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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Devastating chapter for Palmeiro

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

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Less than three weeks ago, Rafael Palmeiro joined Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray as the only players who have managed 3,000 hits and 500 or more home runs in a major league career.

Yesterday, in a way, Palmeiro did something nearly as remarkable: He bestowed instant credence upon Jose Canseco's widely disparaged book and its sweeping charges of steroids in baseball.

With baseball's announcement of a 10-day suspension of Palmeiro for violating its drug policy, the book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big" suddenly has a ring of authentication.

Palmeiro might as well have written a dust jacket recommendation and done the book tour, all this burnishing of Canseco's credibility at the expense of his own suddenly questionable first-ballot Hall of Fame hopes.

Of the seven MLB players so far suspended for violations of the drug policy, Palmeiro is, by far, the biggest name. Sadly, more than that, Palmeiro has been celebrated as the hard-working, self-made star and anti-'Roid poster player. He was the pillar of the No Tolerance Committee, the one who stood up in front of Congress just five months ago and declared, "I have never used steroids. Period."

His numbers — 3,018 hits and 569 homers — are Cooperstown figures, but now under question for how they were acquired.

So yesterday's revelation by MLB was like suddenly finding out the Drug Czar failed his urine test or the preacher has been caught dipping into the offering plate.

When excerpts from the book came out in February and Palmeiro, among others, blasted the allegations, it was easy to paint the author as somebody splashing mud on former teammates to make a quick and hefty buck. And many did. It was convenient to write off Canseco as the clown who took a fly ball off the noggin in the outfield and was now playing fast and loose with the truth.

But yesterday, Canseco's allegations, which had included not only introducing steroids to Palmeiro but claims of injecting them in him, took on a different light.

Now, you revisit Palmeiro's statistics and wonder. You look at 1992, when Palmeiro became a teammate of Canseco in Texas, and you notice over the three previous seasons Palmeiro averaged 17 home runs a year. Then, you review the four years immediately following the start of their association and see Palmeiro doubled his homer output to 34.5 per season.

So, we're left with Palmeiro saying he doesn't know how the banned substance got in his system. That he never took it intentionally. It sounds a lot like Barry Bonds' flaxseed defense.

But, then, when you have bathed Canseco in credibility, really what is there left to say?