Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens aren’t the only targets of speculation in Jose Canseco’s new book. In “Vindicated,” Canseco wonders — only half-jokingly, it appears — whether he successfully persuaded legendary “60 Minutes” reporter Mike Wallace to try steroids and human growth hormone.
Canseco didn’t succeed in such a mission, Wallace told Newsday on Thursday. But Wallace became a rarity by confirming, rather than denying or ignoring, a detail from Canseco’s book.
Just as Canseco writes, Wallace said, the two did discuss illegal performance-enhancing drugs, off-camera, after a 2005 interview.
“You sit there, shooting the breeze,” Wallace said. “It was an interesting exchange, and I had the opportunity to talk to the man who had been through a lot of that kind of thing.”
Canseco wrote: “He wondered how the steroids and human growth hormones (HGH) might help him, a man in his 80s, live a longer, healthier life.
“. . . When Wallace was done interrogating me, I could see I had piqued his interest. Whether I’d made a convert of him, I can’t say.”
Wallace, who will turn 90 in May, laughed when asked if he had become “a convert” and answered, simply, “No.”
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