Hey everyone...

I've been waiting to send this email, and now I finally can (you'll see why
in a minute). Two weeks ago today, I drove out to Newark with a couple of
friends to see Jose play. If you have any way of getting to a game, I
highly recommend it. It's a small ballpark and the players are very
accessible. The weather wasn't great the night I was there, and I'd say
there were only about 1000-1500 people in attendance. One of the attendees
was someone I seem to run into every time I go to see Jose play. Karen
McCracken is a huge fan of the Canseco twins. Check out her web site
(dedicated mostly to Ozzie) at http://www.cansecofan.homestead.com/

Ok, back to my story. Before the game, both Jose and Ozzie were signing
autographs in the stands on the first base side. I went over and said hi
to Ozzie. I told him that I run Canseconet.com and was a big fan of his
and his brother. The guy standing next to me (in a Yankees Canseco jersey)
overheard and asked me if I was Mark Petrillo. His name is Shawn Hackett,
and it turns out he is a subscriber to this email list. I seem to run into
you guys wherever I go, which I always enjoy. Anyway, we chatted for a few
seconds and then (before I got to say hi to Jose), the Cansecos had to
leave to get ready for the game.

As I turned around to head back to my seat, I was approached by a writer
for the LA Times named Steve. He told me he had been meaning to get in
touch with me, and we ended up talking for a good 20 minutes. We spoke a
couple other times throughout the game (the park is so small, he had no
trouble finding me). Anyway, he was writing an article about Jose and his
attempt to return to the majors. The article was finally published in
today's LA Times (thus the delay in me sending this email).

After all the talking we did, I figured there might be a lot of quotes from
me in the article. Turns out I was only quoted (paraphrased, really) once
and he didn't even mention the name of my site. Oh well, it's still cool
to be in the LA Times. Check it out...

-Mark

P.S. If anyone out there has a copy of today's LA Times and would be
willing to send me the sports section, please let me know. Thanks!

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Like baseball? Check out Billy-Ball for daily news, notes, and stats with
a humorous twist: www.billy-ball.com

==========
From the LA Times:
Major Desperation
Canseco is convinced he's good to go, but his minor stint in Newark hasn't
stirred any big-time interest yet.
By STEPHEN BRAUN

NEWARK, N.J.--Across the Hudson River from the megawatt skyline of
Manhattan, Jose Canseco plays on a field of last chances. The corrosion of
age has stranded him with a collection of has-beens and die-hard dreamers
on a minor league baseball team playing in New York's shadow. For Canseco,
the city on the far side of the river--the home of his last team, the
Yankees--might as well be an ocean
away.

The 36-year-old power hitter burns to find a way back to the superstar's
life that was his routine for 15 years in the majors. Desperate, he has
joined the Newark Bears, a team in the independent Atlantic League, to
showcase his dimming talents for any major league team in need of a
slugger. So far, there are no takers.

Cut by the Angels in spring training this year, Canseco's pursuit of 500
home runs--the magic mark, he figures, that would put him in
Cooperstown--fell 54 short. One more fling at major league success--just
two years, tops--would be enough. Then he could consider retirement.

"Five hundred, of course I want to get there. That's Hall of Fame, man," he
said after a long night game played before a sparse crowd.

But glaring into the New Jersey mist from home plate, all he can see is the
river and the major league city beyond.

It is a strange sort of afterlife, this baseball purgatory.

Canseco is still too convinced by the air-slicing arc of his swing to give
up--and too proud to accept demotion to the minors and a contract yoking
him to one team. Instead, he is taking his chances with a club that
promises to provide steady, unspectacular wages and a stage where he can
work at keeping his baseball talents sharp enough to eventually attract
attention from a top team.

"You want people to notice," Canseco said. Once, he had no trouble at that.
He dated Madonna. He had several minor brushes with the law. He has heard,
he said, that scouts were in the stands recently. Someone from the Chicago
White Sox. But the scout came and went, and Canseco was still with the Bears.

The Bears' owner, former Yankee catcher Rick Cerone, understands all too
well the impatience that seethes inside Canseco.

"Baseball's no different than any other profession, and in some ways it's
worse," Cerone said. "In your late 30s, you're considered an old man. It's
a hard thing to take. If Jose says he's not there yet, we're happy to have
him around, even if it's only for a ticket out of here."

Cerone expects Canseco will be picked up by the fall. So does Canseco. But
only eight Atlantic League players have made it to the majors since the
league's formation in 1998, team officials say. All of them had to go first
to a triple-A team--a stopover Canseco insists he will bypass.

"When I go, I go straight," he said.

It would be a first in a league populated with journeymen and former stars
who can't get baseball out of their blood. But then Canseco has already
managed a first for the league--he is paid $6,000 a month. It is a pittance
compared with the $5 million-a-year contract he won at the height of his
powers, but double the league's maximum salary. Cerone says his team pays
Canseco only $3,000--and declines to comment on reports that the league
pays the rest of the slugger's monthly wages to keep him on as an
attendance draw.

The Bears are a team studded with dwarfed stars. Each night, after their
games, men whose exploits were once a staple on national television now
watch their younger successors on video highlights.

After a recent loss to a team from Somerset, Mass., Canseco stared at the
clubhouse television screen, watching the day's action like an exile
reading a hometown paper. So was journeyman Jim Leyritz, who joined the
Bears for a month hoping he might return to the majors. So were former
outfielder Lance Johnson and his former teammate, Jaime Navarro, when the
two were with the White Sox.

So too was Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, who became a Bear after a fitful
pro career. The twins are dead ringers for each other--same machine-press
jaws, same tapered weightlifter's physiques, same lumbering gait.

"Do I miss it? What do you think?" Jose Canseco said. "You'd think some
team could use me. I haven't lost a thing."

