BASH BROTHERS: A Legacy Subpoenaed [Hardcover]

Dale Tafoya (Author), Fay Vincent (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2008

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 Brothers: A Legacy Subpoenaed is the first book to fully investigate how these two players helped shape baseball for years to come.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bash Brothers is a gritty, edgy, well-researched chronicle of the rise and fall of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. Tafoya grabs hold of the subject and doesn't let go until every question is answered." --Jeff Pearlman, author of Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty

"Well-sourced and well-written, Bash Brothers is the real deal. I learned a ton from it." --David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winning author & journalist, author of Clemente - The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

From the Publisher

"Given our newfound chemical knowledge about baseball, the Bash Brothers era of the Oakland A's has cried out for a retrospective. Dale Tafoya has answered the cry. This is a no-nonsense, non-judgmental, well-reported book." --Mark Purdy, sports columnist, San Jose Mercury News

"The Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, are a human drama--or tragedy--starting as symbols of a new power surge in baseball and morphing into symbols of the steroids era. Dale Tafoya has captured the whole story in his engrossing book." --Glenn Dickey, San Francisco Examiner columnist

"Dale Tafoya takes us back to a wonderfully enchanting time in baseball, particularly in the Bay Area--and, with exacting detail, tells the story we all missed." --Bud Geracie, sports editor, San Jose Mercury News

"Wow! This was a trip through Memory Lane for me. A true blast from the past! The 1980s brought back to life; Jose and Big Mac, warts, glory and all. The transformation of McGwire from choir boy to Hells Angel. Canseco's ego was almost too big for the book, but Dale Tafoya harnessed it. Great work!" --Steven Travers, author of A's Essential and Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman

"Rather than merely bashing the Bash Brothers--easy targets with their surreal size and steroid-fueled careers--Dale Tafoya treats them with a more gracious account of their deeds and misdeeds than they themselves have offered. By hewing to objectivity, Tafoya does the best job so far of trying to understand what motivated Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco during their dramatic rise and fall, from wildly popular superstars to disgraced outcasts who took baseball down a sordid path." --Steve Wilstein, former Associated Press sportswriter

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc.; 1 edition (May 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597971782
• ISBN-13: 978-1597971782
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compulsively readable obituary of the steroid era, January 2, 2009

By 

T. Lawler (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: BASH BROTHERS: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Hardcover)

I just received this for Christmas and couldn't put this down once I started it. I was initially suspicious of the content, because from judging the cover, I assumed this would be a rehash of everything I've read in the papers or in Canseco's "Juiced," but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of reporting the author has done with key officials and players in baseball. Due to the breadth of this reporting (the story starts before the "Bash Brothers" were even born), by the end of this book you definitely have some sympathy for Canseco, McGwire and anyone else who pumped up their body with these exotic and toxic chemicals to turn baseball into a new type of WWF/WTF spectacle we've never seen before. More than than, there's just a lot of great baseball in this book -- from clubhouse stories from their minor league days to what was really going on behind the scenes with those '80s A's teams. This won't be the last book to be written on this era, but what a meaty, well-written addition to the canon. This one goes right next to Bouton's "Ball Four" on my shelf.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bash Brothers and beyond, July 17, 2008

By 

M. Smith (England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: BASH BROTHERS: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Hardcover)

McGwire and Canseco were the poster boys for the recent era of performance-enhancing drugs in MLB. Towering home runs blasted by hitters with hulking physiques became the order of the day, with the `Bash Brothers' leading the charge. This book provides an excellent account of their careers while demonstrating the impact they had on the game as a whole.

The amount of research Tafoya has conducted is impressive and the many contributions from former team mates and coaches really enable him to add something new to the ever-growing mound of books and articles on this subject. When first approaching the book, there were three main questions I was hoping to be answered: what really did fuel McGwire and Canseco's incredible power feats? How big an impact did their exploits have on the rest of baseball, both directly and indirectly? And finally, but most importantly, how many people knew what they were up to? All three questions are answered by Tafoya, while leaving plenty of thinking space for the reader to consider the subject further.

The front cover is, for once, quite a good starting point. The images of McGwire and Canseco in mid-swing are juxtaposed by images of their solemn faces at the 2005 Congress hearings. Their stories, from coming through the minors to being Major League stars and their ultimate falls from grace, are certainly good ones to tell.

What makes the book for me though is the way that those individual stories are put into the context of the issue as a whole. Central to this is the fact, made clear in this book if any doubt existed, that there was widespread knowledge within the game of players using performance-enhancing drugs. Nothing was done about it by MLB and, in truth, it has largely been due to the intervention of other bodies (e.g. the criminal investigation of BALCO) that the subject is being looked at now. While it's hard to feel too much sympathy for the likes of the Bash Brothers, we have to remember that they played during a time when MLB didn't have a proper drug-testing programme and there is little evidence that players were discouraged from taking a similar route.

Overall, this is a well-written, detailed book that greatly helps to inform the debate on how we should perceive the so-called `steroids era'.

4.0 out of 5 stars WORTH READING, April 25, 2010

By 

COOL JEWEL (MACEDONIA, OHIO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: BASH BROTHERS: A Legacy Subpoenaed (Hardcover)

THE BOOK COVERS THE CAREER OF MCGWIRE AND CANSECO ALONG WITH THE INVESTIAGATION AND SCANDAL OF THE STEROID ERA. THE BASH BROTHERS WERE BIG NEWS AND GAVE BASEBALL A MUCH NEEDED SHOT IN THE ARM (NOT IN THE BUTT) IN THE LATE 1980'S. THE A'S PLAYED IN 3 CONSECUTIVE WORLD SERIES AND WERE A GREAT GATE ATTRACTION. JOSE WAS VERY BRASH AND FLAMBOYANT. MARK WAS THE OPPOSITE, QUIET AND DID NOT ENJOY THE SPOTLIGHT. BOTH TURNED TO THE NEEDLE TO HELP THEIR CAREERS AND MADE THEM HUGE AND HULKING. BUT THEIR QUICK TRANSFORMATION MADE IT SO OBVIOUS THAT STEROIDS WERE INVOLVED. THEN JOSE WROTE A BOOK AND NAMED NAMES AND CREATED WAVES OF CONTROVERSY. WITH BOTH THEIR CAREERS OVER, THE BALCO INVESTIGATION OPENED THE DOOR INTO STEROID INVESTIAGTION. JOSE WHO ADMITTED TO USAGE IN HIS BOOK WAS CALLED UPON ALONG WITH MCGWIRE AND MANY OTHERS TO DISCUSS THE STEROIDS PROBLEM. MCGWIRE PRETTY MUCH DID HIMSELF IN WITH PLEADING THE 5TH ON ALMOST EVERY QUESTION THAT CAME HIS WAY. RECENTLY HE ADMITTED TO USING ROIDS. THIS IS A NICELY WRITTEN AND INTERESTING BOOK AND WELL WORTH READING. I AM GLAD THAT MCGWIRE CAME OUT OF SECLUSION AND HAS BECOME THE CARDINALS BATTING INSTRUCTOR. HOPEFULLY JERKS LIKE AND CLEMENS AND BONDS WILL BE CAUGHT AND WILL SERVE JAIL TIME FOR PERGERY.