- [Clara] Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco,
known for huge hits, huge muscles
and hitting their huge forearms together.
Dubbed the Bash Brothers,
they ushered in the home run era of baseball,
which, I guess, is also the steroid era.
And there's more disillusionment where that came from.
The Bash Brothers weren't really friends with each other,
so when their careers took different trajectories
there was bound to be some resentment.
And some accusations
and some carefully-worded replies to Congress.
Hey, it's only natural.
That's the first word that comes to mind
when you think of these two, yeah?
The Bash Brothers were born out of success.
Jose Canseco was Rookie of the Year in '86,
and the next year his teammate Mark McGwire
won Rookie of the Year.
Their power hitting drove the A's
to the World Series in '88,
where they didn't win, but considering Oakland
hadn't been to the championship since 1974,
things were looking up.
Especially for Jose Canseco,
who emerged as the dominant smashing sibling,
a first draft of the nickname, I assume.
He was voted MVP and became the first player
to record a 40-40, with 42 homers and 40 stolen bases.
In '89 the A's were back in the World Series,
and this time they defeated the Giants
and an earthquake, in four games.
Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire
were the new faces of baseball,
but people were less interested in their faces...
The A's marketing department immortalized the brotherhood
with a massively popular poster
styled after the Blues Brothers,
as well as a song parody which encouraged fans
to ditch the high five in favor of the celebration
pioneered by the Bash Bros, simply dubbed The Bash,
a name that just so happens to be easy to rhyme.
♪ When the A's big bats really come alive ♪
♪ Don't waste time with a boring high five ♪
♪ Do the bash ♪
But here's the thing:
the Bash Brothers weren't real brothers.
In fact, they weren't even that close of friends.
The whole thing was a marketing campaign,
not a reflection of their relationship.
See, they had very different personalities,
as demonstrated by Mark doing things like...
missing the game where he could've recorded
his 50th homer as a rookie
to instead witness the birth of his son.
And Jose doing things like...
being nicknamed the Bad Boy of Baseball,
getting large speeding tickets,
dating Madonna,
and setting up the very first pro athlete hotline,
1-900-234-JOSE.
That number, again, is 1-900-234-JOSE!
While they weren't besties,
they were friendly with each other
for the most part.
Canseco was more of a star than McGwire,
which created some resentment.
Like the time McGwire was signing autographs
at a baseball card show and he snapped at a kid
who asked him how was Jose.
There was resentment the other way, too.
Jose didn't like how the media seemed to go easy on Mark,
particularly in regard to steroids.
For example, in '88 a reporter said Jose was,
"The most conspicuous example of a player
who made himself great with steroids."
But the reporter didn't say anything about Mark,
who, according to Canseco, was the bigger of the two.
But Canseco didn't have too much to complain about.
In 1990 he became the highest-paid player in baseball.
The A's were again in the World Series in 1990,
but this time they got swept.
Both Mark and Jose struggled in the series,
but manager Tony La Russa benched Jose
during do-or-die Game 4.
Esther Canseco, Jose's wife,
said the A's were blaming him for the sweep.
Conversely, about a year later,
La Russa used the bench to protect Mark McGwire's pride.
In '91, McGwire was in a slump.
He managed to get his batting average up to .201
toward the end of the season,
but every at bat threatened to plunge him under .200.
To allow him to finish above .200,
La Russa benched him for the last two games of the season.
It was an act of loyalty to a player
who had done a lot for the organization.
In August '92, while leading the AL West by seven games,
the A's showed a lack of loyalty to a different player
who had done a lot for the organization.
They surprise-traded Jose Canseco mid-game
while the guy was in the on-deck circle.
He had to be called back to the dugout,
where La Russa told him he was moving to Texas.
The trade shocked Baseball and Jose himself.
Why would a team that's doing well trade away a star?
Well, Oakland needed pitchers,
and also, Jose's reputation as the Bad Boy of Baseball
was becoming less and less charming as the years wore on.
From small stuff like when fans chanted, "Ster-oids,"
he flexed for them,
to medium stuff like straight-up leaving a game
during the eighth inning,
to giant, much darker stuff like a gun arrest
and a domestic violence incident that was later dropped,
but seemed pretty bad.
He allegedly crashed his car into his wife's car
and then spit on her windshield.