When Canseco was cut loose by the Angels in March, team officials spoke
bluntly about an accumulation of invisible flaws. Canseco insisted he was
in fine health and ready for his 16th season. But the Angels said his brute
strength was ebbing in subtle ways. The sense of menace he posed to major
league pitchers was flagging.

"It was deeper than numbers," Angel spokesman Tim Mead explained, crafting
his words. "There were concerns about his bat speed, his ability to move in
the field. Certain holes began showing up."

But Angel Manager Mike Sciosia's comments questioning Canseco's "long-term
health" touched a nerve that is still raw. Canseco, who underwent surgery
for a herniated disk in 1999 and was bothered by lower back and hamstring
problems, felt the Angels' remarks purposely left the impression that he
was "damaged goods."

"I'm still wondering why they handled it the way they did," Canseco said.
"I've never had anyone question my health like that before."

Only a year ago, the Cuban-born Canseco was still considered dangerous
enough to persuade Yankee management to claim him off waivers from the
Tampa Bay Devil Rays and add his bat to their lineup, though he had only
one at-bat in the postseason.

Just two years earlier, he had hit 46 home runs for Toronto, the latest in
a career of milestones. Canseco was rookie of the year in 1986 and most
valuable player in 1988 with Oakland. He led the American League in home
runs in 1988 and tied for the lead in 1991--bruising, towering clouts that
led teammates and fans to dub him one of the two "Bash Brothers" along with
former Athletic Mark McGwire.

But while McGwire put up Hall of Fame numbers in his last several seasons
for St. Louis, Canseco's output shrank--34 in 1999 and 15 in 2000. If Big
Mac is a consensus choice for Cooperstown with 556 home runs, Canseco
reckons his only shot at a legacy is to reach the same vaunted level.

On a rainy Thursday night, a smattering of Canseco fans came to Newark's
riverfront stadium, hoping to see one of his trademark swats. The loyalists
were not hard to find. The paid attendance in the 6,000-capacity Ballpark
at Harbor Yard is 2,600, but the soft, steady rain kept many at home.

Beyond the left-field wall, commuter trains thudded by toward Manhattan.
The dim whisk of traffic droned from Interstate 95. People had other things
to do besides sit in the mist and watch a struggling team and a big man's
attempt to prove his worth one more time.

Canseco took the field, oblivious to the small knot of fans who hung at the
first base line, hoping for an autograph, a snatch of conversation.

Shawn Hackett, 22, a bruiser whose biceps were almost as thick as
Canseco's, wore the Bash Brother's Yankee number, 33, on his shirt. Nearby
sat Mark Petrillo, 26, a devotee who runs a Canseco Web site. Petrillo had
driven in the rain all the way from Harrisburg, Pa., to watch his fallen hero.

The big man signed a few baseballs nearby, but trotted off, silently,
before he reached his fans. "Jose! Jose, please!" Hackett bellowed. But the
outfielder was already gone.

In his first at-bat, Canseco lofted the ball into deep center field for a
double. Two more trips to the plate were fruitless, ending in long outs.
In 23, games, Canseco is hitting .264 with four home runs and 18 runs
batted in. It is a struggle, he admitted.

Even Leyritz, who is batting .296, still waits for a call from the majors.
The worst torture, he said, is playing well and seeing nothing come
from it. "It's my heart, not my head, that keeps me here," he said.

Canseco's brother, Ozzie, hit 44 home runs last year for the Bears. No one
has called him either. When he heard about Jose's release by the Angels
last spring, he phoned his brother and urged him to join him in Newark.

"I'm trying to help him make the transition," said Ozzie, who is rooming
with Jose in a local Marriott. The room is temporary, like their
planned stay with the Bears. But Ozzie too feels the dull ache of age that
eats at his brother.

"You give your all, but you feel it the next day," Ozzie said. "Your bones
hurt, your joints are stiff. Not like when you were a kid. But that
doesn't mean you can't come back."

"Hey, Jose's still got it," Petrillo insisted from the stands. "Look at the
swing. Every time he rips, it could be gone. He's the glory of the home run
in person. There's drama in that swing."

In the clubhouse afterward, Jose Canseco agreed. "You saw where those balls
went," he said. "Does that look like lost bat speed? I'm healthy and I'm
ready."

The big man already has convinced himself.

But it is only a first step, his way of steeling himself to trot out onto a
strange field every night. At the plate, Jose Canseco stands there,
gazing out at distant lights, still waiting to cross the river.

==========
(Meanwhile, Jose's replacement is still not working out in Anaheim)
From the Press-Enterprise:
INSIDE THE ANGELS
Hill comes off rehab into lineup
BY JOE HAMELIN

The Angels recalled Glenallen Hill from his rehabilitation assignment at
Rancho Cucamonga on Tuesday and promptly scribbled his name into the lineup.

Hill, who had been out with a strained hamstring, didn't exactly tear it up
with the Class A Quakes, hitting .167 (a double and homer in 12 at-bats)
over three games.

But all the Angels wanted to know was that he could take a full cut and run
to first base without falling down.

He went 1 for 6 Tuesday night and struck out to end the game.

Hill hit .135 (7 of 52) with Anaheim before going on the 15-day disabled
list. Hill, 36, was signed as the Angels' designated hitter after Jose
Canseco didn't work out. Hill has a .271 average in 18 big-league seasons.

"Basically, we just wanted to test his hamstring," said Manager Mike
Scioscia. "We couldn't do that as well as we'd like in a practice situation."

Hill's early-season struggle, said Scioscia, " . . . is typical of guys
that drive the ball. Often they're very, very hot or very, very cold, and I
think we saw Glenallen at the non- desirable extreme."