Meet baseball's slimeball

Inevitably, Canseco's claim that the taking of steroids is widespread - this former boyfriend of Madonna openly boasts about using them throughout his career - and an acceptance of blatant cheating by baseball's hierarchy quickly brought fierce denials.

President Bush, general managing partner of the Texas Rangers when Canseco was one of the team's top sluggers during the early 90s, was forced to refute the suggestion that he knew his players were using performance-enhancing substances but did nothing about it.

Record-breaking home runner Mark McGwire and fellow big-batter Jason Giambi strongly maintained their innocence against Canseco's charges that he saw them, and even helped them, inject steroids into their buttocks while sleazily concealed in locker-room toilet stalls.

And top players Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Rafael Palmiero loudly rejected Canseco's allegations that he showed them how to use drugs.

Bryan Burwell, respected columnist of the St Louis Post Dispatch, writes: "The easiest thing to believe is that Jose is an attention-grabbing crackpot with the credibility of a street-corner snitch.

"But the trouble with dismissing Canseco's clubhouse confessions as bogus would be that the only thing with less credibility than this moneystrapped, self-promoting flake is the sport he's savaging."

Money-strapped? While hitting 462 home runs in 1,887 games for eight teams, Canseco's earnings are estimated to have totalled nearly £30 million. That he has apparently squandered much of this fortune is one more reason why Canseco today stands as the most reviled man in sport.

How he arrived here is the familiar story of a brilliant talent tainted by fame and fortune. Born one of identical twins in Havana 40 years ago, Canseco and his family emigrated to Miami while he was still an infant.

As a skinny youngster, yet to bear a body puffed up by steroids, his character was said to have been shaped by an overbearing father and the painful death of his mother.

Whatever his shortcomings, Canseco could certainly play ball.

At the age of 22, he was signed by the Oakland Athletics and immediately connected for 33 home runs to become American League Rookie of the Year.

He won the World Series with Oakland and the New York Yankees, once hit a mammoth 500ft home run into the fifth tier of a stand in Toronto, and only Babe Ruth and McGwire have reached 400 career home runs in fewer games.

But trouble was not far away. He recalls being pulled over by the Highway Patrol, when they eventually caught up with him, after his Lamborghini was clocked doing 202mph.

More seriously, Canseco was once booked for the illegal possession of a handgun. He was later accused of aggravated assault after ramming his Porsche into his first wife's BMW.

He was arrested for striking his second wife, and there were two counts of aggravated battery after he and his brother Ozzie were caught up in a nightclub brawl.

Remorse? You would be hard pressed to squeeze any from a man whose drug-fuelled success brought him into the celebrity circus.

"I was Hollywood," says the player who once shook the hand of our Queen. "Back in the 80s I was like a rock star. I was hands down the best player in the world. Everywhere I went I had to have bodyguards. I had it all: the body, the personality, everything."

Now he has the stigma of being a sporting pariah and is still pushing the creed of the cheat.

He says: "I don't recommend steroids for everyone and I don't recommend growth hormones for everyone. But for certain individuals I truly believe, because I've experimented with it for so many years, it can make an average athlete a super athlete. It can make a super athlete incredible. Just legendary.

"By the time my eight-year-old daughter, Josie, has graduated from high school, a majority of professional athletes - in all sports - will be taking steroids. And believe it or not, that's good news.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that intelligent, informed use of steroids, combined with human growth hormone, will one day be so accepted that everybody will be doing it."

No way, Jose. Please, no way.