felt he had been "Mitch-slapped" by the committee. He noticed how some people that he personally knew injected, or that he had injected himself were not mentioned in the Mitchell Report, like Pudge Rodriguez for example.
Canseco was also upset that there were more New York Yankees in the book, both current and retired when compared to Boston, and probably the most interesting note of all, is that not one single Florida Marlin was mentioned in the report. Canseco makes note of course that Mr. Mitchell used to be on the board of directors for the Florida Marlins...draw your own conclusions.
Magglio Ordonez
Canseco says that he was going to, but didn't include ex-White Sox/current Tiger Magglio Ordonez because he felt sorry for him. He sided with him and showed him steriods and even injected him a couple of times. Canseco included Magglio because when stories started floating around that Canseco tried to black-mail "Maggs" into a deal to sponsor a documentary that Canseco wanted to do, and when Maggs didn't deny these rumors or acknowledge that he hadn't spoke to Canseco nor contacted him, Canseco talked.
So Canseco says at first he didn't include Maggs because he liked him, and yet when Maggs didn't stand up to the blackmail rumors or call him back, Canseco burned him?
Can you blame him? No. But people who are disgusted with Canseco will point out that to them, Canseco did this as a revenge factor more than anything.
Canseco doesn't condone steriod use, yet speaks about the pros of taking steriods and how in fact, it helped baseball revive itself after the 1994 Strike by putting butts in the seats with the long-ball, which it did.
In JUICED for example, Canseco says he doesn't promote steriods, yet gave a whole chapter on the goods of taking steriods the right way and how it could in fact, help people and not hurt them. They would feel stronger and live longer IF taken the right way.
-on the subject of A-Rod, Canseco again comes off as being a bitter person who wanted to get back at A-Rod, which is why people didn't believe him in the first place. Canseco says he included A-Rod because he doesn't like fake people, and A-Rod tried stealing his wife. What i also found pretty amazing about the book is that Canseco pointed out how A-Rod (pre Selina Roberts-public knowledge) was already in love with himself. He points to the fact that A-Rod wanted to be like Canseco (homerun hitter, good looking Latino guy, both dated Madonna like Canseco apparently did, both were 40/40 guys, and both at one time were the highest paid players in the league).
The most interesting point made was that when Alex signed his legendary $252 million dollar deal, it was exactly TWICE the size of the then highest sports salary ever....................$126 million by Kevin Garnett with Boston.
Canseco points out that this was a calculated move by A-Rod to say, "look at me world, i'm twice as good as anyone here". To this day, A-Rod still has the highest player salary in all of sports.
Canseco adds transcripts from more than 3 lie detector tests he took and how he passed all with absouletly zero to no points of deception on everything from A-Rod to Magglio.
Canseco finally, and convincingly added before and after pictures of all the suspected steriod users, Bonds, Sosa, Tejada, McGwire, A-Rod, and Clemens, to name a few along with their stats.
Regardless of what you think of Jose, one thing has proved simple....HE IS NOT A LIAR.
yes, he can come off as arogant, cocky, self absorbed, jealous, outrages and sometimes seem to appear like a liar, but he isn't. All the guys he named in JUICE, were juicing, and reading the book now, after the A-Rod and Manny Ramirez fall out, it almost glorifies the title of his book.
Don't be surprised to see another Canseco book that reads "How do you like them apples", because all along, through all the media mudslinging, he was right.
I recommend Vindicated to any baseball purist, not for the gossip, but rather in hopes that baseball can be cleaned up once and for all.
” -
1 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Lots of Filler
“As others have noted, this is not a great book. It is loaded with filler: Canseco talking about being on _The Surreal Life_, Canseco talking about his martial arts prowess, Canseco giving his daughter long-winded advice about how to succeed in life, Canseco endlessly repeating his specific MLB accomplishments.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-02-18.
The problem is that Canseco has little new to reveal. The most interesting sections of the book deal with Clemens, Magglio Ordonez, and A-Rod (especially since, at the time of this review, A-Rod has just admitted to using steroids). _Vindicated_ is a 125-page book inflated to 230 pages.
Of course, a more seasoned and thoughtful writer could produce hundreds of pages exploring the new cases that have exploded into the press since _Juiced_ and the ramifications of these cases. But Canseco, who is a well-meaning guy, falls short in the "thoughtful" category. He's more interested in spilling the beans than reflecting on why the beans were spilled or how they can be cleaned up. And even when Canseco does drop one of his revelatory bombs, you can't help but want to know more. Just why did A-Rod hate Canseco so much? How did he act as an informant against Canseco?
Still, this is an easy read, and the new info is mildly interesting. I recommend finding this book at your local library, as I did.” -
1 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Conseco explains himself in a hurried fashion....
“ If you like Conseco's first book about "Roids" that was exciting and all about the inner circles of baseball, be ready that this is not more of the same. In "Vindicated", there is much more direct finger pointing and name calling than anything else. It is like the author is screaming for people to believe him. We do, Jose, you passed 2 polygraphs with absolutely "no chance of being disceptive." This book was written in a hurry, as there is no index, and the stories are not nearly as good as in his first. But the details are much better. There are several more memorial facts that one could find quite disturbing. The fact that HarperCollins(publisher of his first book) made Conseco remove the name of Roger Clemens from that text or they would refuse to print it, is quite curious. It appears that naming good ole Roger in any bad light, is not good for this world. And I like Roger Clemens!! I did enjoy those reenactments of Sosa suddenly forgetting English before Congress, and McGwire not wanting to mention the past, totally hiliarious. Jose also has issue with A-Rod and terms him "Stray Rod" for reasons you should read about. The photos of the players being buffed up, is not completely atune with the fact of steroid use, but later you learn they all, including Clemens, A-Rod, Sosa, and mosty all Yankees (except D. Jeter) do use them. For some odd reason, most Boston Red Sox players are not even mentioned?? Even the great holier than thou Andy Petitt seems to have been punched by the needle a few times. The biggest hypocrite of them all has to be the $18million -a- year commissioner Bud Selig and his court. While they pretend to dispise the use of Growth Hormone and steroids, they surely knew its presence was throughout all aspects of the game. Yet because these big home run hitters were exciting and brought in the fans, they willfully accepted gate money for the sport of it. Something like selling your soul. Selig is seemingly very good at the exploitation of sports' individuals while remaining totally innocent of any incriminating facts of his own. He is the commissioner and did not know this was going on... Please..he owns his own team.. You will not be able to put this down, because Conseco does not hold anything back, and is relentless to get you to understand how he was railroaded into making the title of enemy #1 on baseball's bad boy list. guyairey”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-02-06.
