The New York Times has a good article by Michael S. Schmidt about Jose Canseco suddenly becoming reserved when it comes to making revelations.  A frequent on-air guest at WEEI, a sports radio in Boston, the author of "Juiced" refused to get behind the mike yesterday and there are now talks that Roger Clemens' lawyers were in contact with the juiced-up former baseball player.

Canseco, who became the face of the steroid era in baseball after admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs in his 2005 best-selling book, "Juiced," was a friend of Roger Clemens's, the player who stood out among the approximately 90 current and former players cited in the Mitchell report.

Five months earlier, in an appearance on WEEI's "Dennis and Callahan" show, Canseco hinted that he might include Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez in his planned sequel to "Juiced," although Rodriguez has never been linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

But in December, with Clemens named by Mitchell, Canseco was suddenly more restrained, declining to go on the air.

"He generally comes on whenever we ask," said Brett Erickson, a WEEI producer. "But José said that Clemens's lawyers had told him not to speak about it."

Canseco, in a telephone interview Thursday, disagreed with Erickson's account, although he did not dispute that he had spoken to WEEI that day and that he had declined the station's invitation to be an on-air guest.

"That is completely incorrect," Canseco said of the notion that Clemens's lawyers had told him not to go on. "I have never spoken to Roger Clemens's attorneys about that."

Asked if he had spoken at all with Clemens's lawyers, Canseco hung up the phone.

Rusty Hardin, Clemens's lead defense lawyer, did not answer phone and e-mail messages seeking comment. Clemens's agent, Randy Hendricks, also a lawyer, did not answer e-mail messages.

This is a few days after the New York Daily News reported that Jeff Novitzky, a special agent with the IRS, wanted to meet Canseco when he made his promotional appearance in San Francisco, for his second book on PEDs use in baseball.  However, Canseco's lawyer, Robert Saunooke, was not so fond of the idea.

Novitzky reportedly wants to talk to Canseco as part of the federal investigation into performance-enhancing drugs in sports. Canseco said in a sworn affidavit in January that he'd never seen Roger Clemens "use, possess or ask for steroids or human growth hormone." The affidavit is part of the evidence gathered by the congressional committee looking at drugs in baseball.

Novitzky's role in the feds' investigation, which began five years ago with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, has grown to focus on Clemens and whether the pitcher perjured himself before Congress when he testified that he never took performance-enhancing drugs.

The report suggested Novitzky appears to be at the mercy of Canseco and his attorney, however. Canseco, who will visit six cities while promiting his second steroids-related book "Vindicated", will be in San Francisco on April 9 and 10, where Novitzky is headquartered.

"This is what it is -- we have a book tour and part of the tour happens to be in San Francisco where Novitzky is," Canseco's attorney, Robert Saunooke, told the Daily News for Wednesday's editions. "And assuming that we have time when we're up there to see him, we will. If we don't have time, then we won't."

Saunooke told the Daily News that Canseco is willing to cooperate with the government but cautioned that his client is "not under subpoena" to speak to Novitzky.

This is interesting to see a player like Canseco, who as never shied away from ruffling a few feathers, now suddenly becoming a prude.  Now that someone close to him has been revealed as a hack, his no-holds barred approach of the past is now out of the question when a friend is implicated.

Life has a way of biting you on the ass when you think everything will be ok.  For Canseco, the spanking seems to have just begun.

- In a "related" news, Brian McNamee fainted while driving his car in New York and crashed his vehicle in a city bus.  No one was hurt or charged in the accident.  He told police he blacked out because of current medical problems.