The most shocking revelation in Jose Canseco's tell-all book is that he never slept with Madonna, on whose birthday David Letterman once said, "What do you give someone who has had everyone?"
The rest of the material that has been leaked from the book will be ho-hum stuff for anybody who has A) paid attention to baseball the past 10 years, B) paid attention to Canseco the past 20 years or C) ever read a tell-all book.
But thanks to a muscle-bound former slugger obeying his muse, we now have the wholesome image of Canseco jabbing steroid-filled syringes into the butts of Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez. Makes you want to grab a glove and play catch in the back yard, doesn't it?
Is any of it true? Well, here's what Palmeiro said in a statement Monday, apparently just having completed a correspondence course in "How to Speak Like Your Agent:''
"I categorically deny any assertion made by Jose Canseco that I used steroids. At no point in my career have I ever used steroids, let alone any substance banned by Major League Baseball.''
(This will remind Cub fans of Sammy Sosa's reaction late last season when manager Dusty Baker said his right fielder needed to show up in shape in 2005: "I resent the inference that I'm not prepared.'')
There has been a quick response to Canseco's forthcoming book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.'' Baseball people are saying Canseco is a filthy liar. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa ripped Canseco for dragging McGwire's good name through the slop. This is the same La Russa who ripped Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell in 1988 after Boswell had suggested Canseco was doped to the gills.
Two things are possible here, and they're not necessarily contradictory:
Canseco is a money-grubbing, publicity-seeking clown.
He's telling the truth.
In terms of integrity, baseball is in the advanced stages of crisis. Its biggest star, Barry Bonds, is part of an ongoing federal investigation into steroid use in sports. He has admitted unknowingly using steroids, presenting the daring, seldom-used flaxseed-oil defense. Other players have admitted using the drugs. So did the late Ken Caminiti, the 1996 National League Most Valuable Player.
So when a former player names names, you listen. Even if the former player has a jones for the spotlight. Even if the former player could use the money that comes with writing a scandalous book.
The legal system might have to decide whether Canseco is telling the truth or whether he's so desperate for more fame and fortune that he slandered his former teammates.
But there can't be many among us who are stunned at the thought of a few baseball players huddling in a clubhouse bathroom and injecting each other with steroids. It's an image Canseco reportedly paints in his book.
There can't be many people left who would be surprised if the power numbers of the past 10 years were the result of steroid use by the game's biggest stars. Too much incriminating information has come out, even if it has been in dribs and drabs.
Too much happened too quickly for all those numbers to be real.
Canseco might be a kook, but that doesn't mean he is incapable of telling the truth. Even the most true-blue baseball man would have to admit that, in the current climate of suspicions, accusations and grand-jury appearances, some of what Canseco says has the ring of truth to it.
The easy thing is to dismiss him as a fool in need of money. But if you want to find out about steroids, it makes sense to ask a guy who made a career out of them, just as you go to Dennis Rodman if you want to know about tattoos.
When players or former players are quoted anonymously about rampant steroid use, the media get criticized. When a player comes forward with accusations and names, he gets criticized. It's a funny world.
Maybe someday we'll evolve to the point where we look past the messenger to the message. And perhaps someday MLB will have a drug-testing system with real muscle. In the meantime, we'll have to pay attention to a man starving for attention.
We do worry about Madonna though. What will become of her reputation now Canseco has revealed they only kissed?