JOSE CANSECO TELLS MIKE WALLACE THAT THE FIRST TIME HE INJECTED MARK MCGWIRE WITH STEROIDS WAS "SOMETHING SO COMMON" -- "60 MINUTES" SUNDAY

Former Steroid-Using Slugger Speaks About His Controversial Book for the First Time

"I injected them," Jose Canseco tells Mike Wallace, referring to performance-enhancing steroids he put into the bodies of some of baseball's biggest stars. In his first interview about his controversial book on the use of such drugs in Major League Baseball, Canseco talks at length about using steroids with Mark McGwire -- the first player to hit 70 homeruns in a season. The interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Feb. 13 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

"The first time injecting them in [McGwire's] buttocks," says Canseco with a laugh, "it wasn't like you gave it a lot of thought. It was something so common," he tells Wallace. McGwire has firmly denied using steroids.

In his book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big," Canseco writes that he and McGwire injected steroids together too many times to count. "I would often inject Mark," writes Canseco. But in the interview, he allows he actually injected McGwire, his teammate on the Oakland Athletics, a couple times. "I injected him probably twice�I mean we would just walk in [a bathroom stall] and a lot of times [steroids] were in pill form," says Canseco. "An athlete may prepare his needle and may ask another athlete to inject him quickly and that's the way it works."

Clarifying what he says he meant in the book, Canseco says "Well, I think it was more inject ourselves. I think I injected him - -I mean this is a long time ago -- once or twice for sure. I didn't keep track," he tells Wallace.

Canseco did keep track of other teammates he injected the performance enhancing drugs into. When Wallace ticks off the names he mentions in the book, Raphael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzales, Ivan Rodriquez, Canseco replies "I injected them. Absolutely." All of them, too, vehemently deny ever using such drugs.

Attributing his feats in baseball, such as stealing 40 bases and hitting 40 homeruns in a season, to his steroid use, Canseco believes there's nothing wrong with using the drugs. When asked if asterisks should be placed next to the names of top players who have used steroids, such as Yankee Jason Giambi, who Canseco says he also injected and who has admitted to a grand jury he used the drugs, he says "How do we know that other MVPs in the past weren't using steroids.

Critics have questioned Canseco's motives and his credibility.