What do you think?
Rate this book
Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed
Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco—the Bash Brothers—ushered in a new era of muscle-bound power hitters in baseball in the late 1980s. Suddenly balls were flying out of the parks like never before, and the rest of baseball stood up, took notice, and followed suit. Baseball’s bodybuilding revolution, with its resultant steroid infestation, was here to stay, and many experts today point to these two players as a large reason why. Author Dale Tafoya has interviewed more than 150 teammates, coaches, scouts, and friends who knew McGwire and Canseco during that era, including former A’s general manager Sandy Alderson, former team president Roy Eisenhardt, former commissioner Fay Vincent, Hall-of-Fame closer Dennis Eckersley, and 2004 Ford C. Frick award-winning legendary broadcaster Lon Simmons. They provide first-person commentary on what living and playing with the larger-than-life duo was like, and relate the shock and awe that followed both players and the team as well. Tafoya also investigates the players’ pre-Oakland careers, how they exploded upon reaching the majors with the A’s, and what happened when the two moved on. While Canseco has admitted his steroid use, McGwire ducked the question when Congress asked about his use by saying, “I am not here to discuss the past.” Tafoya investigates the claims of each. The Bash Brothers revolutionized baseball; Tafoya discusses whether it was for better or for worse and paints a colorful portrait of the duo’s rise to popularity and their ensuing exposure and shame. Bash A Legacy Subpoenaed is the first book to fully investigate how these two players helped shape baseball for years to come.
- GenresBaseball
288 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2008
1 person is currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Dale Tafoya
4 booksDale Tafoya is the author of One Season in Rocket City: How the 1985 Huntsville Stars Brought Minor League Baseball Fever to Alabama (University of Nebraska Press, 2023), Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s (Lyons Press, 2020) and Bash Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Potomac Books, 2008). His work has appeared in the New York Daily News, New York Post, Sports Illustrated, The Athletic, Baseball Digest, and other noteworthy publications.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 18, 2023
RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “FROM BASH BROTHERS TO “TRASH” BROTHERS!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s 1988 and Jose Canseco enters the gym. He hasn’t lifted weights for two weeks, and yet according to former teammate Dave Parker, “He slid on the bench press and lifted everything in the building.” In 1997 San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean told USA Today: “Steroid use wouldn’t surprise me. If it gives somebody an edge, guys are going to use it. Look how it’s affected other sports. We’d really have our head in the sand if we thought it wasn’t here in baseball.” In regard to Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent was quoted as saying: “Neither one of them were very friendly to me. I would see them on the field and they were kind of distant. Maybe they were a little concerned, I don’t know. They weren’t very outgoing. Maybe they were worried; THEY KNEW THEY WEREN’T DOING THINGS TERRIBLY RIGHT.”
As even the most casual baseball fan knows by now, that the once proud national pastime is indelibly stained from illegal steroid use from the late 80’s all the way through current times, as there is still no test that has been approved by the players union for HGH (Human Growth Hormone) even though there is a blood test available. Only a fool would believe that the players really want a level playing field with no drugs if they won’t approve this currently available test. So despite the Mitchell Report, Jose Canseco’s two books, and the innumerable mea culpa’s by current and former players, without any severe penalties, baseball’s “higher-ups” still will not take full responsibility for “knowing” what was really going on.
The people who suffer the most are true fans, who grew up memorizing and reciting the “holiest-of-holiest” baseball’s statistics and records which were passed from generation to generation, and linked Grandfather’s, Father’s and Son’s with a language that was immune to any generation gap. Hallowed heroes and statistics were thrown to the side of the road like a no-deposit-no-return bottle by “CHEATERS AND PRETENDER’S TO THE THRONE!” This book traces the careers of two of the original and biggest “druggie” CHEATS of our time, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. The author provides an almost emotionless yet meticulous rendering of their ball playing from high school to college to the minor leagues to the major leagues. The book concludes with the “travesty” at the Congressional hearings on March 17, 2005 which included McGwire looking old and battered and proving he had no “spine”, when he said over and over “I’M NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE PAST.” And then took the “FIFTH”. (Amendment) Rafael Palmeiro wagged his index finger and stated: “I HAVE NEVER USED STEROIDS. PERIOD!” Then a week or two later he was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for steroids. Sammy Sosa suddenly didn’t understand English nor could he speak it. Jose Canseco had said more than enough, which was all TRUE in his book “JUICED”.
The author, though providing a detailed step by step rendering of Canseco and McGwire’s careers, a number of sentences and statements seemed to be missing some needed grammatical improvements and there was one glaring statistical mistake that the author, editor and publisher should be a little embarrassed about. On page 66 it states: "By May 10, Canseco led the Southern League with fifteen home runs, ten RBI’s, and a .352 batting average.” Anyone with even a limited knowledge of baseball knows that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE MORE HOME RUNS THAN RBI’S.