The A's wanted McGwire, now over his slump,
as the sole face of the franchise,
and they wanted Jose's baggage
piled into another locker room.
On separate teams,
Mark and Jose had some similar experiences,
Mainly, they both suffered from chronic injuries
that may or may not have been caused
by their skeletons struggling to support
their unnaturally gigantic muscle-bodies.
Jose played well in '94 and '95
while Mark struggled with a foot injury.
Then Mark played well in '96
while Jose struggled with a back injury.
Mark was on the upswing
but the A's saw ticket sales dwindle,
so for the '97 season the marketing team
put their heads together, planned, strategized, and said,
"Let's just do exactly what we did before."
The Bash Brothers 2.0 were a little different.
McGwire was the better of the two,
Canseco had to miss a bunch of games 'cause of his back,
and McGwire had had one foot out the door
since spring training.
And then, in July, Mark was traded to the Cardinals.
Canseco was bummed to lose him, which makes sense.
Without McGwire, why was Canseco in Oakland?
The marketing appeal was gone
and the A's shifted to rebuilding mode.
Canseco was benched in the name
of developing the young guys.
In '98 the Canseco-McGwire duo was eclipsed by a new duo.
No, not Mark's two gigantic arms,
nicknamed Crusher and Lefty, I assume.
I'm talking about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
The two sluggers dominated headlines
as they raced to beat Roger Maris'
single-season home run record of 61 homers,
and I know what you're thinkin':
"Was there a bad boy of this duo?"
Well, for a second it looked like it might be McGwire.
When leading Sosa 52 homers to 49,
a reporter saw he had a bottle of androstenedione,
a testosterone-producing supplement.
Though banned in other sports, andro was legal in baseball,
so Mark's attitude was, "Pfssh, who cares?"
And that was baseball's attitude as well.
In fact, the reporter was the one who faced backlash.
In September, Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run,
breaking the record, beating Sammy Sosa
and immortalizing himself.
He went on to hit a total of 70 homers that season
just for good measure.
Meanwhile, Jose was up in Toronto
having his best season since 1988.
He played 150 games with a healthy back
and hit a career-high 46 homers.
But as he himself admitted, nobody noticed.
They were too busy watching Mark McGwire.
The next season, McGwire led the league in homers with 65,
but then started to decline.
A knee injury kept him off the field and he slumped again.
After the '01 season he retired.
The Cardinals had offered him
a two-year, $31 million contract extension,
but he turned 'em down because, and I quote,
he was "unable to perform at a level
equal to the salary the organization would be paying" him.
He retired as a selfless act for the good of the Cardinals.
"Don't use your money on me.
Go get some talented youngsters."
What a guy. That's not the kind of thing a cheater would do.
I mean, it doesn't seem like it, at least.
A year later, Canseco retired as well,
but his exit played out a little differently than McGwire's.
He had been pretty good the previous season
with the White Sox, filling in for an injured Frank Thomas,
but Thomas was healthy now and the Sox didn't need Jose.
Canseco was 38 homers short of 500,
a milestone that all but guaranteed entry
to the Hall of Fame back then.
He really wanted to keep playing in the majors
but couldn't find a team to take him.
After spending some time in the minors he called it quits.
In Canseco's mind this was 100%
Major League Baseball blackballing him.
He claimed they didn't like his association with steroids
so they threw him out like a used needle.
How they knew how to dispose of a used needle
is none of my business.
Jose had a rough time in retirement.
He violated the probation he was on
because of a nightclub fight.
He spent time under house arrest as well as in jail.
Mark, however, had a quiet, golf-filled retirement.
Until 2005,
when Jose Canseco dropped a bomb
in the form of a tell-all book
that named names of baseball's steroid users,
including/especially Mark McGwire.
Canseco said he personally injected McGwire
with steroids on many occasions.
He said McGwire definitely took steroids
during the '98 home run race,
and he called Mark bad-looking
and said he couldn't get girls.
Jose said he wrote the book because Major League Baseball
blackballed him and forced him to retire early,
but then why'd he go after Mark so hard?
Well, remember back in the late '80s
when Jose was accused of steroids but not Mark?
And remember when the A's were really nice to Mark
even though he was playing badly
and then traded away Jose when the team was doing well?
And remember when Mark retired on his own terms
and Jose didn't?
Jose really resented all that,
as his book makes quite clear.
