Former Baseball Star Jose Canseco Hurt in Accidental Shooting

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Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Former baseball star Jose Canseco accidentally shot himself in the hand at his Las Vegas home Tuesday, police said.

Metro police Lt. Mark Reddon said the former Oakland Athletics outfielder told police he was cleaning his gun in the kitchen when it fired, shooting a finger on his left hand.

The slugger at the center of the steroid scandal that rocked baseball, staining the reputations of some of the biggest names in the game over the last two decades, was taken to University Medical Center, Reddon said.

Canseco played for seven teams in his 17-year major league career, posting a career batting average of .266, with 462 home runs and 1407 runs batted in.

The six-time all-star admitted in 2005 that he used performance enhancing drugs and in a book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big," he claimed that 85 percent of the players in the big leagues also used steroids.

Among the players he named as users were former teammates Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Jason Giambi, Ivan Rodrguez and Juan Gonzalez. He said that he had administered steroids to them when they played on the same teams.

Following the shooting incident, Canseco's fiancee Leila Knight rushed to help.

His daughter Josie Canseco expressed sympathy and concern.

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