JOSE CANSECO CLAIMS SAMMY SOSA AND MARK McGWIRE TOOK STEROIDS DURING 1998 HOME RUN CHASE ON XM SATELLITE RADIO'S MLB HOME PLATE CHANNEL; PETE ROSE TELLS XM HE SUSPECTS CANSECO MOTIVATED BY MONEY



Washington D.C., February 15, 2005 -- Former baseball slugger Jose Canseco claimed that both Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire took steroids during their famed home-run chase in 1998 during an exclusive interview with Kevin Kennedy, who managed Canseco while he was a Texas Ranger, on the first day of broadcasting for XM Satellite Radio's MLB Home Plate channel (XM Channel 175).

In a separate interview on MLB Home Plate, baseball veteran Pete Rose criticized Canseco for his accusations of steroid use among former teammates, saying, "No one needs the money that bad to capitalize on your teammates."

 

An encore broadcast of the Canseco interview will be aired on XM Channel 175 tonight at 9 pm ET and again at 12 midnight ET. The interview originally aired live on XM at 4:30 pm ET during the program "The Show," hosted by Kennedy and former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Rob Dibble.

Canseco, the author of the controversial new book "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big," claimed that he was forced out of baseball by league executives who had previously "turned a blind eye" to steroid use, then decided to make him an example to other players.

Canseco told XM: "Everybody wants to blame the players. You know what? The owners knew. They didn't care, as long as they were making money. The players' association knew. They just turned a blind eye to it and said, 'Hey, the game's developing again. It's growing.' You know, the Sammy Sosa-Mark McGwire show. They were both juiced. No 'ifs,' 'ands,' [or] 'buts' about it."

"I introduced steroids to Major League Baseball," Canseco said. "I changed the face of baseball as we know it today... The owners in Major League Baseball lost control of the steroids issue. Eight out of ten players were taking it. Records were being demolished, broken left and right. Owners said, 'Listen we have a problem. And the individual that changed this game ... and educated these players was Jose Canseco. Let's blackball him. Let's make it look like he's injured all the time. And little by little, let's suffocate his career. We know [Canseco] is the godfather of steroids. We know he's known as a chemist. He helped make the game as powerful as possible. Let's send a signal to the other players: You better stop the steroid taking, or we're going to get rid of you, too.'"

Canseco said concern among players about punishment for steroid use is the reason "home run percentages are coming down," but he said league management will not fully address the problem "until Congress comes and steps in."

Following Canseco's in-person interview at a Los Angeles studio, Pete Rose phoned into the program and said Canseco was ousted from baseball simply because he "couldn't play anymore," not because of a conspiracy. Rose criticized Canseco's decision to identify and accuse former teammates of using steroids, asserting that the decision was driven by money.

"No one needs the money that bad to capitalize on your teammates," Rose said. "I just don't understand, now he's talking about doing a movie, and being a producer of a movie, so you know, Jose makes it sound more and more like a money deal."

"The Show," hosted by Kennedy and former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Rob Dibble, is a fast-paced afternoon program airing weekdays on XM's MLB Home Plate from 3-6 PM ET, with high-profile guests, previews of upcoming games and listener call-ins. XM satellite radio news, Satellite Radio News

Today marked the inaugural broadcast of MLB Home Plate, the nation's first 24-hour radio channel devoted solely to Major League Baseball. In March XM will add a suite of 15 channels devoted to live play-by-play coverage of games for every Major League Baseball team. Game programming on XM runs from Spring Training through the World Series. The channels are part of XM's 11-year broadcasting and marketing agreement with Major League Baseball.