A Beatle-on-Brothers bashing.

Paul McCartney has added fuel to the raging fire that has followed Mark McGwire's admission Monday to using steroids during his career.

In response to McGwire's admission, Jose Canseco, Big Mac's "Bash Brother" from their days together in Oakland, contended that the disgraced slugger was not being entirely forthcoming about the matter. Meanwhile, the former Beatle has stepped forward to contend that Canseco was not being entirely forthcoming about his claims of having injected McGwire with PEDs.

"It may be true that Jose injected Mark," said McCartney, interviewed briefly by The Independent following a chance encounter at a London vegan clothing boutique, "but I could have injected injected him first."

Follow up:

McCartney went on to describe his relationship with former A's owner, Charles O. Finley, and a subsequent connection to the franchise, which lasted beyond Finley's stewardship.

"Charlie called me out of the blue," said McCartney, describing a secret 1972 meeting in which the flamboyant team owner consulted with the former mastermind of the fictional Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band on outfitting his A's. "This may mean little to your typical Independent reader," he continued, "but the A's were the American sport of baseball's most stylish team."

On behalf of the Finley, McCartney contacted Sgt. Pepper's artist Peter Blake. McCartney described the next steps, seemingly wrapped up in the details of the story and possibly losing awareness of the growing state of confusion experienced by his British interviewer.

"Peter mocked up possible uniform options for the team, using the heads of Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, and Sal Bando," McCartney said, "or maybe it was Gene Tenace rather than Bando."

If this information was not mind-blowing enough, McCartney skipped ahead to 1986, when he was invited by then-Oakland manager Tony LaRussa to attend the team's spring training. "Tony didn't want me to be a distraction, so he had me walk around in the uniform of Doug Bair," said McCartney, referring to a journeyman righthanded reliever who was nursing an injury that spring and therefore would not attract much media attention or be expected to be seen throwing the ball with his right arm (McCartney, of course, is lefthanded).

That brings us to the end of this long and winding road - and McCartney's claim. "So one day I'm shagging fly balls," the British bachelor chuckles, "and someone tells me that McGwire wants to see me in the clubhouse. I jog in and find Mark and Jose in the loo."

The two young sluggers, the rocker would learn, were discussing McGwire's interest in experimenting with steroids. Canseco had been doing them for sometime, and he wanted his friend to join him. "You've done it all, Paul," McCartney reported McGwire saying, "come on, is this stuff safe or what?"

"Now I wasn't about to play coy, but who was I to advocate the taking of drugs by a professional baseball player?"

McGwire wouldn't give up. "You did acid, man! You smoked dope in Japan! You've been busted! If I'm gonna stick any needle in my ass I need a more credible advisor than Tony Montana over here," McCartney reports McGwire saying, waving his thumb in the direction of Canseco.

"I was in a bind," said Paul. "I didn't want to look square, but the one thing I didn't play with was needles. 'Can you sniff it?' I asked, making a 'sniff sniff' sound."

"No way, Jose!" McCartney laughingly recalled Canseco replying.

"Before I could say anything else to Mac," recalled Macca, "Jose grabbed his bum and shoved the syringe deep into his pink, freckled flesh."