Have Glove, Will Travel
by Bill Lee and
Richard Lalley
Crown Publishing

Juiced
by Jose Canseco
Regan Books

No two books more clearly highlight the passing of the generational torch from one generation of drugged-up baseball players to the next than those of Bill "Spaceman" Lee and Jose "The Chemist" Canseco.

Bill Lee pitched in the major leagues from 1969 to 1982, feeding hitters a steady diet of left-handed junk and feeding the public a dizzy combination of deadpan wit, acerbic analysis and leftist propaganda. With co-author Richard Lalley, Lee has written "Have Glove, Will Travel," an account of his baseball adventures after being booted — he would say blacklisted — from the game in 1982, when the Montreal Expos released him for criticizing a personnel decision.

In this sequel to "The Wrong Stuff" — Lee's account of his days in the majors — readers follow the Ace of Space in his attempts to sign on with a major league team again, before he finally gives up and, like the barnstorming Satchel Paige of old, takes the mound for whatever team offers the right combination of cash and adventure.

From the provinces of Canada to Venezuela and Cuba, China and Russia, Lee travels the world to baffle batters with his wide assortment of pitches and an uncanny knowledge of how to get guys out. Through it all, Lee smokes too much dope, drinks too much beer and tequila and generally has a good time no matter where he goes, although he admits he has cut back a bit in his advancing years.

While his descriptions of far-flung landscapes and people are far better what you'd expect from anyone's autobiography — much less a professional athlete's — Lee is at his best when he's writing about baseball. To follow his breakdown of a hitter's weakness and how he uses that knowledge makes clear that, even without overpowering stuff, Lee could simply outthink most major league hitters.

Jose Canseco would be proud to tell you that in his 17-year career he hit 462 home runs, struck out 1942 times and was a batter everyone stopped to watch at the plate. These days, Canseco has found the spotlight again with his autobiography, "Juiced," a tell-all bestseller that details Canseco's wild rise to superstardom, but, more importantly, reveals the extent to which steroids have been used in baseball for the past two decades.

Canseco has grudges to settle and truths to tell, and he will not rest until he finishes those tasks. Written in a straightforward, direct-from-dictation style, "Juiced" never strays far from steroids, its primacy focus. Beginning with his tough-love upbringing his Cuban father provided in Miami, Canseco describes how, drafted into baseball right out of high school as a slow, skinny kid who could hit, he realized he would find some way to gain an edge in his quest to become the greatest athlete in the world. That edge — various cocktails of chemicals injected by syringe into Canseco's tushy, combined with a vigorous weight-training program — enabled Canseco to add muscle mass, strength and speed. In two years, he rose through the minor leagues, making his debut just barely out of his teens for the Oakland Athletics in 1985.

For a few years, Canseco was one of the few juiced players in baseball, and certainly its most successful, leading the A's to three World Series appearances and winning a Most Valuable Player award. He got rich. He drove fast cars. He slept with hundreds of gorgeous women. He got into some trouble, much of which he claims is rooted in misunderstandings or instances of selective enforcement because he's Latino.

During his playing career, Canseco writes that he became an expert on steroids, so much so that other players would routinely seek advice from him of the most technical sort. Hence the nickname "The Chemist." Traded from Oakland in 1992, Canseco becomes a sort of roving instructor in the use of steroids — in Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, New York and Chicago. Players beefed up, home run records were broken, attendance shot through the roof, and baseball management and ownership — prone as they are to unspoken collusion — looked the other way.

Canseco may be arrogant, and he may continue to seek fame and fortune too overtly for some people's taste, but "Juiced" doesn't appear full of falsehoods and fabrications (with some exceptions). Canseco names plenty of names, but he never directly accuses someone of using unless he personally injected them or witnessed it. Bold and brash, and a little awkward at times, "Juiced" is a book that only Jose Canseco could write. Just like its author when he played baseball, readers and fans might not like the truths "Juiced" has to offer, but they're going to have to deal with them one way or another.

— Mark Hayes (mark.e.hayes at gmail dot com)