He accused Major League Baseball, the A's and the media
of purposely turning a blind eye to McGwire's steroid use
and protecting him from criticism
because he was the white, All-American hero.
Jose felt strongly that racism played a role
in his vilification and Mark's hero status,
and it's true that Jose had to deal with racism
Mark never had to.
For example, in a '91 game against the Yankees
when fans screamed, "Go back to Cuba," at him.
But little sympathy was extended to Jose Canseco.
The book was not well received.
He was called jealous, money-hungry,
and his mental health was called into question.
Despite the criticism, the book made waves.
Congress subpoenaed players to testify
about steroid use in baseball,
including McGwire and Canseco.
Together in the same room in front of cameras,
the Bash Brothers barely made eye contact
and certainly didn't speak to each other.
In his opening statement
McGwire took subtle jabs at Canseco,
essentially calling him a rumormonger,
a non-team player and a snitch.
- I've always been a team player.
I have never been a person who has spread rumors
or said things about teammates that can hurt them.
- [Clara] Then, during questioning,
McGwire got real evasive.
- Like I've said earlier, I'm not gonna go into the past
and talk about my past.
I'm not here to talk about the past.
I'm not here to discuss the past,
I'm here to be positive about this.
- [Clara] I don't know what he thought
this would accomplish.
If a coworker asked you,
"Did you eat my yogurt from the fridge?"
and you responded with not yes or no
but, "I'm not here to talk about the past,"
everyone would think that not only
did you definitely eat the yogurt
but you're also an ass.
Mark McGwire's pathetic dancing around Congress
made everyone think he definitely did steroids
and was also an ass.
Now Canseco and McGwire's careers were in tandem,
with the scarlet S on Jose's still-gigantic arm
and Mark's now-shriveled arm,
neither would get into the Hall of Fame.
In 2008, Jose expressed regret for writing the book
but he also published a second book
that named more names a few months later.
Maybe he meant he regretted writing two small books
instead of one big tome.
That's probably it.
On January 11th, 2010,
with a job as Cardinals' hitting coach lined up,
McGwire attempted to clear the air and publicly admitted
to using steroid throughout his career
to recover from injury.
He said he used steroids during his '98 home run race,
though in this interview with Bob Costas
he insisted he still could've hit all those homers
without the help of steroids.
- Could you have done those things?
Could you have hit 70 home runs?
Could you have had a home run ratio
greater than anything Babe Ruth did in his time
without using steroids?
- Absolutely.
- [Clara] And, like, I guess it's nice
that he believes in himself so much... I don't know.
He still managed to deny the accusations in Canseco's book.
He basically said, "I used steroids,
just not in the way Canseco said I did."
Canseco called bullshit and demanded
McGwire take a polygraph test.
He didn't.
McGwire got some flak for a too-late admission
but still got to be the Cardinals' hitting coach,
so no biggie.
Perhaps seeing McGwire invited back to the game
while he remained outcast put some regret in Canseco,
because in 2012 he apologized to Mark via T-shirt.
Mark didn't reply. Or wear a T-shirt with a reply.
Two years later,
at the 25th anniversary of the A's championship,
Jose attempted to apologize again.
Mark didn't attend the event.
He was too busy working as the Dodgers' hitting coach,
but he told the press Canseco is not forgiven
and he never wants to speak to him again.
The next day Jose apologized on Twitter over and over,
showing vulnerability and a little bit of showmanship,
challenging Mark to a home run derby
where the stakes were forgiveness.
The derby did not happen.
It's possible McGwire didn't trust his skill,
but it's more likely he was still super pissed,
and as he said, didn't wanna speak to Canseco.
Without forgiveness, beef can quiet
but it can't truly end.
And it makes sense that a beef so full of steroids
would live forever, occasionally twitching.
Early in their careers, a marketing department
linked the two sluggers in brotherhood.
On the surface, fans saw family,
but underneath there were secrets,
resentment, alleged favoritism, accusations
and, finally, irreconcilable differences.
Wait. Actually, that sounds a lot like a family.
Thanks for watching.
Go ahead and hit subscribe if you're feeling it,
and because baseball is so wonderfully petty
you know we got more baseball beef.
Take your pick between Bryce Harper and Hunter Strickland
or Jose Bautista and Rougned Odor,
or, of course, you could always watch both.
For SB Nation, I'm Clara Morris.
Good night, and good game.