Sources: McGwire injected steroids

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Mar 13, 2005 by Michael O'Keeffe, Christian Red

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The recipe called for 1/2 cc of testosterone cypionate every three days; one cc of testosterone enanthate per week; equipoise and winstrol v, 1/4 cc every three days, injected into the buttocks, one in one cheek, one in the other.

It was the cocktail of a hardcore steroids user, and it is one of the "arrays" Mark McGwire used to become the biggest thing in baseball in the 1990s, sources have told the New York Daily News.

Long before Jose Canseco claimed he injected McGwire in the behind in his tell-all autobiography "Juiced," the man known as Big Mac denied ever using illegal steroids. But according to FBI sources, McGwire's name came up several times during "Operation Equine," a landmark anabolic steroids investigation that led to 70 trafficking convictions in the early 1990s. No evidence against McGwire or any other steroid user was collected, and one former agent who worked undercover in the case says McGwire was not a target.

But two dealers caught in Operation Equine told the Daily News that a California man named Curtis Wenzlaff provided Jose Canseco and McGwire, among others, with illegal anabolic steroids. One informant in the case says Wenzlaff injected McGwire at a gym in Southern California on several occasions, and established "arrays" of performance-enhancing drugs such as the aforementioned cocktail.

"Curtis was an expert on how to take drugs," one of the informants in the case says. "The West Coast -- that was the Mecca of drugs back then. And Curtis was involved with some serious people. Curtis gave me the same cycle that Mark McGwire (allegedly) was on. The best cycle (of steroids) I ever did came from Curtis."

Reached by the Daily News, a former member of the gym where Wenzlaff and McGwire allegedly worked out together -- Racquetball World in Fountain Valley, Calif. -- said he saw them work out together "maybe five times" and that the two discussed using steroids in his presence.

"No comment," said Wenzlaff when asked to confirm the accounts.

A month-long review by the Daily News of court documents, FBI records and interviews with sources on both sides of the law found that Operation Equine was a massive warning sign of what was to come in the American sports landscape. Dealers like Wenzlaff were befriending ballplayers like Canseco all over the country, and those players were passing on their new-found expertise to friends in the game.

"In hindsight, we could have gotten the big names -- (Michigan State lineman) Tony Mandarich, Canseco -- the problem is, where do you draw the line?" says Bill Randall, who was the FBI undercover agent during Operation Equine. "You have to remember, there was no benchmark, nothing for us to model the investigation on. We wanted to get to the root of the problem, that's all we were after. We could have hammered Canseco, but again, that wasn't the thrust. And if we had started going after Major League Baseball players, we'd never get up to these big-time dealers."

Representatives for Canseco and McGwire said the former players did not remember meeting Wenzlaff, and were not aware their names came up in the FBI's investigation, although an FBI source provided the News with previous telephone numbers for Canseco and McGwire and a pager number for Canseco from Wenzlaff's old phone book.

"We're not going to comment on anything at this time," said Marc Altieri, McGwire's representative, "but we believe one should consider the sources of such allegations."

"Jose doesn't want to deny knowing him, but he just doesn't remember the guy," said Robert Saunooke, Canseco's attorney.

However, Wenzlaff's longtime friend Reggie Jackson, who Wenzlaff insists never used steroids or knew he was dealing them, says he saw Wenzlaff and Canseco work out and socialize together.

"Yes, they had spent some time together," says Jackson, who met Wenzlaff after his career ended with the Oakland A's in 1987. "Curt's a good guy that got mixed up in steroids at a very young age. He's a good, solid, stand-up guy and he's honest."

Jackson, who let Wenzlaff stay in his Oakland home for long stretches in the late 1980s, says he was not aware that Wenzlaff had allegedly supplied steroids to Canseco or anyone else until last year when Wenzlaff testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating steroid use in pro, college and high school sports.

The two convicted sources who connected Wenzlaff to Canseco and McGwire declined to be named, saying they feared retribution from some of the steroid dealers they informed on. But two FBI sources confirmed the men's identities and said they provided credible information throughout the operation and, like Wenzlaff, avoided jail time for their cooperation. One FBI source also said the men's fears about retribution are well-founded.

"That's why I'm amazed at what Jose said in the book," Wenzlaff says. "There are some people who might come after him."

Wenzlaff claims he provided Canseco with steroids and taught him how to use them properly. They hung out together, chased women together and worked out together for a brief time -- he says he can't remember how long -- and then Canseco went his own way.