Hey everyone,

Yesterday's USA Today had a small article about this weekend's Home Run
Derby (see below). Jose will be going head to head with Mike Piazza in the
first Round. I can't wait!

Canseconet.com mail is back online! I apologize to those of you who were
affected by the outage. Hopefully it will never happen again. If you
haven't already, head on over to http://www.canseconet.com/mail.htm to sign
up for your very own free web based email address (yourname@...).

I'm in the process of going through all the entries for the 2000 Jose
Canseco Home Run Contest. I'll be posting them on the entries page soon:
http://www.canseconet.com/entries.htm

Take it easy,
Mark

P.S. Vote for Jose in the Florida Sports awards for Fan Favorite of the Year:
http://www.jaspers.com/first_union_vote.html

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From USA TODAY:
Challenge to crown today's King of Swat
By Mel Antonen

No sport honors its past like baseball. So baseball starts 2000 with 1959
nostalgia.

Twelve of the game's best home run hitters gather this weekend at Cashman
Field in Las Vegas for Home Run Challenge, a round-robin,
single-elimination power-hitting tournament.

The competition resembles Home Run Derby, which was filmed in 1959 with
players such as Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks and Harmon Killebrew
competing.

Home Run Derby didn't have an official champion.

But Aaron, the all-time home run king with 755, won six head-to-head
competitions when Home Run Derby was filmed in 26 episodes at Wrigley Field
in Los Angeles, a minor league park that was the first home of the Los
Angeles Angels in 1961.

The Home Run Challenge will consist of 10 half-hour shows, starting March
20 at 5:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.

The championship round will be an hour. It will have nine innings of a home
run-or-nothing format. Each inning has three outs.

The tournament also will be rebroadcast in April on ESPN .

Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Chipper Jones each have
first-round byes Saturday.

The first-round pairings: Mike Piazza-Jose Canseco; Manny Ramirez-Nomar
Garciaparra; Shawn Green-Barry Bonds; and Alex Rodriguez-Jason Giambi.

McGwire, who hit a record 70 home runs in 1998 for St. Louis, will be
matched in the second round against either Piazza or Canseco.
Sosa, who has hit 66 and 63 home runs for the Chicago Cubs in each of the
last two seasons, goes against Green or Bonds in the second round.

McGwire and Sosa are in opposite brackets.


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Mark Petrillo
mark@...
Canseconet.com - The Jose Canseco Site