Canseco book spurs Congress

SAN JOSE, Calif. – In a sign baseball won’t be able to ignore the growing steroid scandal as spring training begins, a congressional committee is preparing to hold hearings on drug claims made by former Oakland A’s slugger Jose Canseco.

While baseball officials continue to downplay statements made in Canseco’s newly released book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant `Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big,” the House Government Reform Committee plans next week to lay the groundwork for hearings. Stars such as the San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds could be subpoenaed to testify, along with baseball officials.

In the book, Canseco admits using steroids and says he injected former A’s teammate Mark McGwire with them.

Canseco also claims to have introduced steroids to former Texas Rangers teammates Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez. All players have denied the charges.

Committee chairman Tom Davis, a Republican from West Virginia, said “there is a cloud over baseball,” the congressman’s spokesman, Dave Marin, said Friday.

In a letter to Davis, committee minority leader Henry Waxman, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said: “We can play a role in restoring baseball’s luster.”

Canseco’s book arrived in the aftermath of disclosures that Bonds and New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield allegedly received the designer steroid THG and a testosterone cream from a trainer indicted in the BALCO Laboratories investigation.

“The status quo is not acceptable,” Marin said. “This is about the overall impact the scandal is having on the American psyche. It is trickling down to all aspects of American life.

“It would be wrongheaded for government officials to ignore that reality.”

Baseball officials have defended their actions, emphasizing that they revamped their drug-testing program last month.