The impact that the Canseco/McGwire steroid scandal had on the emotions of true fans, I feel was poetically and sadly stated by another Major League ballplayer, WASHINGTON NATIONALS CATCHER JOHNNY ESTRADA IN 2007:
*********************************************************************
“WATCHING THEM BEFORE CONGRESS TOOK ME BACK TO WHEN I WAS AN INNOCENT KID AND ROOTED FOR THE A’s. AS MUCH AS YOU DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT, YOU KIND OF TAKE A STEP BACK AND REALIZE THEY PROBABLY WERE CHEATING AT THE TIME. NOT ONLY DID THEY CHEAT BASEBALL AND THEMSELVES, THEY CHEATED ALL THE INNOCENT LITTLE KIDS LIKE MYSELF. JOSE CANSECO AND MARK McGWIRE WERE MY HEROES, AND EVEN THOUGH I’M A GROWN MAN, IT HURT TO WATCH THAT.”
********************************************************************
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s 1988 and Jose Canseco enters the gym. He hasn’t lifted weights for two weeks, and yet according to former teammate Dave Parker, “He slid on the bench press and lifted everything in the building.” In 1997 San Francisco Giants general manager Brian Sabean told USA Today: “Steroid use wouldn’t surprise me. If it gives somebody an edge, guys are going to use it. Look how it’s affected other sports. We’d really have our head in the sand if we thought it wasn’t here in baseball.” In regard to Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent was quoted as saying: “Neither one of them were very friendly to me. I would see them on the field and they were kind of distant. Maybe they were a little concerned, I don’t know. They weren’t very outgoing. Maybe they were worried; THEY KNEW THEY WEREN’T DOING THINGS TERRIBLY RIGHT.”
As even the most casual baseball fan knows by now, that the once proud national pastime is indelibly stained from illegal steroid use from the late 80’s all the way through current times, as there is still no test that has been approved by the players union for HGH (Human Growth Hormone) even though there is a blood test available. Only a fool would believe that the players really want a level playing field with no drugs if they won’t approve this currently available test. So despite the Mitchell Report, Jose Canseco’s two books, and the innumerable mea culpa’s by current and former players, without any severe penalties, baseball’s “higher-ups” still will not take full responsibility for “knowing” what was really going on.
The people who suffer the most are true fans, who grew up memorizing and reciting the “holiest-of-holiest” baseball’s statistics and records which were passed from generation to generation, and linked Grandfather’s, Father’s and Son’s with a language that was immune to any generation gap. Hallowed heroes and statistics were thrown to the side of the road like a no-deposit-no-return bottle by “CHEATERS AND PRETENDER’S TO THE THRONE!” This book traces the careers of two of the original and biggest “druggie” CHEATS of our time, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. The author provides an almost emotionless yet meticulous rendering of their ball playing from high school to college to the minor leagues to the major leagues. The book concludes with the “travesty” at the Congressional hearings on March 17, 2005 which included McGwire looking old and battered and proving he had no “spine”, when he said over and over “I’M NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE PAST.” And then took the “FIFTH”. (Amendment) Rafael Palmeiro wagged his index finger and stated: “I HAVE NEVER USED STEROIDS. PERIOD!” Then a week or two later he was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for steroids. Sammy Sosa suddenly didn’t understand English nor could he speak it. Jose Canseco had said more than enough, which was all TRUE in his book “JUICED”.
The author, though providing a detailed step by step rendering of Canseco and McGwire’s careers, a number of sentences and statements seemed to be missing some needed grammatical improvements and there was one glaring statistical mistake that the author, editor and publisher should be a little embarrassed about. On page 66 it states: "By May 10, Canseco led the Southern League with fifteen home runs, ten RBI’s, and a .352 batting average.” Anyone with even a limited knowledge of baseball knows that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE MORE HOME RUNS THAN RBI’S.
The impact that the Canseco/McGwire steroid scandal had on the emotions of true fans, I feel was poetically and sadly stated by another Major League ballplayer, WASHINGTON NATIONALS CATCHER JOHNNY ESTRADA IN 2007:
*********************************************************************
“WATCHING THEM BEFORE CONGRESS TOOK ME BACK TO WHEN I WAS AN INNOCENT KID AND ROOTED FOR THE A’s. AS MUCH AS YOU DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE IT, YOU KIND OF TAKE A STEP BACK AND REALIZE THEY PROBABLY WERE CHEATING AT THE TIME. NOT ONLY DID THEY CHEAT BASEBALL AND THEMSELVES, THEY CHEATED ALL THE INNOCENT LITTLE KIDS LIKE MYSELF. JOSE CANSECO AND MARK McGWIRE WERE MY HEROES, AND EVEN THOUGH I’M A GROWN MAN, IT HURT TO WATCH THAT.”
********************************************************************
September 10, 2013
An insightful look at two of the biggest players and personalities on the Oakland Athletics roster during the 1980s and 1990s. These were two players that I loved to watch as I was growing up. This book rehashed a lot of those memories for me and gave me new perspectives surrounding those times.
November 16, 2008
Pretty cool look at the careers of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews