Hey everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be going away for a few weeks
in a couple of days.  I'm heading down to Florida, where I am going to work
on getting certified as a Divemaster (scuba diving), and am going to take a
family vacation too.  Chances are that you won't hear from me again until
sometime in July.  I just wanted to let you know.

I haven't gotten around to posting your notes for Jose yet, and I probably
won't get a chance to until July.  If you haven't sent something in yet and
would like to, you still can.  Just email "mark@..." and be sure
to use the subject line "Email For Jose"...

Last week, I wrote that I was "disappointed" when I found out Jose admitted
to taking steroids.  I received an interesting response from that
comment... Many of you brushed off the news, saying "lots of guys do it"
and making other excuses for Jose.  Another groups of you was furious with
him, calling him all sorts of names, and cursing me just for being a
fan.  Most of you seemed to feel like I do though -  disappointed, probably
knowing deep down that Jose had been on the stuff, but hoping he really was
just a (natural) freak of nature.

In any case, here's my view on the whole thing... Yes, a lot of players use
steroids and I can see how there would be temptation for other guys to
juice up as well, to try to level the playing field.  But that doesn't make
it right.  Steroid use taints the accomplishments of those using them.  Is
Jose's 40-40 season as impressive, now that you know he was probably taking
steroids at the time?  How about those 500 foot homers?  Are you still as
in awe, knowing they might have been drug enhanced?  I still have many very
fond memories of Jose, and I'm trying not to let this latest news take that
away from me, yet still.... I am disappointed.  There's really no other
word for it that that.

You can only imagine what guys like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays
or Ted Williams could have accomplished if they had access to all of
today's technology, let alone illegal performance enhancing drugs.  But
personally, I'd rather imagine that Jose
could have still accomplished all he did in his career without using
them.  Now I guess I will always have to wonder.

The same goes for guys like McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds.  Even if they are
clean, you can't help but wonder...

As for Jose's upcoming book (which probably won't be in book stores until
at least the fall), I still think it's a bad idea.  Hopefully, Jose will
write an entertaining book that will clear up the negative perceptions
about him... but unfortunately, I think it's more likely that he will be
perceived as a sore loser who is bitter and just trying to tarnish other
players' good names and the game of baseball.  Then again, maybe some good
will come of it.  Maybe baseball will actually begin random drug testing
and clean itself up.

Ok, I'm done my rant now.  And please, don't get me wrong - I'm still a
Canseco fan, and I always will be.  I'm just a disappointed one.

-Mark

==========
  From the Palm Beach Post:
Bouton: Canseco 'a jerk' with pen
By Karen Crouse
Friday, May 31, 2002

If Jose Canseco is smart -- um, scratch that.

If Jose Canseco has any sense -- nope, that won't work either.

If Jose Canseco doesn't want to waste his time, he won't bother seeking a
bon mot from Jim Bouton for the back cover of the bestseller he says is
waiting to be written about his life and times in baseball.

Bouton has been there, written that. He is the author of the definitive
outside-the-lines book about baseball. Ball Four was a groundbreaking look
at the former knuckleball pitcher's 1969 season with the expansion Seattle
Pilots.

Ball Four did for sports books what MTV would do 32 years later for Ozzy
Osbourne; it revealed the real people behind the public personas.

Bouton's literary debut, which was published in 1970, remains the
largest-selling sports book ever, with millions of dog-eared paperback
copies gracing America's bookshelves.

Canseco has made like Babe Ruth and pointed his finger at the section of
sports classics and promised that his book is going to land right there.

"It's going to be the most interesting book sports has ever seen,'' Canseco
said this month, after announcing his retirement from baseball. "It's going
to be incredible."

Bouton and Canseco, a pair of bookends in the sports reality genre?
Puh-leeze. You might as well compare Howard Stern's commentary to Charles
Osgood's.

Bouton wrote a valentine to baseball. His love of the game and his fondness
for the overgrown boys who play it permeated every page. What Canseco is
working on sounds like a pipe bomb that will injure the reputations of some
very prominent ex-teammates. His bitterness toward the game is palpable
when he speaks of "not getting an opportunity" to reach the 500 home run
milestone because erstwhile friends in the majors turned their backs on him.

Canseco, 37, was in Class AAA when he retired, sitting on 462 home runs.
Hell apparently hath no fury like a slugger scorned.

Canseco, who grew up in Miami, is promising to be more like Matt Drudge
than Roger Angell, recklessly throwing everything he knows into an unsavory
stew not fit for the discriminating palate.

Bouton has a hard time digesting the news that Canseco plans to out
teammates who were steroid users and sing about incidences of racial
disharmony.

"I hate to say this because I don't want to be attacking a fellow author,"
Bouton said when reached at his home in Massachusetts, "but (Canseco) has
always been a jerk. He's just entered a new level of jerkdom and you can
quote me on that.''

Bouton wasn't without his critics. Long as he lives, he'll never forget the
quote from an opposing player, Pete Rose, who screamed during a game that
Bouton was pitching:

"(Expletive) you, Shakespeare!"

Bouton didn't uncover dirt in Ball Four so much as he lifted the milky veil
on the professional ballplayer's life. That was crime enough for many
insiders. A lot of baseball people -- particularly in management -- had a
problem with the sport's apple-pie image being sliced and diced at all.

The readers, on the other hand, loved that Bouton humanized their heroes.
That wasn't Bouton's intention when he set out to keep a diary of the
Pilots' first season. Upon further reflection, he's glad it turned out that
way.

"I think we are all better off looking across at someone, rather than up,''
he wrote in the preface of a 1981 reissue of the book.

Bouton kept paper and pen at the ready in 1969, the better to scribble
things he saw and heard. "If Jose Canseco didn't keep a daily diary, how's
he going to write his book?" Bouton wondered. "What's it going to be, based
on his memory?"

Bouton's copious notes formed a first draft that was 1,500 pages. Bouton
carefully weighed what he put in the final draft.

For every "bombshell" revelation that he included -- about the players' use
of amphetamines, for example, or Mickey Mantle's fondness for the bottle --
there were juicy nuggets that Bouton deliberately left out.

"I don't like being described as the guy who wrote the first shocking
tell-all book about baseball,'' Bouton said. "It wasn't a tell-all book. It
was a tell-some book. I had a line I didn't cross out of respect for my
teammates. I wasn't going to invade their privacy so I left out a lot of
things."

The walls of privacy, once erected around professional athletes by
publicists and journalists, have come tumbling down in the past 30 years.
Today we know more than we want to about their habits and hobbies and home
lives.

The revelations in Ball Four that players cheat on their wives and stay up
late drinking and partying? Those insights seem quaint as a curfew today.

Honestly, what is Canseco going to write that can possibly shock us? That a
teammate stole his bat and tried to sell it on eBay? That a clubhouse
attendant allegedly molested little boys he invited into the team's inner
sanctum? That some of those players allegedly had the little boys buy drugs
for them?

That one teammate was out partying at 4 a.m. and was robbed of $44,000 in
cash and jewelry that he had on his person? That a former league MVP winner
suffered a pre-season wrist injury while popping wheelies on his Harley and
had to sit out seven weeks? That there are gay players in baseball? That
there are recovering alcoholics and steroid users, too?

No way, Jose. Baseball fans already have read it all -- in their morning
newspapers.

"I don't think anything he writes is going to be shocking to anybody,''
Bouton said. "Most people understand professional ballplayers are teenagers
in adult bodies.''

Bouton's book provided us with the first clues of why they are called the
boys of summer. We don't need Canseco to slam home the fact that our
baseball stars are flawed. We get pelted with evidence every day. Unlike
Bouton in his time, Canseco wouldn't be telling us anything we didn't know
or at least strongly suspect.

"I think his book is a bad idea,'' Bouton said. "I don't think anybody's
going to read it.''

==========
  From the Sacramento Bee:
Steroid use claims shake game, bring varied responses
By Nick Peters
Sunday, June 2, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO -- One week ago, the juiciest baseball topic was speculation
that a baseball player would admit his homosexuality. Since, two steroid
users came out of the closet, unleashing a furor that dominated the game.

Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti merely confirmed what everyone believed all
along, yet their candor ignited a nationwide controversy and elicited a
varied range of responses that touched on all elements of a heretofore
taboo subject.

Sports columnists suddenly had the green light to expound on steroid use,
which is either rampant or miniscule, according to who's talking. Canseco
claimed 85 percent of major-leaguers use muscle-enhancing substances.
Caminiti's estimate was 50 percent.

The reaction came in different stages. There was anger, indignation,
denial, disbelief, confirmation, moralizing about tainted records and,
finally, the key to the issue -- a legitimate concern about health risks
and finding a solution to the problem.

"Everybody hates a snitch," observed Dusty Baker, a modern manager who
embraces the old-school philosophy that what you say, hear and do in the
clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse. That notion, of course, is widespread.

Athletes, in general, regard the locker room as their sanctuary. It helps
develop a them-vs.-us mentality that permeates the sports world and
ostracizes those who break the code, as pitcher Jim Bouton did in his
groundbreaking "Ball Four" many years ago.

Whereas Caminiti's confession in SI created some sympathy because of his
longtime dependency on drugs and alcohol and the fact he's regarded as a
"gamer," Canseco was condemned for his intent to make his memoirs a
tell-all exposé.

"I think this downgrades Caminiti a little," Phillies catcher Mike
Lieberthal said. "Canseco, he's a little shaky anyway. I don't know if
anyone pays attention to what he says anyway. But Caminiti? He's a
respected guy. I'm surprised he would do that."

Marlins outfielder Cliff Floyd: "I can respect Caminiti, but Canseco?
Please! Unless you know 100 percent that someone is doing steroids, you
shouldn't say anything. He should put down everybody's name he thinks is
using it. He might have to move to another country."

Mets first baseman Mo Vaughn: "Don't use the game for 10 to 15 years, make
your loot, then when it's over, bad-mouth the players. That's bull."

Conspiracy theory
When Canseco and Caminiti came clean, it provided fodder for those who
would taint the recent record-shattering achievements of Mark McGwire,
Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, among others.

There's no question Canseco and Caminiti fueled the conspiracy theorists,
but some prominent players immediately pointed out that the recent home-run
outbursts are more a reflection of skill and dedication than of outside
influences.

"Let me tell you why Barry Bonds hit 73 homers," Vaughn said. "Because he's
a great hitter. Because the Giants moved out of Candlestick Park into a
place where the wind doesn't blow as much."

Added Giambi: "I know this stuff is newsworthy, but hopefully, people don't
buy into it. There's no miracle thing for this game; either you have talent
or you don't. One common thread of all the greats in the game, they've had
longevity."

Mike Piazza: "I think this has created a lot of unfortunate hysteria
because this is still a skill game. If all it took to hit a home run was
being big and strong, then every Mr. Olympia contestant would be in the
major leagues hitting home runs.

"I just find it disturbing that people think the only reason guys are
hitting 50, 60, 70 home runs is steroids. There are a lot more young
pitchers in the game who haven't had time in the minors to develop, and the
ballparks are smaller."

Integrity of the game
The issue of performance enhancers brushed the Cardinals' clubhouse during
McGwire's assault on the single-season home run record in 1998. It was
learned he used androstenedione, a legal substance available over the
counter at health stores.

Tony La Russa, McGwire's manager in Oakland and St. Louis, underscored his
belief that McGwire did nothing improper while developing his body but
conceded that Caminiti's admission raises an issue of credibility.

"I knew Mark his entire career, and I know the amount of work and training
he put into developing himself," La Russa said. "Caminiti is a guy who I
respected for the way he played. But numbers in this game are sacred. What
you're talking about creates a taint."

Added Arizona manager Bob Brenly: "It sucks for the guys who have earned it
naturally. The guys who spend the time in the weightroom, watch what they
eat, take care of themselves. It's a shame to cast a cloud of suspicion
over them because of the actions of a few people."

White Sox DH Frank Thomas, a 6-foot-5, 275-pound former football player,
said his strength comes from pumping iron and that he advocates testing
players to determine steroid use.

"I don't know who's on and who's not on," Thomas said. "There is definitely
more activity in the weight room nowadays. I was hoping that it was just
old guys working hard in the weight room."

Padres reliever Trevor Hoffman, a teammate when Caminiti earned Most
Valuable Player honors while on steroids in 1996, wouldn't concede the
achievement was tainted, but he realizes that others will.

"That's not my call," Hoffman said. "Unfortunately, it's not going to hold
the same credibility that it did before we knew what went on. I look at it
as a situation where Cammy still had to square the ball up, he still had to
hit the ball out of the park.

"And he had to do it in situations that are not easy, with runners in
scoring position and 45,000 or 50,000 people screaming. Just because you're
on steroids, that's not easy. He literally picked us up on his back and
carried us to the title."

How serious is it?
Despite the claims of Canseco and Caminiti, there are indications steroid
use isn't that widespread in baseball. Steve Finley and Luis Gonzalez,
former Caminiti teammates, insist they were unaware of his involvement.
Padres general manager Kevin Towers, who has been outspoken for years about
the need for Major League Baseball to test players for steroids, wasn't
surprised. Nor was former San Diego pitcher Sterling Hitchcock.

"I didn't know for sure," Towers recalled. "Guys don't do it in front of
you. But guys get bulked up during the offseason and come in bigger and
stronger, and you wonder."

Hitchcock, now with the Yankees: "I don't think it's a big surprise to
anybody. You knew he used them. And it would be hard to say (Padres
management) didn't know it was going on."

Most people involved in the game, however, suggest that claims of even 50
percent steroid users are ludicrous.

"I don't question that (steroids) are in the game, but I definitely don't
think it's rampant," Piazza said. "It's ridiculous to speculate how much.
I'm not defending, criticizing or condoning it. I just think this is
another example of society obsessed with finding something negative."

Phillies trainer Jeff Cooper: "The numbers they're throwing around are
outrageous. I would say it's in the low single digits. It's out there, but
it's not exclusive to us or pro sports or college sports. It's in society.
You see it, but it's still in the single digits."

Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon: "I know we don't have anybody in this
locker room on steroids. I'm just dumbfounded how you get that percentage.
I'd be really surprised if anybody on my team is using steroids."

A cry for testing
When the anger subsided, it dawned on some that the recent confessions
finally took a potential problem off the back burner and moved it up the
priority list in the restructuring of baseball.

MLB and the Players Association both have ignored the problem, hoping it
would go away. Arizona pitcher Rick Helling, a member of the union's
negotiating committee, said the union has never fought testing because the
owners have never asked for it. The latest proposal from the owners does
contain such a provision.

"The feeling I'm getting is we've fought against it or turned it down,"
Helling said. "Well, it's never been an issue. Obviously, it's going to be
an issue this time. We'll talk about it and try to figure out what's best
for players, first of all, and the overall game."

The question is why hasn't it been an issue? When the Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association's Healthy Competition Foundation issued a call to the
game's 60 top sluggers in 2000 to take a drug-free pledge, merely two
signed the pledge.

According to Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty: "I don't think we have enough
facts or information. We've received nothing from baseball to give us any
indication for us to be concerned. I would think that baseball will start
paying attention to it."

Sacramento's Larry Bowa, the crusty Phillies manager often regarded as too
old school, is in favor of testing, as is Philadelphia pitcher Robert Person.

"Maybe they can kill two birds with one stone," Bowa said. "Agree on a
(labor) contract and steroid testing. That would do a lot for baseball and
fans' perception of the game."

Added Person: "I wish they would (test). There's no testing, and you're
supposed to wonder why everyone is a home-run hitter. You see some guys,
and it's obvious. I want testing."

The Blue Shield/Blue Cross group projects that one million youth and 17
million adults are using performance-enhancing substances, steroids among
the most prevalent.

The survey also found that nine in 10 adults and youths disapprove of
athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs have adverse
effects on virtually every organ in the body.

"Something's going to have to happen, somebody dies, somebody gets cancer,
and all of a sudden, there will be so much public pressure that something
will have to be done," Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell said.

Twins outfielder Jacque Jones grasps the severity and places it in perspective.

"Your body's going to start breaking down," he said. "It's just bad for
your health. You think of how it's going to help you get more money, but
you've got to think about who's going to play with your kids when you're
done playing."

I think this story speaks for itself.  This is very disappointing.

More in a day or two...
-Mark

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Agent says Canseco admitted to using steroids

Jose Canseco admitted in meetings with potential book publishers this week
in New York that he used steroids while he was playing in the majors, his
literary agent confirmed in a story in Friday's Wall Street Journal.

It is the first admission that Canseco has made regarding his own steroid
use, although it's long been rumored. It comes less than a week after
former National League MVP Ken Caminiti told Sports Illustrated that he
used steroids as well.

Canseco said he used two varieties of steroids -- including pills and
needle injections. He also told publishers he used steroids with, and
helped obtain them for, other players, Ronald Laitsch, Canseco's literary
agent, confirmed to Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Walker, a regular
contributor to ESPNEWS. Canseco also added that some of the major leaguers
he helped procure the drugs for were still playing.

The Journal's story does not name these other players, but says that
according to publishing insiders, Canseco in the book will admit for the
first time his own extensive steroid use and will "name names" of other
major leaguers who used the drug as well.

When he announced his retirement last month, Canseco suggested that 85
percent of all major leaguers took steroids. He initially would not admit
if he took steroids, himself, saying he would give details in his book.

Caminiti had estimated to Sports Illustrated that at least 50 percent of
major league players took steroids, but later backed off those estimates.

Laitsch, who required book editors to sign confidentiality agreements
before meeting with Canseco, says his client has already started putting
material together for the book with Florida sportswriter Bill Chastain and
expects to have a manuscript ready by late August. The agent also said
Canseco implicated other major leaguers by name in these private meetings
with book editors.

"Jose doesn't plan to pull any punches," Laitsch told The Journal.

Other topics Canseco said he would cover in his book are his relationship
with Madonna, failed marriages, and his suspicion that he was "exiled" from
baseball.

"I've had a lot of athletes in different sports and I know a lot of people
in the acting field that all told me I've been exiled, basically
blackballed," Canseco told The Associated Press. . Canseco announced his
retirement May 14, leaving the game with 462 home runs, 1,407 RBI and a
.266 batting average in 1,887 games with seven teams. He was hitting .172
with five homers and nine RBI in 18 games for Triple-A Charlotte when he quit.

The 37-year-old Canseco was one of the game's most colorful figures, on and
off the field. He assured co-author Chastain that no aspect of his private
life will be off-limits.

"Jose has led a very interesting life, and he has a story to tell," said
Chastain, a former Tampa Tribune sports writer.

"People have always been fascinated by him."

Canseco isn't concerned about what other players might think of the way
they're portrayed in the book.

"It's just going to be part of my life," Canseco said. "In a lot of ways,
my life wasn't perfect, either. I made a lot of mistakes. I'm going to talk
about that also."

He says he hasn't spent much time thinking about whether he deserves to
make the Hall of Fame.

"That's not for me to judge," he said. "I know I was injured a lot, and I
know if I would have been given the opportunity to play baseball more, I
would have easily hit 500 home runs, maybe even 600."

Hi Canseco fans....

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I was going to set up an email
address you could use to write to Jose.  Well, I'm having a little trouble
with my server, so here's what we are going to do.... Send your emails to
"mark@..." and make the subject "Email For Jose" (don't use the
quotes, of course).  PLEASE make sure you get the subject right (Email For
Jose), as I have a filter set up to filter all those messages off to the
same folder.

As the emails come in, I will combine them all and post them on
Canseconet.com - so don't say anything you wouldn't want everyone to be
able to read.  I'm also going to put them all together, print them out, and
do my best to get them to Jose.  I can't guarantee he will ever get them of
course, but I'm going to do my best.

Feel free to write anything you want... talk about Jose's retirement if you
want, his upcoming book, your memories of him, whatever.  It's completely
up to you.  I would suggest keeping it on the positive side though, as I
think getting hundreds of pity emails about being blackballed might be a
little depressing.  But again, it's up to you.

I would suggest keeping your note short though.  Think about it - if you
had 500 messages to read and knew you couldn't read them all, would you be
more likely to read the short ones or the really long ones?  Me - I'd go
for the short ones :)

Lastly, I'm not going to be editing the emails at all, so do your best to
check for typos, spelling, etc.  DON'T USE ALL CAPS.  And remember,
whatever you write (and your email address) will be posted on
Canseconet.com for the world to see...

Ok, that's it.  One last time - Send your emails for Jose to
mark@... with the subject Email For Jose.

All the latest news is below.  Seems as if Jose's steroid accusations have
really opened up a can of worms.  Hey, who knows?  Maybe some good will
come of it and they will actually start testing baseball players, like they
do in all the other major sports.

Mark

==========
  From Mustang Daily Online:
By Chris Arns
Canseco will strike out big if he writes controversial book

First of all, let me apologize to all those basketball fans who are dying
to read more about the Kings-Lakers series. Despite being from Sacramento,
I’m tired of hearing why Chris Webber won’t play the low post or how
Shaquille O’Neal has two busted ankles, a hurt toe, a bum finger and a
bruised ego. Nor will I discuss cowbells, Kobe, clutch play or why, after
listening to the NBC broadcast on Saturday, I could swear that Bill Walton
was ready to visit the Lakers’ locker room and give sexual favors to every
single person wearing purple and yellow. But I digress.

I’m more interested in why Jose Canseco thinks his life is book-worthy.
After announcing his retirement last week, the former
Oakland-Texas-Boston-Oakland-Toronto-Tampa Bay-New York Yankee-Tampa
Bay-Chicago White Sox-Montreal outfielder/designated hitter/moron said that
he planned to write a book that will document his life in the big leagues.
Among his topics of choice will be juicy tidbits regarding Canseco’s
penchant for speeding, marital difficulties and that fling with Madonna.

However, he became a little controversial with his statement about steroid
use in the major leagues. After his retirement announcement, Canseco said
that about 85 percent of players today use performance enhancing drugs,
which he believes is directly responsible for the jump in home runs in the
last few years. While he wouldn’t comment on his own possible use of
steroids, Canseco confidently proclaimed that if all players were to be
tested tomorrow, there wouldn’t be a league left.

At the same time, the former home run champ also accused certain factions
within baseball of conspiring to “exile” him from the game. Pointing to how
close he was to reaching a career total of 500 home runs, Canseco insisted
that he wasn’t “allowed” to reach that goal and that if he would’ve had the
proper support, he could have “easily hit 500, maybe even 600” home runs.

After reading about Canseco’s statements, I’m not sure if he ever did take
steroids, but I’m fairly confident that he’s on crack. For someone who was
hitting .175 in Triple-A baseball, he’s got a lot of nerve to concoct such
a diatribe. Also, isn’t this the same guy who once let a ball bounce off
his head for a home run? He should be on his knees thanking the multiple
teams that gave him so many second chances.

Obviously, Canseco really wants to go to the Hall of Fame and he’s
struggling to find a way in without hitting those 500 home runs. But he
should do a little less writing and a lot more reading. The last baseball
player to write a tell-all book was Jim Bouton, a pitcher for the New York
Yankees during the 1960s. Bouton’s book, Ball Four, showed how his
teammates, including Yankee god Mickey Mantle, alternated baseball,
boozing, and womanizing, although not necessarily in that order. While the
effect may have put a little tarnish on the Yankee mystique, Bouton was
criticized for breaking the baseball brotherhood and found himself
ostracized from the game.

So far, Canseco hasn’t done anything too bad to earn the same treatment.
Besides his horrible fielding skills and tendency for redundant injuries,
the man was a pretty decent player. The first 40-40 man, an MVP, one of the
most feared hitters in baseball — Canseco’s statistics are the envy of many
other people in the league. But home runs are not enough to get him to the
Hall. There are some people who don’t believe his former Bash Brother, Mark
McGwire, should be inducted on the same reason. But McGwire will go to
Cooperstown — 70
home runs in a season and almost 600 during his lifetime are about as close
to a free pass as you can get. Canseco only had about three to four good
seasons, which isn’t Hall-worthy.

I really hope that Canseco’s book doesn’t make it past the first editor. It
really doesn’t matter who takes steroids and who doesn’t — if nobody’s
being caught, I’d rather hold on to my blissful post-childhood naďveté and
think that baseball players use only their God-given talent to hit home
runs. Canseco should go back to Miami and take up marlin fishing. I think
he’ll like it — it’s doubtful he’ll ever bounce a fish off his head.

Chris Arns is Mustang Daily sports editor and will go to Miami after
retirement to chase rich old broads on the beach. E-mail him at
carns@...

==========
(This is Andres Dolson's Letter to the Editor in response to the article above)
  From Mustang Daily Online:
Jose Canseco was a Great Baseball Player

Chris Arns’ commentary “Canseco will strikeout big if he writes
controversial book (Tuesday, May 21),” demonstrates an ignorance of sports.
The commentary clearly shows without a doubt that he is an idiot when it
comes to baseball.

He calls Canseco a “pretty decent player,” and in the same paragraph he
also mentions that he was a MVP. I fail to make the connection between
being a decent player, and being unanimously voted as the most valuable
player in major league baseball.

Canseco has good reason to believe he was blackballed out of baseball. Last
year, he was the most productive hitter on the White sox while he played.
In 256 at-bats, Canseco hit a respectable .258 with 16 home runs, 8
doubles, and 49 RBI's. These numbers are better than the production the
Anaheim Angels got from all of the DH's they used last year, in twice as
many at-bats! The Anaheim Angles management acted despicably when they cut
Canseco from their team last year. The Angels management is so incompetent,
however, that in my entire lifetime I cannot recall the Angels ever
reaching the post-season. The joke is that the Angels could win 80 games by
the all-star break, and still not make the playoffs. Canseco has already
been exiled from baseball; he has nothing to lose by writing a book
exposing the severe problems that exist in baseball.

The fact of the matter is Canseco is one of the greatest baseball players
of all time. If you’re an Oakland fan, you know that Oakland never lost an
American League playoff series with Canseco. You also know that Oakland has
never won a playoff series since they traded Canseco. Coincidence? I think
not. If you’re a Giants fan, you remember that Canseco helped Oakland sweep
the 1989 World Series.

The Hall of Fame should be about the greatest baseball players ever, with
the most talent, and who played the best while they were on the field.
Unfortunately, a player usually cannot control how much or how often they
get injured. The Hall of Fame should not be about whom is able to stay the
healthiest and play the longest. The Hall of Fame should be about the
players playing baseball at the highest level throughout their careers.

How great was Canseco? This question can be answered by how he played
throughout his entire career, when you average his statistics out to 162
games. For every 162 games Canseco played, he hit an average of .266, 40
home runs, 121 RBI’s, 102 runs, 29 doubles, and 17 stolen bases. He has
over 400 career home runs and 200 career stolen bases, putting him in the
same company as only 8 other players in all of baseball history. He was the
first 40-40 man ever in the history of baseball, has two World Series
rings, and in his first official World Series at-bat; Canseco hit a grand
slam.

Chris Arns says that Canseco had only three or four good seasons. This is
blatantly inaccurate. Canseco is also the first player to hit over 30 home
runs in each of his first three seasons. Throw in additional seasons where
he hit 37, 44, 46, and 34 home runs, and you have many great seasons.

Look at Mark McGwire’s career statistics, they are extremely similar to
Canseco’s. The major difference being that Canseco’s career was superior in
almost every category except home runs! McGwire was fortunate to have a few
more healthy seasons than Canseco got to enjoy.

Canseco has made his teams winners. Texas was headed to the playoff had the
season not been shut down by the strike.  Boston reached the playoffs
during Canseco's seasons there.  Toronto missed the playoffs by just a
couple of games.

Canseco is a true Hall of Fame caliber baseball player. When Canseco was
healthy and playing on the field, he produced like a Hall of Fame candidate
should. I for one recognize Jose Canseco as one of the best and most
exciting baseball players ever.

Andres Dolson - Construction Management Senior

==========
  From CNN/SI:
Bonds says workouts, not steroids, changed his body
May 21, 2002 9:36 PM

PHOENIX (AP) -- Barry Bonds repeated his stand Tuesday that his body has
been built up through strenuous workouts, not through the use of
strength-enhancing steroids.

In a wide-ranging discussion before the San Francisco Giants opened a
two-game series with Arizona, Bonds also said the only reason players would
strike this summer is "because we have no other alternative."

When asked if he thought there would be a work stoppage, Bonds said, "I
hope not, but unfortunately it looks like there may be."

Bonds said he is upset about the steroid suspicions because of what they
lead youngsters to think about him.

"I get upset because you're putting false statements in a lot of these
kids' minds," he said. "That's what really irks me because there's nothing
we can really do about it to defend ourselves. What are we going to do, sue
every newspaper article that comes out? I mean, that's basically what a lot
of us want to do."

As for Jose Canseco's claim that 85 percent of major leaguers use steroids,
Bonds said, "I don't know what Canseco's frustration is."

"I like the guy personally. I just don't understand where he's going with
this," Bonds said. "Players didn't do anything to Jose Canseco. We admire
him as a player. We admire him as a person. Why would another ballplayer
want to take shots at other ballplayers when none of us really had anything
to do with this. We like him. We wish the best for him."

Entering Tuesday's game, Bonds had 582 home runs, one behind Mark McGwire
for fifth on the career list.

Bonds said that no matter how big a person is, he doesn't hit home runs
without great hand-eye coordination.

"I'm not going to be the same size I was at 22 years old," he said. "Anyone
in San Francisco that knows me knows I train every day, five days a week.
You can ask anyone thorughout the organization. You can ask the fans of San
Francisco.

"If they go to Stanford at 7:30 in the morning, they'll see me on the
track. In December and January, they'll see me at Pac Bell every single day
at 8:30 in the morning, five days a week, training. I've been doing this
for 12 years. You know I'm not going to be the same size."

Bonds said that if baseball ever decides to test for steroids "you guys
will find out the truth, which is fine with me."

In regard to the possibility of a strike, Bonds said people should not be
overly concerned yet.

"Anyone who has been in these labor situations before knows that sometimes
they go to the last day," he said. "I wouldn't really put a lot of emphasis
on these things until it really gets down to the wire."

==========
  From KTVU News
Bonds Shrugs Off Steroids Worries
5/21/02

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Now that he's settling into retirement, Jose Canseco is
threatening to write a book that will blow the lid off steroid and
supplement use in baseball.

Mention that to Barry Bonds and ask him what he thinks. ``You want an
interview or you want to irk me?'' Bonds said, a scowl replacing the smile
he wore a moment earlier as he chatted in the San Francisco Giants' locker
room.

Steroids and supplements are not Bonds' favorite subjects, and Canseco
probably should not ask him to write a foreword for his book.

Bonds has grown weary of suspicions that chemicals have helped him
transform his body in recent years into a Mr. Universe contender and given
him the extra power to hit 73 homers last season and 15 so far this year.

He has denied using steroids and said tests would show he's clean. Of
course, baseball has no drug tests, so people will just have to take Bonds'
word for it. Or not.

Bonds has an upper torso that looks six sizes larger than the one he had
just a few years ago. The bulging veins on his biceps look like fat worms.
Even his shaved scalp seems to ripple with muscles.

He says that's all from fierce workouts, four to five hours a day, in the
offseason. Maybe so. More to the point, does it matter?

Unlike the Olympics, the NCAA, pro football and several other sports,
baseball has no rules against steroids. The players' association won't
stand for drug tests and the owners aren't pushing for them. It's not in
either side's economic interest to stop players from bulking up to hit more
homers.

There are two parts of the steroid debate that baseball is avoiding by
keeping its head buried on the issue. One is about health, the other about
the concept of a level playing field.

For Bonds, neither one is particularly relevant.

``Doctors ought to quit worrying about what ballplayers are taking,'' Bonds
said when told doctors have suggested that widespread use of steroids in
baseball -- 10 to 50 percent, by some estimates -- may cause liver, kidney
or heart problems.

``What players take doesn't matter,'' Bonds said. ``It's nobody else's
business. The doctors should spend their time looking for cures for cancer.
It takes more than muscles to hit homers. If all those guys were using
stuff, how come they're not all hitting homers?''

Canseco admitted trying his share of chemicals as he built himself up into
an incredible hulk during a career that promised greatness but fell short
of Hall of Fame certainty because of injuries.

He spurred the muscle-building boom in baseball, along with former Oakland
Athletics bash brother Mark McGwire, who acknowledged during his 70-homer
season in 1998 that he used testosterone-booster androstenedione.

Bonds broke that record last season and, like McGwire, believes that bigger
muscles are a small part of hitting homers.

They're entirely right in that regard.

Hitting lots of homers takes superior hand-eye coordination, great
reflexes, bat speed, knowledge of pitchers, anticipation of pitches, a
grooved stroke, among other things. Muscles help, which is why Bonds,
McGwire, Canseco, Sammy Sosa and others beefed up, but they're not everything.

Yet to dismiss steroids as innocuous or irrelevant is to miss a larger
issue. Sure McGwire hit plenty of homers before he took andro. But Ben
Johnson was fast before he took anabolic steroids. Whether the steroids
gave Johnson a small or great advantage over Carl Lewis at the 1988
Olympics doesn't matter. Any advantage was considered cheating, and using
steroids was against the rules.

McGwire couldn't cheat or break any rules because there weren't any in
baseball. And there still aren't.

Right or wrong, the sport has decided it doesn't need a drug policy to
regulate steroids and supplements. Anyone can use them. Whatever Bonds
does, as he says, is his business. To a degree.

Kids watch the pros and try to take after them. The more players are
perceived to be using steroids and supplements, the more young athletes
will try them.

McGwire realized that as andro sales soared in the months after he
acknowledged using it. A year later, he said he stopped using it because he
didn't want kids taking andro in his name.

If Bonds is not taking steroids, as he says, he would be a model for pure
hard work -- a man who transformed his body in his 30s and broke records by
grunting through workouts, studying pitchers and sharpening his skills.
That's worth believing in and hoping kids will copy.

==========
  From ESPN:
Canseco's book no chance to be another 'Ball Four'
By Jim Caple

Jim Bouton, author of the most famous inside-the-clubhouse book in baseball
history, has three words of advice for Jose Canseco regarding his threat to
write a scorched-earth, salt-the-land, tell-all book: "No way, Jose.''

For one thing, Canseco may have had a relationship with Madonna and his own
1-888 phone line, but his career misses one crucial, Dickensian plot
element Bouton had going for him in "Ball Four." And that is: "Jose lacks
Joe Schultz,'' Bouton said, referring to the late Seattle Pilots manager
and noted Budweiser connoisseur. "And if you haven't got Joe Schultz, you
haven't got a book.''

" Everyone calls it a tell-all book, but it wasn't a tell-all book. It was
a tell-something book. It sounds like Jose will write the book I was
accused of writing. "  - Jim Bouton, author of the book "Ball Four," on the
book Jose Canseco is expected to write

Secondly, Bouton questions whether there is anything left that will shock
modern fans. "What's he going to say? There are athletes who use steroids?
We know that. He'll have to do better than that. He'll have to say players
are reclaiming body parts.''

Further, Bouton doubts whether Canseco could write an accurate tell-all
book if he wasn't keeping contemporaneous notes throughout his career, as
Bouton did while writing "Ball Four'' during the 1969 season. "What, is he
the Amazing Kreskin?" Bouton asked.

"I would take notes during the day and talk them into a tape recorder at
night. I realized that if I didn't write the quotes down the first day, I
couldn't remember them.''

But mostly, Bouton questions Canseco's motive. From much of what Canseco
has said so far, his main motivation for writing the book seems to be
getting back at people he thinks wronged him in recent years. From the
sounds of it, Bouton says, Canseco isn't writing a book so much as
"publishing an indictment.''

Revenge was not Bouton's motivation in writing "Ball Four.'' It simply was
to tell what it really was like to play major-league baseball in as
entertaining a way he could.

"I wanted people to see the funny, strange lifestyle of a ballplayer. And
in the process, I didn't want to b.s. people about what it was like,'' he
said. "But I also left out the racist stuff. I left out the anti-Semitic
stuff. The sex stories were all anonymous. Everyone calls it a tell-all
book, but it wasn't a tell-all book. It was a tell-something book.

"It sounds like Jose will write the book I was accused of writing.''

"Ball Four'' is famous for its stories of drunk, sex-crazed ballplayers but
that's not why the New York Public Library picked it as one of the 100 most
important books of the century. What makes "Ball Four'' so compelling, so
readable and so important is that Bouton wrote about so much more. He
captured an era of baseball -- and America -- as no historian could. Sure,
he wrote about beaver-shooting, but he also wrote about the many changes in
the game, the coming of the players union, the changing role of sports in
our culture and the social revolution of the era.

Without including such things, Bouton says, "You just have an itemized list
of bad things people do.''

I always found Canseco to be a funny, sharp, likeable guy who was wildly
entertaining in the way only the fabulously rich, immensely talented and
incredibly self-absorbed can be. That Jose could write a terrifically
readable biography -- "Weekends With Jose'' -- that would ride the
bestseller lists so long you would think it was a sensitive novel of
women's empowerment on Oprah's Book Club.

But Canseco hasn't sounded much like the old Jose during his round of talk
shows while hyping this book. Instead, he sounds like a bitter, paranoid
man about to give us "Teammate Dearest.''

I told you: NO WIRE HANGERS IN THE CLUBHOUSE -- EVER!!!!

There would be real value to Canseco revealing the "truth'' behind steroid
use in baseball -- it likely is the most significant change in the way the
game is played over the past two decades -- but as Bouton says, that's only
enough for a magazine article. For his entire book to be worth reading
beyond the steroid excerpts, for it to stand out from the usual suspects
that make up player biographies ("Kansas City Monarch -- the Tony Muser
Story"), he must tell it from the old Jose's perspective instead of the new
Jose's agenda.

And it also will help if Joe Schultz was somehow in Madonna's apartment
that night in New York, too.

==========
  From the Globe and Mail:
Brunt: Canseco's steroid story no blockbuster
By STEPHEN BRUNT

So Jose Canseco was on steroids. Who knew?

Well, pretty nearly everyone, it seems, though, of course, you never read
about it in a forum like this, for good, solid legal reasons. Absent the
opportunity to actually witness the injection, followed by a chemical
analysis of that mysterious cloudy liquid in the syringe, those aren't the
kind of accusations one can casually fling around.

Canseco is now threatening to write a tell-all book - though he won't be
naming names, other than his own, for exactly the same reasons that
reporters couldn't. Still, it's hard to imagine what he could possibly
reveal that would shock anyone who's been paying attention.

Looking at the guy - in fact, looking at all kinds of guys who passed
through the Oakland Athletics' organization - one sensed either an
obsessional devotion to the weight room normally reserved for Mr. Universe
candidates, or an obsessional devotion to the weight room and the needle,
also normally reserved for Mr. Universe candidates.

Still, since they don't bother testing in baseball, it's not cheating,
technically or otherwise. And since, in recent years, so many players
around the game have grown to resemble the old Bash Brothers, including
those who are rewriting the record books in terms of home runs, it's
possible to surmise that steroid use is gaining wider acceptance.

As was pointed out over and over again when Mark McGwire's androstenedione
use became public, drugs don't make great hitters out of lousy hitters.
There are few more daunting motor challenges in all of sport than striking
a round ball, thrown with precision and spin at 90 miles an hour and more,
with a cylindrical bat. Muscle alone won't do that for you.

But muscle obviously doesn't hurt, especially when you don't make contact
quite right, when you're pushing a ball to the opposite field or when what
otherwise might be a harmless fly somehow sails over the fence. As is the
case in all sports, if the drugs didn't work, no one would use them, given
the health risks. And the payoff is obvious, given the riches that come
with professional athletic success.

So that sad state of affairs ought to be a given by now: all of your
sporting heroes are not simon-pure when it comes to performance-enhancing
substances. Still, what's this latest round of whistle blowing likely to mean?

The short answer is nothing. Neither of the big powers in baseball, the
players association or the owners, seems particularly interested in getting
to the bottom of drug use, other than the recreational form (since a
testing program would have to be collectively bargained, don't hold your
breath, especially with so many larger labour issues still to be resolved).
And even before they had bigger things to worry about, including the
imminent cancellation of another World Series as part of another long, ugly
work stoppage, baseball's remaining fans didn't seem overly concerned about
McGwire's dabbling in pharmacology. Let us enjoy the feel-good story, they
said, and spare us the grisly details.

In the Olympics, where the veneer of purity is an essential component of
the product (it's a big part of the reason people tune in to sports they
happily ignore the rest of the time), the battle between the cheaters and
the testers will continue because there's something in it for the
International Olympic Committee.

But in professional sports, the question has become about as relevant as
wondering whether a Hollywood star has undergone cosmetic surgery. It's
interesting to speculate, but at the box office, no one's making
ticket-buying decisions on a moral basis.

When fans watch athletes getting bigger, stronger and faster at a rate that
seems to outpace human evolution, when they see players doing what no one
could have imagined even 10 or 15 years ago, they might pause for a moment
and wonder. But just for a moment - then it's back to worrying about how
the home team is going to find one of those 300-pound guys who runs a 4.4
40, or a slugger with the Adonis upper body who seems to be able to miss a
pitch yet still hit it out.

It's all entertainment, folks. The fact is that if Ben Johnson had been a
football or baseball player instead of an Olympic sprinter, he would have
never suffered that embarrassing career interruption.

So we'll wait for Canseco's book, and the tsk-tsking and hand-wringing that
will inevitably follow. Then we'll watch another ball sail way, way out of
the park and listen as the fans stand and cheer.

==========
  From Bloomberg.com:
Author Jim Bouton Advises Jose Canseco to Pass on Tell-All Book
By Jerry Crasnick

New York, May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Bouton has some advice for Jose
Canseco, who's planning to write a tell-all book about Major League Baseball.

Don't tell.

Bouton's ``Ball Four,'' a groundbreaking 1970 book that gave readers an
inside look at the lives of major-league players, sold more than 5 million
copies and ranked among the New York Public Library's Books of the Century
in 1995.

But Bouton sees few parallels between his book and the one proposed by
Canseco, the former big-league slugger who said he plans to reveal secrets
about steroid use, racism and the sex lives of players.

``I don't want to be lumped with Jose Canseco,'' Bouton said in a phone
interview from his home in North Egremont, Massachusetts. ``It sounds like
he's writing the book I was accused of writing.''

Bouton isn't sure if Canseco, who announced his retirement as a player last
week, can provide enough titillating details to attract an audience or live
up to the hype.

``To top what goes on in the news everyday, he would have to find a
professional athlete who has killed three or more people,'' Bouton said.
``And on the medical side, he'd have to find not just steroid use, but
somebody who is now pitching with cloned body parts. Other than that, he's
behind the curve.''

Canseco, 37, hit 462 home runs in the big leagues and routinely made
headlines with his personal life. He dated Madonna, received a speeding
ticket for driving 125 miles an hour in his Jaguar, and was involved in a
Halloween night fight last year at a Miami nightclub with his twin brother,
Ozzie.

`Extraordinary Life'

``If you're a baseball purist like me, you know the season doesn't really
begin until Jose Canseco gets arrested,'' talk show host David Letterman
once joked.

Canseco signed with the Montreal Expos in February, but was released before
the end of spring training. He was hitting .172 for the Chicago White Sox'
Triple-A Charlotte farm club when he decided to retire.

Canseco didn't return calls seeking comment. Tampa sportswriter Bill
Chastain, who will write the book, said it will be about more than naming
names and fueling controversy.

``One thing that's gotten lost in the translation is that Jose has led an
extraordinary life,'' Chastain said. ``I remember times when the writers
would stand around and say, `How would you like to be Jose for a day?' Very
few people have walked in his shoes.''

Chastain, whose agent is negotiating with potential publishers, said
Canseco isn't expecting to write the next ``Ball Four.''

``That's the king of all sports books,'' Chastain said. ``It would be hard
for anything to compare with it.''

Fun and Nonsense

Bouton was a knuckleball pitcher nearing the end of his career when he
wrote a diary of his experiences with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros
during the 1969 season.

Although Bouton wrote about former New York Yankees star Mickey Mantle
hitting a home run with a hangover and ballplayers carousing and taking
amphetamines, he said the main purpose of his book was to share the fun of
professional baseball with fans.

``My book was called a tell-all book, but I used to say it's a `tell-from'
book,'' Bouton said. ``I didn't quote anybody making racial remarks or
anti-Semitic comments, and I didn't name any names on the sexy stories.
He's going to do all of those things.''

Bouton said the comical tone of ``Ball Four'' was what ultimately
contributed to its popularity. He said Canseco, who told ESPN Radio last
week that he was ``blackballed'' from baseball, would be making a mistake
to write a book out of anger.

``I wasn't looking to rip people or expose things,'' Bouton said. ``I just
wanted to share the fun and the nonsense.''

==========
  From STL Today:
GIVE US SOME REAL NEWS

When former big league pitcher Jim Bouton wrote the classic book "Ball
Four," he broke new ground by giving readers a frank and entertaining look
behind the scenes of major league baseball.

He made mythical figures appear human -- too human for many of his former
teammates.

Now Bouton warns Jose Canseco that writing such a book can't possibly have
the same impact, since the media has been in the "tell-all" business for
many years. What's left to expose?

"To top what goes on in the news, he would have to find a pro athlete who
has killed three or more people," Bouton said. "And on the medical side,
he'd have to find not just steroid use, but somebody who is now pitching
with cloned body parts. Other than that, he's behind the curve."

==========
  From the Washington Post:

Two priceless Barry Bonds quotes from the last week...

On Jose Canseco's vow to write a tell-all book about steroid use in
baseball: "I think it's just sad. I don't know what Jose's frustration is. I
like the guy personally. I just don't understand where he's going with it.
Players didn't do anything to Jose Canseco. We admired him as a player. . .
. It kind of reminds me of my ex-wife. You get [peeved], you want half."

==========
  From MSNBC:
Canseco's motives very much in question
Former slugger bitter enough to try to take down baseball with him
By Mike Celizic

May 26 -  We can always hope that one day the public will be struck by an
insatiable desire for somebody to "out" the good guys in sports, and we'll
be inundated by books that name athletes who eat oatmeal for breakfast,
drink a warm glass of milk before going to bed, secretly slip out on off
days to help disadvantaged children with their homework, and have never
slept with anyone other than their wives.

IN THE MEANTIME, we're stuck with people like Jose Canseco, ex-baseball
player and aspiring author, who can't rest until they tell us all the dirt
they think they know about everyone who's ever been admired even a little bit.

Canseco, as you've surely heard, is shopping for a publisher for his life
story, a story which has been pretty well covered in the newspapers,
much of it taken direct from police reports. In it, he promises to destroy
heroes, blow the lid on steroid use in baseball, and, no doubt, whine about
how poorly he's been treated by the game, the fans, the media, women, and,
or course, those pesky police.

He's angry, you see, because he can't get a job in baseball anymore, and he
knows why. Friends in the movie business, he says, tell him he's been
blackballed by baseball, and he believes them, which leads one to wonder
whether he goes to strict vegetarians for advice on how to prepare veal
cutlets, or asks mendicant monks for investment advice. The fact he was
hitting .172 in Triple A when he retired last week apparently had nothing
to do with his inability to land a job on a major league roster.

But the World According to Jose is that kind of place. This is a guy who's
played for just about every team in baseball at one time or another despite
the fact he can't catch a beach ball with a fishing net and has been
arrested so often he's got holding cells named after him. It is an
incontestable fact that baseball team owners don't care if you come with
more baggage than a 747 landing with 400 tourists in Hawaii. If you can
play the game, you'll get a job.

When he came up, fans and writers wanted him to be a hero. They oohed at
his monster home runs, aahed at his Mr. Universe physique, and women
swooned at his handsome visage. He was the one who blew it, and no one else.

And now he wants to write about his life, and you have to wonder why guys
who give every impression of never having read a book always seem to be the
ones who feel that they need to write a book, never considering that if
they wouldn't read it, why should anyone else?

He'll get a contract, of course, because book publishers are notorious
suckers when it comes to paying absurd amounts of money for the life
stories of uninteresting people. And Canseco is as interesting as an empty
bottle. Oh, he's arrogant, self-absorbed, and narcissistic, and he seems to
also be a bit paranoid, but that's not interesting, just sad. Will it be
worth $24.95 to find out what happened on his date with Madonna? Not here.

But he's going to name players who do steroids, although he won't say just
yet whether he was one of them, telling interviewers that it will
be in the book. Of course, if you go by his estimate that 85 percent of
major leaguers do steroids, it would be hard to eliminate him from the long
list of suspects. Few people in the game carried more muscle and less body
fat than he.

Injuries wrecked his shot at the Hall of Fame, and now he seems intent on
taking the game that paid him millions down with him. I think it's
safe to say that no one's going to erect a statue to him outside a stadium
or name a street after him. But, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to name
something after him, something like an insect. They could call it the
Canseco Field Louse.

==========
  From the Dallas Morning News:
Between the seams: Carries a big pen - Canseco's book would shake up baseball
By Kevin Sherrington

Jose Canseco has created a stir around major-league baseball with his
threat to write a tell-all book about the habits of ballplayers.

DALLAS - Jose Canseco has put down his bat and picked up his pen, and Lord
knows which might prove a scarier weapon.

Ozzie's more famous twin threatens to tell all about steroids and
womanizing, and not just on his part, either.

Counselors will tell you this is what happens when you feel forced to
retire only 38 home runs short of the magical 500 and an almost sure
induction into the Hall of Fame.

Chances are, if a career rife with injuries and indifferent play doesn't
keep Canseco out, a book about steroids will.

Hey, even a chapter about his short, but memorable, stay with the Texas
Rangers might be enough to keep him out.

First scene, Wednesday in Cleveland, 1993: Canseco goes to the warning
track in right field on Carlos Martinez's lazy fly, which seems harmless
enough until conking Canseco on the head.

Up and over the fence the ball bounces, leaving the official scorer to
wonder, perhaps, if Martinez gets a home run or an assist.

Asked if he has seen anything like it, Rangers hitting coach Willie Upshaw
says, "In the cartoons."

Second scene, three days later in Boston: Manager Kevin Kennedy, fed up by
his staff's pitching in what would be a 15-1 loss, calls for Canseco, who
reminds no one of Rollie Fingers.

Says Canseco: "I'll be better next time."

Unfortunately, Canseco hurt his arm in his pitching debut, ultimately
leaving the door open for Hideki Irabu.

Over the next 10 years, Canseco only occasionally reminded you of what he
had once been: a unanimous MVP in '88 as well as the first man to hit 40
home runs and steal 40 bases, and one of only nine to hit 400 home runs and
steal 200 bases.

All are numbers that still should get him some consideration for the Hall,
his stay with the Rangers notwithstanding.

"He should still be proud of himself," Mike Piazza said. "He really did a
lot to further the game and raise the bar for all the players today."

Question: Just what did he ingest to raise that bar, and what were the
long-term effects it had on his body and baseball?

Canseco's physique wasn't the first to raise suspicions of steroid use, but
no one was a more spectacular case study.

He won't comment on whether he used steroids, which are not illegal in
baseball, saying it'll all be in the book. But already you can see the
repercussions.

A reporter recently wandered up to Barry Bonds, who became baseball's home
run king after increasing exponentially in size, and asked what he thought
about Canseco's charges.

"What players take doesn't matter," Bonds snapped. "It's nobody else's
business."

Oh, but it does matter. It matters if it gives them an advantage, and if
other players feel obligated to use them to keep up.

It matters if they're using something as dangerous as steroids, with all
the health risks involved.

Pro baseball players always look for an advantage. Stealing signs. Scuffing
balls. Corking bats. Most who do it don't consider it cheating, just being
"competitive."

You stand in a batter's box while a guy comes at you with a 96 mph fastball
or a knee-buckling slider or a drop-dead split-finger, and you'll take all
the help you can get. Mentally or physically.

Once, players used uppers, or "greenies" to steel themselves for such
encounters.

A former player defined the difference between greenies and steroids in a
conversation this spring.

"With greenies," he said, "you just thought you were better than you really
were.

"With steroids, you really are."

No one in the game wants to do anything about it, though, or even talk
about it. Not with all the publicity home runs generate, and not with the
bad public relations the labor situation causes.

Now along comes Jose Canseco, threatening to tell all. He's doing it
because he thinks he was blackballed, perhaps from a place as high as the
commissioner's office, where his former Oakland boss, Sandy Alderson, is
employed.

Maybe so. More than likely, teams just aren't interested in a guy hitting
.173 who breaks down easily and is no longer what he once seemed, standing
in a box, snorting and twitching and oozing malevolence.

In Texas, he was a curiosity, more slapstick than big stick. Now, even
without his bat, he could be as dangerous as ever, and so much the better.

==========
  From renowned baseball statistician Bill James:

I wonder if I could weigh in here on a couple of issues. . .I may go on at
some length, but you don't have to read it if you don't care.
First, Jose Can Sock 'em as a Hall of Famer.   By my reckoning, Canseco is
approximately the 240th best player in major league history-a lofty
postion, I think, but not one that warrants Hall of Fame selection.

I did a search for players who were "profoundly similar" to Canseco based
on an as-yet unpublished method of evaluating Value Pattern
Similarity.    What I was looking for here was not players who had similar
NUMBERS to Canseco, on a superficial level -- that is, not players who had
about 462 homers, not players who drove in about 1407 runs, not players who
hit about .266, but players who had similar VALUE to Canseco, specifically
in terms of:

       1)  career Win Shares,
       2)  the division of value between hitting, fielding and pitching, and
       3)  similar value to Canseco AT EACH AGE.

My conclusion was that the most profoundly similar players to Canseco, in
terms of value, were:

     1.  Willie Horton (799)
     2.  Jim Bottomley (795)
     3.  Greg Luzinski (795)
     4.  Jim Rice (785)
     5.  Boog Powell (778)
     6.  Don Mattingly (775)
     7.  Darryl Strawberry (773)
     8.  Frank Howard (771)
     9.  Frank Chance (770)
     10.  Jack Clark (766)

Of the ten most-comparable players, two are in the Hall of Fame, Jim
Bottomley and Frank Chance, and two more, Rice and Mattingly, are popular
Hall of Fame candidates.  However, the selections of Bottomley and Chance
were both regrettable, in my opinion, and, while I respect Rice and
Mattingly, as I do Canseco, I personally would not want to put any of the
three in the Hall of Fame.  The list after that is still kind of
interesting, so I'll carry it on. . .

     11.  Joe Jackson (765)
     12.  Don Baylor (760)
     13.  Orlando Cepeda (759)
     14.  Bobby Murcer (755)
     15.  Will Clark (747)
     16.  Ed Konetchy (746)
     17.  Joe Medwick (745)
     18.  Keith Hernandez (742)

After that one has to squint harder and harder to see the similarity to
Canseco, so I'll drop it.   I also note how many of these guys won ONE MVP
award, but only one. . .one could almost call this the "one MVP slugger's
list".

==========
  From ESPN:
MVP in 1996 says taking steroids wasn't a mistake

NEW YORK -- Ken Caminiti, the National League's Most Valuable Player in
1996, says he won the award while on steroids and that at least half of
major-leaguers use the drugs.

In a Sports Illustrated report on steroids in baseball, Caminiti confirmed
he used them the season he batted a career-high .326 with 40 home runs and
130 runs batted in for the San Diego Padres.

``I've made a ton of mistakes,'' said Caminiti, a recovering alcoholic and
former drug user whose 15-year career ended last season. ``I don't think
using steroids is one of them.

``It's no secret what's going on in baseball. At least half the guys are
using steroids. They talk about it. They joke about it with each other.''

Arizona pitcher Curt Schilling said steroid use was rampant within the game.

``I'm not sure how (it) snuck in so quickly, but it's become a prominent
thing very quickly. It's widely known in the game,'' he told Sports
Illustrated. ``When you add in steroids and strength training, you're
seeing records not just being broken but completely shattered.''

The NFL and NBA prohibit steroids and test for them. The NHL and Major
League Baseball, however, have no policy regarding their use. A ban in
baseball would have to be collectively bargained with the Players Association.

``No one denies that it is a problem,'' commissioner Bud Selig said. ``It's
a problem we can and must deal with now. ... I'm very worried about this.''

After retiring from baseball this season, Jose Canseco said he planned to
write a book about drug use in the majors. He estimated that 85 percent of
major-leaguers use steroids.

Texas pitcher Kenny Rogers told Sports Illustrated: ``Basically, steroids
can jump you a level or two. The average player can become a star and the
star player can become a superstar. And the superstar? Forget it. He can do
things we've never seen before.''

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, who set the single-season home run
record with 73 last season, denied using steroids and said tests would show
he's clean.

``Doctors ought to quit worrying about what ballplayers are taking,'' Bonds
told The Associated Press last week. ``What players take doesn't matter.
It's nobody else's business. The doctors should spend their time looking
for cures for cancer. It takes more than muscles to hit homers. If all
those guys were using stuff, how come they're not all hitting homers?''

Anabolic steroids elevate the body's testosterone, increasing muscle mass.
They are illegal in the United States unless prescribed by a physician for
medical reasons. Side effects can include heart and liver damage,
endocrine-system imbalance, elevated cholesterol levels, strokes,
aggressive behavior and genitalia dysfunction.

==========
  From the Pioneer Press:
Steroid users in own league
By TOM POWERS

Recently retired Bash Brother Jose Canseco has threatened to write a
tell-all book in which he details, among other things, the commonplace use
of steroids among major league baseball players.

No doubt he expected everyone to "ooohh" and "ahhhh" at the mention of such
a thing. Give me a break. What else is Canseco going to reveal in his book,
that ballplayers chew tobacco and scratch themselves? No!

Since 1990 there have been 17 instances in which a player has hit 50 or
more home runs in a season. In the more than 100 years of professional
baseball leading up to 1990, there had been 17 such instances.

If this keeps up, they will have to put an asterisk next to Babe Ruth's
name in the record book. In the footnote it will explain: "non-steroid."

Canseco estimates that up to 85 percent of major leaguers use steroids or
performance enhancers. Surely that's far too high. But you should see some
of these fellows up close with their shirts off. They are monsters.

You know how a bratwurst looks just before it splits open on a grill? Well,
imagine it wearing baseball cap and cleats, and you'll get some idea.

Baseball does not test for steroids. It's the only major sport that
doesn't. The reason is that a testing arrangement hasn't been negotiated
with the players union. Most organizations, including the Twins, test in
the minor leagues.

"In our minor leagues we test for steroids, and it's a good system," said
general manager Terry Ryan. "I think baseball people certainly are
concerned about steroid use. But it's a tough situation. Unless they change
the union stance, there is nothing we can do."

So baseball's policy is "Don't ask, don't tell, just watch 'em swell."

Almost all steroids are illegal without a prescription. And it seems
unlikely that any physician would prescribe the massive amount it takes to
bulk up into the Terminator. Maybe Elvis' doctor would. But that's about
it. Yet it's coming from somewhere.

Canseco always has been considered the poster boy for steroids. It long has
been rumored that he was among the first ballplayers to redesign himself
into Robocop. He doesn't deny it and has said he will address it in his book.

I couldn't say for sure which players use steroids. I've seen more
reasonable estimates anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent. The most
anyone ever admitted to was an over-the-counter product such as
androstenedione, a testosterone booster used by Mark McGwire during the
season in which he broke Roger Maris' home run record.

Some are pointing fingers at current home run king Bobby Bonds, who showed
up in spring training two years ago with muscles on top of his muscles.
Bonds bristles at the accusations and insists his new physique comes from
weight training.

It takes more than just muscles to hit home runs. There's also no doubt
that because of expansion, major league pitching is pretty thin. And not
all home run hitters use steroids, just as steroid usage isn't limited to
home run hitters.

But the current homer totals are astonishing. Some of these fellows are
check-swinging the ball over the fence.

Nothing is going to be done about it. Owners and players have other issues
to be negotiated, issues they consider much more important. Nearly all have
to do with money.

Many argue that baseball's hallowed records have become cheapened. There is
a bright side, however. I think everyone, especially young people, should
develop a new appreciation for the old-time ballplayers and what they
accomplished.

Think of Harmon Killebrew, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays hitting all those
home runs using only the physical attributes the good Lord gave them. The
Babe trained on beer and hot dogs, not andro. More recently, Twins slugger
Kent Hrbek wasn't on steroids, he was on ice cream bars.

Many believe the big steroid revolution in baseball began in the mid-'80s.
That probably means that some of the side effects will begin showing up
soon. For instance, if you see a former ballplayer with two heads or maybe
with his buttocks scraping the ground as he walks, it might be a tip-off.

The only deterrent may be a good scare.

==========
  From Sports Illustrated:

...I was speaking with a NL general manager about Jose Canseco, the
recently retired major leaguer who estimated that 85 percent of players are
on steroids (a figure designed for shock value, I reckoned). He promises to
write a tell-all book. Some players I've talked to were miffed, wondering
how "one of their own" would hurt a game that has enriched him. The GM,
however, had a very different take. All reform begins with education. "That
could be good," the general manager said. "Maybe some good will come from
it." He needn't wait for the book. The secret is out...

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers the baseball beat for
the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. His cover story on
steroid use in baseball appears in the June 3 issue and is on newsstands now.

==========
  From the Washington Post:
Steroid Use Gets Mixed Response
Union Against Testing; Players Angry, Indifferent
By Amy Shipley
May 30, 2002

"At least half the guys are using steroids," said Ken Caminiti, a former
user. One player said steroids have led to "tainted records."

A day after it was revealed that Ken Caminiti took steroids when he won the
National League most valuable player award in 1996, players in major league
clubhouses around the country reacted largely with indifference, though
some voiced displeasure with Caminiti and recently retired major leaguer
Jose Canseco for publicly stating that a high percentage of major leaguers
use the drugs.

A few players said they would favor drug testing -- unlike in the NFL, NBA,
NCAA and Olympic movement, baseball does no testing -- but doubted that the
Major League Baseball Players Association, considered the strongest union
in U.S. professional sports, would agree to it because of privacy issues
and distrust of baseball's ownership.

"It won't happen; the union won't allow it," Florida Marlins infielder Mike
Lowell said in Miami. "No one wants to go against the union, and what the
union tells us is that [accepting a drug policy] would open the door to
unfair treatment in other areas."

In this week's Sports Illustrated, Caminiti admitted using steroids and
estimated that 50 percent of major league players also use them. Canseco
put the figure at 85 percent. On Wednesday, players around the league
seemed far more disturbed by Caminiti's and Canseco's estimates than the
issue of steroids themselves and their prevalence, and whether their use
could be affecting major league records and players' health.

"For those guys to come back and say that now is [nonsense]," veteran
Chicago Cubs infielder Delino DeShields said in Pittsburgh. "That's
probably one of the most uncool things I've heard of in a long time. I just
shake my head. Regardless of whether [Caminiti's comments are] off-base or
on-base or what, it's wrong."

In Miami, Cliff Floyd said he would favor drug testing, but he, too,
criticized the players for speaking out, saying their comments had brought
undesirable attention to the game.

"With no disrespect to Caminiti and Canseco, if you leave the game, just
retire," Floyd said from the Florida Marlins' clubhouse. "Don't start
talking about guys still doing their thing. That bothers me. . . . I
definitely wish it hadn't come up."

Sammy Sosa of the Cubs and Ken Griffey Jr. of the Cincinnati Reds said they
haven't taken steroids and don't care who does. In Pittsburgh, Sosa, who
has hit 60 or more home runs three times since 1998, said he wasn't worried
about drugs in baseball -- even illegal ones such as steroids -- because
"it's a free country. I'm just here to play baseball. That's all."

Griffey agreed, shrugging when asked about steroids.

"To each his own," Griffey said from Miami. "Guys want to use it in
baseball, I don't really care. I'm not doing it. They've still got to hit
the ball, they've got to run, they've got to throw. The only thing they use
it for is to hit the ball farther."

If a collective shrug arose from baseball's clubhouses, baseball's leaders
seemed to sense they had a burgeoning problem on their hands. Emerging from
a meeting with baseball's ownership in Chicago, Commissioner Bud Selig said
the issue did not come up during the meeting, but that he was worried about it.

"I've been concerned for the last two or three years," Selig said. "The
problem needs to be addressed."

Robert Manfred Jr., MLB's executive vice president/labor and human
resources, added that: "I think the SI story is indicative of what we
already knew: We have a problem out there with steroids and other
performance-enhancing substances."

Manfred said approval of a management-proposed testing program for players
at the major league level would complete a four-part initiative introduced
two years ago by Selig. Manfred said baseball proposes testing for 17
steroids, as well as cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines, opiates and ecstasy.

He said the union has not made a counterproposal.

In the past, players union head Don Fehr has cited privacy issues in
rebuffing calls for drug-testing efforts by the owners. Fehr did not return
messages left on his cell phone, but the Oakland Athletics' Scott
Hatteberg, a member of the union's executive board, said he believed the
players' association would be willing to include the issue in the next
collective bargaining agreement. Both sides are negotiating a new
agreement; the previous one expired after last season.

"I think most players are in favor of leveling the playing field, and I'm
100 percent behind that," Hatteberg said in Baltimore. "The concern is the
other issues being raised with that. How would you go about testing
exclusively for steroids? There are parameters that need to be put in
place. I have a feeling it will be addressed in the new agreement, as well
it should be. . . . Young players who come up nowadays, they're almost
forced to use [steroids]."

Union spokesman Greg Bouris did not say whether the union favors drug
testing but said the subject would be dealt with. "The association regards
the issue as a serious and complicated one and will treat those discussions
accordingly," he said.

Reds Manager Bob Boone said he doubted Caminiti's estimate that 50 percent
of players were using steroids. He said, however, that baseball has been in
denial about the issue for years.

"If even one player has a problem with it, it's a problem for baseball,"
Boone said. "I think the problem needs to be addressed. We've had our head
in the sand for a long time, but I think [dealing with it] will be
inescapable now."

Hey everyone,

Sorry I missed BOTH Canseco chats I set up over the last few days.  I hope
you guys enjoyed them.

Since his retirement, there sure has been a lot of news out there about
Jose.  Of course the "Will Jose get in the Hall of Fame or not?" debate has
begun, but Jose's promises of writing a tell-all book are generating just
as many headlines.  Jose says up to 85% of baseball players use
steroids.  Wow.  Of course, there is no drug testing in baseball for some
reason, but this revelation has sparked some interesting debate.

I know I promised I'd set up a way for you to send a note to Jose, but
that's going to have to wait until next week.  Sorry, but there's no way I
can handle the huge response I'm expecting just yet.  I'll keep you posted.

All the latest news is below, including some big stuff I have never heard
before.  Check out this sneak peek from one of the articles:

---
"He was the picture of greatness; he did everything on an All-Star level,"
(Dave) Henderson said of Canseco. "But then he got lost and bored. He
became very average and one-dimensional. He just wanted to hit home runs."

Henderson said that he, Stewart and Carney Lansford, the leaders of those
dominating A's clubs, went to management and asked that Canseco be dealt,
that his laissez-faire attitude should no longer be tolerated.
---

Wow.  I never knew that.

-Mark

==========
  From NoLoadSports.com:
Billy Crystal had Mickey Mantle. I had Jose Canseco.
By Scott Stolze

Crystal is rich and famous. I am neither. But, while I will never have
Crystal’s humor, or money, or name, I do share one thing in common with
this particular King of Comedy, and that is a passion for a ballplayer who
gave me the chance to grow up with a real, live sports hero.

For the better part of a decade starting about 1976 ­ now old enough to
follow sports ­ I rooted for teams. I cried when the Bengals lost Super
Bowl XVI, I cheered when the Julius and Moses-led 76ers claimed the 1983
NBA Title. But something changed in 1985. From the moment he arrived in the
big leagues, I followed Jose Canseco’s every move, every at bat. Sure, I
still rooted for the A’s as a team. I had liked them since the BillyBall
era. But it was different now, because whereas before it was an interest,
now it was a passion.

Having a sports hero changes everything for a kid. Instead of just rooting
for a logo, or a color, now you’re rooting for a person as well. As kids
we’re most impressionable. Do we learn or get guidance or inspiration from
symbols? Well, maybe, if you loved Black Sabbath. But more often than not
kids look up to people, be it parents, big brothers and sisters, teachers.
Sometimes, for boys anyway, it’s an athlete. And why not? They may not get
to teach all the values, but they sure come in handy when playing wiffle
ball in the back yard or tackle football at the park. You know how many
kids must have imitated Tony Dorsett when carrying the ball in a game of
football with friends in the early 80s? I even tried to be him. But most
often, I was Jose Canseco swinging to bomb one over the bush in the backyard.

Having a hero does more than just affect how you play games, though. It
means running to the only variety store in town that carried the one local
paper which had late West Coast boxscores every single day after school so
you can see what Jose did the night before; it’s lying in bed at night
listening to a game on the radio so you can hear all four of his at bats;
it’s tuning into the sports updates every half hour on CBS News radio in
the hopes that you’ll hear his name called for having a big hit in an
Oakland game; it’s going to a dumpy old high school on a rainy day to see
him at a baseball card show so you can get his autograph; it’s collecting
all newspaper articles relevant to him and tucking them away, protected by
plastic, in a baseball card album; it’s driving four and a half hours from
your college campus to the spring training site of his team to hope beyond
hope that you not only see him working out but that you get to see him play
a full game; it’s running home from school on the day of Game 1 of the ALCS
to see him hit a bomb over the Green Monster courtesy of a Roger Clemens
fastball; it’s memorizing stats, every year, so thoroughly that you could
recite his HR total after years two, three, five or seven of his career;
most importantly, it’s having fun, a connection, and a reason to root.

Sports are much more than liking a player. We see unbelievably exciting
games, we remember a first visit to a certain stadium, we root against
players and teams we don’t like, or better yet, we root for underdogs. And,
when championships are won, we celebrate like we were part of the winning
team. But, for all those special moments, they are just that, a moment. A
Gators win in Knoxville, nice. A Uconn National Championship, what a story.
A Stanley Cup lifted by the Colorado Avalanche, hey, awesome. But 17 years,
17 years of stories, ups, downs, prolific swings and home runs, titles and
flops, MVPs and MV(Chumps). Games and wins last a night. Heroes last much
longer.

A weird thing happened last Monday night when Jose Canseco officially
announced his retirement. For the first time in 17 years, I do not have a
hero still tied to professional sports, an icon who would give me impetus
to watch Sportscenter, turn on a game I wouldn’t otherwise care about, or
check a boxscore I would otherwise prefer not to see.

Changes in sports, and the proliferation of sports mediums, have
drastically altered the way in which we connect with these games, and these
leagues. Miss a game, flip the channel to the next one; miss a score,
browse the web for an in-depth breakdown, play by play by play; lose a team
to another city, just expand and bring in a new one. But a hero, and the
passion that particular hero fosters, are not replaceable. No channel to
flip to, no sports web site to read, no expansion team to pick up. I am
still thankful, however, because for the better part of my life as a sports
fan, I had one of those heroes, and to me, more than anything else, that is
what made sports so special.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Canseco isn't the test case for Hall criteria
By Ray Ratto

Something odd happened the other day when Jose Canseco retired, and no,
we're not talking about the rumor that Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen were
going to appear on the next ElimiDate.

In reality, Jose Canseco had a brief, dominant prime in an otherwise
journeyman career.

The odd thing was that Canseco was listed as a "borderline" Hall of Famer,
particularly by people who ought to know better. Canseco's chances of
making the Hall of Fame stop just short of "None Whatsoever," and everyone
with a vote and the brain to back it up knows it.

Not that we wish Canseco any ill. He stuck with the game far longer than
the game stuck with him, but facts are facts, kids. He had a five-year
prime, not even as long as Sandy Koufax's, and he was never as good a
hitter as Koufax was a pitcher.

Still, Canseco was listed as a "borderline" Hall of Famer because he put up
some hellacious numbers in that prime and the Numbers Lobby has some very
earnest proponents.

See, there are two kinds of Hall of Fame voters -- drunks and weasels. No,
no, that's not it. Start again.

See, there are two kinds of Hall of Fame voters -- hard graders and easy
graders, and their philosophies mesh like, well, like Chuck and Tawny on
"Celebrity Deathmatch."

The hard graders operate on various related theories, among which are:

The Potter Stewart Pornography Theory: "I know it when I see it."

The No More Rick Ferrells Theory: "We can't cheapen the Hall with these
borderline guys."

The No More Arthur Andersens Theory: "Every mutt puts up numbers now, so
the numbers don't mean anything any more."

The easy graders operate on two competing theories:

The "Ninety Percent Of Life is Just Showing Up Theory," in which longevity
and raw numbers tell you everything you need to know.

The "LPGA Theory," which is numbers uber alles. Win enough tournaments and
you're in. No voting, no schmoozing, no contemptible backchannel lobbying.
Somewhere, Bill James smiles.

And with more players putting up numbers, fully contexted or otherwise, the
debate between the two sides will only grow more heated, as in:

"You suck."

"I suck? You suck."

And this goes on for a couple of hours until everyone adjourns to the first
no-closing-time bar they can find.

Now you may wonder who is right in this debate, and the answer is, as it
always has been, "Me. I'm right, and you're a moron." The Hall of Fame
voting criteria is as a vague as the Second Amendment, which is another one
of those gun-barrel-of-the-beholder debates we simply are not going to
engage in here, so back off, Heston. We're not playing.

And while the voters are normally a diligent lot, they can be swayed by the
first cute argument that comes along. Take, for example, Orlando Cepeda,
who was voted in on his last year of regular eligibility largely on the
strength of a public relations blitz by the San Francisco Giants that
included the unprovable and almost certainly erroneous notion that he was
kept out of the Hall because of a marijuana conviction.

Why do we know it's erroneous? Because (a) it never was mentioned as a
stumbling block in all the years he couldn't get 50 percent of the vote,
and (b) because most of the current voters have smoked more hemp than
Cepeda has ever seen. It became a topic of discussion only when the Giants
decided that to make it one would help Cepeda.

Does Cepeda belong in the Hall? Tough call. He wouldn't have been a Numbers
guy, but he had a longer prime that Canseco, he did make a difference in
the Cardinals' 1967 championship and never brought dishonor to the game. He
was, in short, the quintessential "borderline" guy.

But this isn't about Cepeda anyway. It's about two differing views about
how inclusive the Hall of Fame should be, and whether one has to be cruel
to be kind, or just make it festival seating in Cooperstown.

There are even a few folks who think the Hall should eject some members
already voted in to make sure the honor is as elite as it purports to be.
We do not subscribe to that theory, if only because Babe Ruth really did a
lot for the game in the years before he was a Boston Brave.

In either event, the test case for these two schools of thought isn't Jose
Canseco, and it never will be. It will be in a few years, when Rafael
Palmeiro and Jeff Bagwell come up. The Numbers folks say they are sure
things. The Anti-Numbers guys say maybe, but no more.

That's when the debate will become fun. With Jose Canseco on the table, it
isn't even close.

As for Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen ... well, the CourtTV folks say
they're both Hall of Famers, sure, but their criteria may be different than
yours or mine.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.

==========
  From the Sacramento Bee:
Baseball Beat: Canseco likely to whiff in bid for Hall of Fame
By Nick Peters -- Bee Staff Writer
Sunday, May 19, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO -- Jose Canseco ended his injury-scarred major-league career
by announcing his retirement when bids to join the Expos and the White Sox
failed, denying his pursuit of 500 home runs, a target that seemed a cinch
when he briefly was the best player in the game.

Canseco concluded with 462 home runs and 1,407 RBIs, good numbers
considering his limited participation in recent years. Greg Vaughn, another
slugger-gone-sour, said last week, "If he could have stayed healthy, Jose's
numbers would have been scary."

Vaughn endorsed Canseco for Hall of Fame enshrinement, which is ludicrous
if you believe sustained excellence is a prerequisite for Cooperstown.
Canseco certainly doesn't meet that criteria.

Ten years ago, he did. As a member of the fabled Class of 1986, Canseco was
at the forefront. After six years with the A's, he had 204 homers, 584
RBIs, an MVP award, 40-40 distinction and a World Series ring, courtesy of
the Giants.

At the time, classmates Will Clark (Giants) and Ruben Sierra (Rangers) also
were budding Hall of Famers. Clark averaged 27 homers and 104.4 RBIs in his
first five years, Sierra 24.6 homers and 106.2 RBIs over the comparable period.

They're not Hall of Famers, either, because they faded from superstardom.

Clark's numbers dwindled as injuries increased, and Sierra's game
mysteriously vanished. He played in 86 big-league games from 1997 through
2000 before recapturing the magic last year with Texas.

Canseco tumbled from the head of the class while Barry Bonds passed him as
the cinch Hall of Famer from '86.

For his career, Canseco batted .266 in the regular season, .211 in the
playoffs, .152 in the World Series and .000 in All-Star Games.

His flameout is reminiscent of what happened to Dale Murphy, a back-to-back
MVP in 1982-83 who stayed around too long and tarnished his reputation --
an above-average player who, like Canseco, lacks strong Hall of Fame
credentials.

Look how difficult it was for Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez to gain entry,
and they had prodigious numbers in an era best known for its pitching. By
the time Canseco is considered, prolific power numbers will be commonplace.

And, as former A's teammate Dave Henderson pointed out, Canseco was too
caught up in those numbers late in his career.

"He let teams know his interest was getting to 500 home runs, not playing
baseball," Henderson said. "If I'm a GM, I don't sign anybody who isn't
thinking about the team first. He was one of the best players at his peak,
but he kept talking about home runs, not baseball."

==========
  From the Arizona Republic:
No Hall likely, but Canseco isn't finished
May 19, 2002

Jose Canseco walked away from baseball the same way he came in: swinging
for the fences.

The slugger retired early last week, but within 24 hours he was again smack
in the middle of the batter's box, talking up a tell-all book he says is in
the works, one that promises to name names regarding steroid use.

As was his style as a player, you just never know what you'll get with
Canseco. Will it be another moonshot or a strikeout that you'd swear left
behind a gale-force wind?

Canseco's career was cometlike. He burst on the scene in full glory, and
all too quickly he was gone. Now that Canseco has retired, the immediate
conversation turns toward his credentials and the Hall of Fame. Did he do
enough to warrant a spot in Cooperstown?

Early in his career, it seemed he was well on his way. But he didn't
sustain it long enough. That is a sad story, because Canseco may have been
the best pure talent baseball has seen in 20 years.

"There was nothing he couldn't do," said former Oakland teammate Dave
Henderson, now a broadcaster for the Seattle Mariners.

Sure, injuries robbed Canseco. A herniated disk in his lower back erased
countless at-bats. And the way his body went from streamlined to Incredible
Hulk-like overnight surely could not have helped, whether or not it was
chemically induced.

But it was Canseco's ho-hum attitude toward the game that probably cost him
most.

Almost like clockwork, the Athletics would await the time each summer when
Canseco would go on a self-imposed two-week stint on the disabled list for
some nagging injury. The belief within the organization was that Canseco
simply wanted to take a vacation back home in Miami.

"If only he had applied himself to the game," said another former A's
teammate, Dave Stewart, now Milwaukee's pitching coach. "Once he got to a
certain point financially, his head was never in the game again."

That point apparently was reached during the 1991 season, when Canseco
burst through the economic stratosphere with a mind-boggling, five-year,
$23.5 million contract that dwarfed the next largest contract, a four-year,
$12 million deal that belonged to Kirby Puckett.

"He was the picture of greatness; he did everything on an All-Star level,"
Henderson said of Canseco. "But then he got lost and bored. He became very
average and one-dimensional. He just wanted to hit home runs."

Henderson said that he, Stewart and Carney Lansford, the leaders of those
dominating A's clubs, went to management and asked that Canseco be dealt,
that his laissez-faire attitude should no longer be tolerated.

Soon enough, Canseco's career turned into a revolving door. He went to
Texas late in 1992, Boston in 1995, returned to Oakland in '97, went to
Toronto in '98, followed by Tampa Bay, the New York Yankees and the Chicago
White Sox.

Along the way, there were spring training stops with Anaheim and Montreal
and a run with the Independent League Newark Bears. When there's that many
stops involved, it's not exactly the kind of resume that screams Hall of Fame.

Now Canseco promises one last shot into the upper deck, one sure to leave
another indelible mark on the game from one of the most enigmatic players
the game has seen.

"(Steroids have) completely restructured the game as we know it," Canseco
told Fox Sports Net's Jim Rome. " . . . If you want to find out the
information, the book I'm putting out is going to have everything in detail."

Even now, with his final at-bat in the books, Canseco remains a riveting
figure. Of course, he would have it no other way.

Reach Gomez at pedro.gomez@...

==========
  From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Canseco not willing to commit?
By THOMAS STINSON

Jose Canseco's official, final, I-Mean-It-This-Time retirement has spawned
more debate over the 500-home run plateau than it has about the leaving of
baseball's first 40-40 man.

But before the Hall of Fame debate goes much further, whether a player who
reached 462 homers is worthy, listen to ex-teammate and fellow Bash Brother
Dave Henderson, who has long been critical of how Canseco's career crashed
in the early 1990s.

"In '88 and '89, oh, yeah, he was playing like a Hall of Famer," Henderson
said. "But the Hall of Fame means you have to sustain it a lot of years. He
was not willing to put in that commitment to sustain it."

==========
  From ESPN.com:
By Peter "I've always been Anti-Jose" Gammons
Oh, so sorry: The labor front and Canseco

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself."
-- Abraham Lincoln

...Skunkism II. Jose Canseco. Blackballed? Give us a break. A tell-all
book? Fine, his steroid claims further discount his 462 career home runs,
which given the era translates to about 350 for those who came up in the
early 1970s.

Canseco led the AL in at least one category four times. He knocked in more
than 95 runs once after 1992, inexcusable for a run-producing player who'd
let himself get out of baseball shape so badly that he could only DH.
Compare him to Dwight Evans, who won nine Gold Gloves, who given the larger
ballparks, smaller bodies and for several seasons in the '70s played with
the cowhide experiment that led to so many balls falling apart and
softening, and the 462/385 home run difference is no difference at all.

Evans played in two World Series, and in both 1975 -- with his catch of a
Joe Morgan flyball that rivalled Willie Mays in '54 and Devon White in '93
-- was Boston's best player, finishing with a .300 series average.

Canseco's only postseason defensive memory was an embarrassment in the 1990
World Series in Cincinnati that outraged A's manager Tony LaRussa at the
time, and his postseason career offensive totals were 19-for-102.

Puhleaze. The notion of a second rate DH being in the Hall of Fame ahead of
a superior player who was the best defensive right fielder I saw in 25
years is an affront to the sport. So go write the book, or have someone
else write it, and get some Miami talk show host who wouldn't know baseball
from dog racing to moan your failure to make it to Cooperstown.

Evans was a better player than Canseco in every single phase of the game.
The funny thing is that Canseco is a good guy and was liked by his
teammates ... he just wasn't a very good baseball player the last 10 years
of his career, which made him one of the biggest wastes of talent of his time.

==========
  From NorthJersey.com
Jose, can you see? You're a bitter man
Sunday, May 19, 2002

So Jose Canseco is promising to write a tell-all book, no doubt convinced
he can tap into America's obsession with scandal. The recently retired
slugger claims to have plenty of ammunition, too, including lists of
steroid-using players in the big leagues. If you love gossip, Canseco says,
you've come to the right place.

The possibility of such a book - which Canseco says will "blow [Jim
Bouton's] 'Ball Four' out of the water" - raises two questions. Just how
much does he know? But more importantly, why is Canseco so committed to
exposing his peers who've done nothing to harm him? If you think it's
because Canseco wants to better baseball, to spur the sport into a
drug-testing policy, then you don't know the man. Colorful and charismatic,
and until now easy to like, Canseco nevertheless spent his entire career
serving himself. Ask yourself, how many other players ever created their
own 900-number? It was a delightful gimmick until Canseco started losing
his bat speed three years ago. That's when he started bouncing from team to
team, hoping to stick around long enough to reach 500 home runs. He
finished with 462 homers because, like most players close to 40, Canseco
was eventually defeated by 90-mph fastballs.

He was cut by the Expos in spring training, and continued to deteriorate
with the White Sox' Class AAA affiliate in Charlotte until announcing his
retirement last week.

But for all of Canseco's promises of future truth-telling, he's so far
refused to be honest about simply getting old. Instead, the 37-year-old
Canseco is convinced he was black-balled by owners. Why? It'll be in the
book, Canseco says, along with every nasty snippet about the game's
superstars. Apparently, Canseco has a grudge against the world, which is
really why he's writing a book - to use it as a weapon.

Maybe Canseco believes a best seller will help him get into the Hall of
Fame in 2007, his first year of eligibility. Somehow, we doubt it. Even if
he'd hit 38 more homers, his numbers don't merit election. Canseco is a
career .266 hitter, with a .152 average in the World Series and exceeded 95
RBI only once after 1992.

Granted, between 1986, when he hit 33 home runs with 117 RBI, and 1992,
when he hit 44 homers with 122 RBI, he was one the game's best players. And
it's a fact that he was baseball's first 40 homer-40 steal man. But there's
no other reason to even consider him for Cooperstown. In fact, with Cal
Ripken, Mark McGwire, and Tony Gwynn on the ballot in 2007, Canseco's name
could appear on fewer than 25 percent of the ballots, if that.

Mostly, Canseco will be remembered as a colorful player who fueled the
gossip pages, having briefly dated Madonna. But he turned mean at the end.
Just ask the Newark Bears, who offered Canseco a place on their roster
early in 2001 when no major league club would have him.

Canseco could've easily helped out an independent franchise that needs the
fan support - especially considering it's run by a former major-leaguer,
Rick Cerone. But all Canseco did was complain about the condition of the
Bears' clubhouse, which he considered minor league and therefore beneath him.

Somehow, Canseco forgot that he'd brought this misery upon himself. He'd
stopped hitting. He got old. Hopefully, Canseco will someday be honest
enough to admit that much.

==========
  From Tenneseean.com
Any way, Jose?

The retirement this past week of Jose Canseco has raised two questions:
What will ''all be in the book'' he's writing that supposedly will blow the
lid off baseball's dark side? And will he make the Hall of Fame?

Here are various columnists' viewpoints on Canseco:

Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune: ''A slugger of mythological proportions,
Canseco created excitement wherever he went. Only in the early years did he
give himself a chance to fulfill that excitement, however.

''Few players ever reinvented themselves more often than Canseco. He went
from being one of two tall, thin, identical twins into being a forerunner
in the movement of power-lifting power hitters. He had the speed to become
baseball's first 40 homers-40 steals man, winning an MVP for Oakland in
1988. But his celebrity far outdistanced his dedication.

''In his final eight seasons, Canseco played with Texas, Boston, Oakland,
Tampa Bay, the Yankees and the White Sox. He was driven not by an ideal but
by a number. He saw 500 home runs as his admission to Cooperstown; he'll
finish with 462, to go along with a .266 batting average and 1,407 RBI.

Chris Baldwin, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press: ''Can the real Jose Canseco,
please shut up, please shut up!''

''The one-time Bash Bro-ther/pop star dater/high speed racer thrust himself
into one of the most serious issues hovering over major league baseball -
how performance enhancers, including steroids, have forever changed the game.

''Canseco claims that 85% of major league players take steroids. He made
the charge on national TV, declaring 'There would be no baseball left if
they drug-tested everyone today.' A day later, he refused further comment,
saying he would save it for his book.

''But unless Canseco wants to name names, he is only hurting the fight. His
book banter turns a real problem into just another money grab. Will the
steroids talk get more play than Madonna in his breathlessly awaited tome?

''This is a case of one too many home run balls off the head.

Jerry Crasnick, Bloomberg News Service: ''Canseco's most enduring
accomplishments came early in his career. He won the American League Rookie
of the Year award in 1986 and two years later became the first player in
history to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a season. He won the Most
Valuable Player award that season and played in the World Series with Oakland.

''But a long list of injuries made it increasingly difficult for Canseco to
stay on the field. He appeared in more than 120 games only once after the
1991 season, and finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting only twice in his
career.

Jayson Stark, espn.com: ''Jose turned into nothing but a sideshow after his
first three seasons - a guy who tried to hit everything 700 feet.''

==========
  From the Macon Telegraph:
Canseco good, but not worthy of Hall of Fame

Jose Canseco has retired, so we'll have to wait for somebody else to bring
soccer to a baseball stadium near you.

Canseco, of course, is quite noted for that outfield fiasco when he
head-butted a ball over the fence.

That he left with 462 homers led to a hint of discussion regarding his
credentials for Cooperstown.

I say that giggling. Some people talked about it seriously.

For a half-dozen years, he was a monster. Having Mark McGwire batting with
him in the lineup obviously didn't hurt, either. Together they were the
Bash Brothers.

He's a career .266 hitter. Never quite earned a Mr. Clutch moniker, thanks
to his .152 average in the World Series.

He struck out an astonishing 1,942 times. That's 4.2 whiffs for every
homer, with about 500 fewer runs batted in.

Canseco had a good arm, but was otherwise average defensively. Yes, he was
the first to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases, but doesn't it take more to
make the Hall than simply to be a first?

Yes.

Is Canseco a Hall of Famer?

No.

==========
  From CBS Sportsline:
Behind the Numbers: Will Hall call Canseco, McGriff?
By Charlie McCarthy
May 17, 2002

Do numbers alone make a Hall of Famer? And if so, which numbers?

With that in mind, we give you Jose Canseco and Fred McGriff, two players
who recently have stoked Hall of Fame talk.

Canseco, who was toiling in Triple-A with the White Sox's Charlotte
affiliate, retired this week with 462 career home runs.

Little more than a week earlier, Cubs first baseman McGriff belted his
450th (and 451st) career homers in a game against the Dodgers.
Considering every retired player with at least 450 career homers has been
enshrined at Cooperstown -- except Eddie Murray, who's a lock despite his
well-known rudeness to the voters (a.k.a. media members) -- the question
is: Are Canseco and McGriff future Hall of Famers?

Canseco, a career .266 hitter, finished with 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases
in 1,887 games. He was baseball's first 40-40 man (40 homers, 40 steals in
the same season), and he's one of only nine players in history with 400
home runs and 200 stolen bases.

McGriff currently ranks fifth on the home run list for active big-leaguers,
trailing Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. Yes,
Palmeiro -- he has 455 dingers.

Keep in mind that Dave Kingman's 442 homers are the highest total for
players not in the Hall.

So, do the numbers put up by Canseco and McGriff simply reflect the
"powerful" modern game, or do they earn spots in Cooperstown?

As for Canseco's 40-40 status, well, Willie Mays said he could have done it
every year if he had known it would have been a big deal. Say Hey to that.

==========
  From Fox Sports:

Recently retired MLB All-Star Jose Canseco appeared on The Last Word with
Jim Rome Friday and discussed his still-to-be-released, tell-all book. The
show airs at 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (check local listings). Here are some
of the highlights:

Rome: How rampant is steroid use in Major League Baseball?
Canseco: There would be no baseball left if they drug tested everyone today.

Rome: What percentage would you say are juiced?
Canseco: 85.

Rome: So, it's had its effect on the game to a detriment, right?
Canseco: It's completely restructured the game as we know it. When I went
into the league in 1985 compared to today, it's completely changed the game
around. Completely restructured the game. That's why guys are hitting 50 or
60 or 75 home runs.

Rome: So if guys are hitting 50, 60 or 75 home runs, are we to assume that
home-run marks that guys like Barry Bonds has and Mark McGwire had, that
these were steroid driven?
Canseco: If you want to find out the information, the book I'm putting out,
is going to have everything in detail.

Rome: If that's what your alleging, than the historic marks in the game
mean nothing if they're steroid induced, correct?
Canseco: If they are steroid induced, it is what baseball has become.

Canseco didn't answer the question as to whether he used steroids, merely
saying, "Read the book." When Rome responded by saying, "That doesn't sound
like a denial to me," Canseco said, "It'll be in the book."

==========
  From MSNBC:

...CANSECO, WHO ANNOUNCED his retirement earlier in the week, refused to
say if he took steroids.

"It's completely restructured the game as we know it," he said. "That's why
guys are hitting 50 or 60 or 75 home runs."

During an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, Canseco refused to
answer questions about steroid use, saying he would give details in the
book he is writing.

"Basically what it's going to be is the true story of my life - good and
bad, the ups and downs," Canseco said. "I'll name names and discuss
basically everything and everybody involved in it. There are a million
things I could talk about."

That includes fast cars, Madonna, failed marriages, and his suspicion that
he was "exiled" from baseball.

Canseco announced his retirement Monday, leaving the game with 462 home
runs, 1,407 RBIs and a .266 batting average in 1,887 games with seven
teams. He was hitting .172 with five homers and nine RBIs in 18 games for
Triple-A Charlotte when he quit.

"I've had a lot of athletes in different sports and I know a lot of people
in the acting field that all told me I've been exiled, basically
blackballed," Canseco said.

The 37-year-old Canseco was one of the game's most colorful figures, on and
off the field. He assured co-author Bill Chastain that no aspect of his
private life will be off-limits.

Chastain has started interviewing Canseco for the book and plans to meet
with prospective publishers next week.

"Jose has led a very interesting life, and he has a story to tell," said
Chastain, a former Tampa Tribune sports writer.

"People have always been fascinated by him."

Canseco isn't concerned about what other players might think of the way
they're portrayed in the book.

"It's just going to be part of my life," Canseco said. "In a lot of ways,
my life wasn't perfect, either. I made a lot of mistakes. I'm going to
talk about that also."

He says he hasn't spent much time thinking about whether he deserves to
make the Hall of Fame.

"That's not for me to judge," he said. "I know I was injured a lot, and I
know if I would have been given the opportunity to play baseball more,
I would have easily hit 500 home runs, maybe even 600."

==========
  From NBC Sports:
Canseco missed out on greatness
By Ted Robinson
No ticket to Hall of Fame for underachieving slugger

May 17 -  When I look back at Jose Canseco's career, what strikes me most
is the way he squandered his vast potential. This is a guy who could have
broken an amazing number of records. He could have been as great as Barry
Bonds but he allowed himself to deteriorate into a one-dimensional player,
writing off his chances at making the Hall of Fame.

THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN Canseco and Bonds are striking. They are both 37,
in fact their birthdays are only 22 days apart in July. Canseco broke into
the majors in 1985 with Bonds following a season later. They both brought
to the major leagues the tools to be all-around stars. Only Bonds delivered
on his promise.

Bonds is doing today what Canseco could have, and in my opinion, should
have done. Canseco should be approaching 600 home runs, 500 stolen bases
and he should have threatened the single-season home run record if not
broken it outright by now.

The big difference is twofold: the physical work Bonds has undergone for 17
years to maintain his condition and enjoy a relatively injury-free
career and the mental focus to remain a Gold Glove outfielder and effective
base stealer for much of his career. Obviously being in the National League
forced him to do some of that but you also have to have some internal pride
as well. Bonds has it and Canseco most clearly did not.

WHO IS THIS GUY AND WHAT'S HIS NAME

As a broadcaster with the Oakland A's, I first saw Canseco in spring
training in 1985 in Phoenix. The A's were not a great ball club but were
building their farm system. They had an intersquad game going one day and
all of a sudden this rawboned, but strong kid came to the plate. He had
played at Double A the year before but nobody really knew much about him.
Then in that intersquad game he hit a ball off one of the A's starting
pitchers Chris Codiroli. It was a colossal shot, a ball that was hit over
the 40-foot high batters' eye in dead center field at the A's stadium in
Phoenix. The reaction was what you would expect. All of a sudden everyone
is standing around the dugout looking at each other and wondering, "Who is
this guy and what's his name."

He came up a year before Mark McGwire and he hit balls places we had not
seen. He could run, which was evidenced by his ability to steal 40 bases.
He could play the outfield and he had a good arm. In essence he had the
tools to be an all-around superstar. And sadly after about three years he
became completely disinterested in doing anything other than hitting home
runs. He was more into being a celebrity, into being Jose Canseco.

I fast forward to 1991 and I'm now working for the Twins and they are
engaged with the A's in a pennant race. Oakland had won the AL West the
last three years in a row and Minnesota is trying to dethrone them. The
teams played a huge series in August with the A's chasing the
division-leading Twins.

Throughout that series I watched Canseco in right field and he is turning
around during the games to look up in the stands chatting with fans. It
looked like he was daydreaming. He left the impression that playing the
outfield in these games was the last thing he wanted to do. While he was
making a contribution at the plate hitting the ball, he feigned complete
disinterest in the rest of the game.

In a situation where your team is playing and fighting for its life in a
pennant race it was an incredibly disheartening thing to see. Sadly
those are the memories that linger with me about Canseco, not the colossal
blasts and the 40-40 year, but the callous way he treated the game.


BATTING PRACTICE TOURING SHOW

I maintain to this day that after 19 years in baseball the greatest show I
ever saw was not Barry Bonds hitting his 73 home runs last year but instead
the first year, 1987 that Canseco and McGwire played together. Their
batting practice in American League parks was almost like a touring
carnival show. The A's would draw an amazing number of people to stadiums
just to watch those two "beef brothers" take batting practice. That was the
kind of aura that Canseco had around him early in his career.

In my view he spent the majority of his career as a specialist. He became a
designated hitter and a power hitter and that was his game. One could make
the argument that there have been such "one dimensional" players who made
the Hall of Fame in the past.

Harmon Killebrew and Ralph Kiner fit into that category. They hit home runs
and did very little else. I would counter by pointing out that these two
had to play the field their whole careers.

Canseco had his moment, however brief. His 1988 MVP was deserved, although
the focus on his 40-40 season seems misguided. Willie Mays, whose prime
years were played when the stolen base was rare, saw the fuss about a 40-40
season and said memorably, "If I had known that would be a big deal, I
would have done it a couple of times myself." Not long after that year,
Canseco became so disinterested in the outfield that he hid behind the DH.

HALL OF FAME CAREER GONE AWRY

Then his body broke down at an early age. Canseco has said he will write
the ultimate "tell-all" book on major league baseball. Will he address
whether he used steroids and if he did will he say that his injuries were
caused by steroid use?

Perhaps that book will explain Canseco's conduct. I view it as a
Hall-of-Fame career gone awry. In 1989, I think most observers would have
agreed that Canseco was on the track to a first-ballot Hall of Fame
election. The next decade saw Canseco transformed into a sad joke, the
quintessential child actor or one-hit music group that couldn't sustain
success.

Today, I believe the majority will view Canseco as a wasted talent. The
Hall of Fame is for the great. Canseco qualified for an all-too-brief
period before settling into a career that should be described as good. With
an increasing number of players compiling inflated offensive statistics in
this era, Canseco's numbers won't shine as brightly. And I truly believe
the Hall-of-Fame standard will remain very high, out of reach of this man
who should have achieved greatness.

==========
  From the Sporting News
Inside Dish: MLB wants to crack down on steroid use
May 19, 2002

Major League Baseball is ready to crack down on steroid use, but the
players' union must consent to drug testing. "This is definitely a priority
issue for us," says Rob Manfred, MLB's chief labor attorney. "We have a
wall-to-wall, 10-page, single-spaced proposal on the table. We have had at
least two meetings (with the union) in which a substantial portion of the
meetings was devoted to the drug-testing issue." ...

==========
  From ESPN:
Is the Class of 2001 the best ever?
By Rob Neyer

Wednesday morning, in the wake of Jose Canseco's "retirement," An ESPN.com
editor passed along the following ...

On the radio today driving in, they were talking about Canseco and how he'd
be Hall of Fame-eligible with the class that features Gwynn, Ripken and
McGwire. Kornheiser quickly said that's the best class ever (excluding the
first class). Someone brought up the last great class of Brett, Yount and
Ryan, and Kornheiser said it's not close. I disagree, but this might make a
good column while Canseco is still in the news.

I've got another take on this. Because the Hall of Fame's voting procedures
have changed so much over the years, it's hard to compare "classes." More
relevant, perhaps, is comparing seasons in which great players last
appeared as major leaguers. So then the question becomes, "Did 2001 feature
more truly great players in their last seasons than any other season?"

And the answer, I think, is pretty clearly that it didn't. Gwynn, Ripken
and McGwire were all great players, and Canseco (who didn't play in the
majors this season) was nearly great. But that class with Brett, Yount and
Ryan also included Dale Murphy, who's comparable to Canseco in terms of
career value, and Carlton Fisk. So already, it's three legitimate Hall of
Famers from 2001 vs. four Hall of Famers who played their last seasons in 1993.

So where does the Graduating Class of 2001 rank? Below, in at least some
semblance of order, are my picks for the top 10 classes (using Bill James'
new Win Shares system of valuing players).

1. 1993 (1,851 Win Shares, 370 Win Shares per superstar)
The quintet mentioned above, from Brett (432) down to Murphy (294) totaled
1,851 Win Shares and averaged 370 Win Shares per superstar.

2. 1917 (1,727-432)
Quartet of players is dominated by Honus Wagner (655), but Wahoo Sam
Crawford, Gettysburg Eddie Plank and Big Ed Walsh were all great, too.

3. 1937 (1,624-354)
Even if you exclude marginal Hall of Famers Chick Hafey and Jesse Haines
(as I did), still a mighty impressive group that consists of Rogers Hornsby
(502), Frankie Frisch, Mickey Cochrane and Pie Traynor.

4. 1947 (2,364-295)
The first season for future Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby,
and the last season for eight great and near-great players, including Hall
of Famers Mel Ott, Hank Greenberg, Red Ruffing, Dizzy Dean, Billy Herman
and Ernie Lombardi. This season would rank higher, but Ott's season
included just four pinch-hit at-bats, and Dean pitched only four innings.

5. 1983 (1,804-361)
Carl Yastrzemski, Johnny Bench and three pitchers -- Ferguson Jenkins,
Gaylord Perry and Jim Kaat -- who between them totaled 881 victories.

6. 2001 (1,439-360)
Even including Canseco, who's not going to get much support from the Hall
of Fame voters, there just isn't enough to justify placing this class at
the top of the list.

7. 1965 (1,091-364)
Only three players, but what a three players: Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra and
Nellie Fox. Berra, who hadn't played at all in 1964, saw action in four
games for the Mets and batted nine times.

8. 1945 (1,417-359)
World War II created opportunities for some old ballplayers, the most
notable being Jimmie Foxx, who joined the Phillies and played some first
base, some third base, and even pitched in nine games. Also bowing out in
1945 were Joe Cronin and the Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd.

9. 1988 (1,932-276)
At the moment, Steve Carlton (366) and Don Sutton (319) are the only Hall
of Famers who played their last game in 1988. But they're joined by a
number of great players who have fallen short of Cooperstown for one reason
or another: Ted Simmons, Graig Nettles, Dave Concepcion, Ron Guidry and
Bruce Sutter.

10. 1986 (1,284-428)
Only three players, but two of them were Tony Perez and Pete Rose, and the
other was Tom Seaver, the best pitcher of the 1970s.

==========
Paranoid? No way, Jose!
By Jim Caple

News item: Retired slugger Jose Canseco claims he has been blackballed from
baseball, and he will strike back with a tell-all biography that blows the
whistle on players' steroid use and much more.

Page 2 has obtained an unedited copy of the manuscript to this book,
tentatively titled, "Bawl Forth: Bad Things About Everybody But Me."

Madonna
The Material Girl might be the most popular entertainer in the world, but
she's also the most vindictive, unforgiving woman I've ever known (with the
exception of my ex-wife).

I met Madonna after a game at Yankee Stadium in 1991, and we hit it right
off. Everything was going just great between us. I gave her tips for her
role in "A League of Their Own," and she even wanted me to appear in her
next video. She said no man had ever pleased her in bed the way I had. And
then I made one perfectly innocent remark about her "acting" in "Shanghai
Surprise" and that was it. She cut me off completely. She not only stopped
answering my calls, she changed her phone number and got a judge to issue a
restraining order against me.

So now I'm not allowed within 150 yards of her. But don't worry about that.
I wouldn't go within 150 miles of her. In fact, that's why I had to change
teams so many times in recent years. It had nothing to do with a slow bat
or recurring injuries or a bad attitude or anything they try to tell you. I
just have to leave town whenever she comes in on tour.

Bitch.

Mark McGwire
Don't even get Canseco started on McGwire's "curly mullet." Oh, sure. My
former Bash Brother is a card-carrying member of the All-Century team and
an American hero, but maybe he wouldn't be quite so revered if people knew
the awful truth about Big Mac like I do.

He never rewinds his videotapes before he returns them to Blockbuster. He
never puts the toilet seat down again. He doesn't separate his garbage for
recycling. He uses his cell phone while driving. And for most of the 1991
season, he was getting cable in his apartment without paying for it.

And fans consider him a hero?

State Highway Patrols
Watch out, America, Big Brother is not only watching you, he's pointing a
radar gun at your Lamborghini.

The police say they don't profile drivers or harass innocent people, but if
that's the case, how come I get pulled over for speeding at least half the
times I'm doing 120 on the freeway or as little as 83 in the city? And
people doubt that I've been blacklisted?

The abuse of power is a frightening thing. I mean, if a superstar like me
can be singled out for this sort of treatment, imagine what they could do
to the average, unimportant citizen.

George W. Bush
The leader of the free world? The most powerful man on the planet? The
defender of truth, justice and the American way? Ha! Don't make me laugh.

He's a petty politician who holds a grudge longer than an August
doubleheader in Arlington. Bush still won't forgive me for letting that
baseball bounce off my head for a home run when he owned the Rangers.
That's why he had Dick Cheney secretly order the 30 major-league teams not
to offer me a contract this year.

You would think the president of the United States would have something
more important to do, but how else would you explain the lack of interest
teams showed in me this spring?

Thomas Boswell
One of the game's finest writers or a disgrace to journalism? That's an
easy one for me. Boswell sank his profession to a new low in 1988 when he
wrote that I used steroids. It was shoddy, irresponsible journalism, and he
didn't offer a bit of evidence to back up his claim. The "National
Enquirer" wouldn't have printed that crap.

I would have sued him and the Washington Post for everything they had, and
I would have won the libel suit, except for one small detail:

I was using steroids.

Bud Selig
There is only one reason the commissioner of baseball, the man in charge of
his sport's welfare, would push for the elimination of two teams -- it cuts
down on the number of teams who could sign me. Naturally, Bud denies this,
but I'm not stupid. The handwriting on the wall is clear to whoever wants
to read it. Or do you think it was just coincidence that one of the teams
Bud talked about contracting (Montreal) just happened to be the team I
signed with last winter?

Of course, after those bastards released me at the end of spring training
when it was too late to catch on with another team, contraction would suit
them right.

Ozzie Canseco
Sure, I love him like a brother. But I can't help but wonder. If he hadn't
been in the same womb as me hogging our mother's nutrients during those
nine crucial months, maybe I could have been born even bigger and stronger,
and then maybe I wouldn't have gotten hurt so much and I would have 500
home runs -- no, 600! -- and be on my way to Cooperstown.

Mom and Dad always loved him more than me, too.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at
cuffscaple@....

==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:
May 21, 2002

Top of the 5th
UH-OH

Jose Canseco says 85% of all the players use steroids or supplements to
enhance their strength. But that’s not an issue for Barry “What Me Worry?”
Bonds, who as he has aged, apparently has become naturally more muscular.
"What players take doesn't matter," Bonds said. "It's nobody else's
business. The doctors should spend their time looking for cures for cancer.
It takes more than muscles to hit homers. If all those guys were using
stuff, how come they're not all hitting homers?"...

He's being interviewed on "The Best Damn Sports Show, Period."

Just wanted to let you know.  More tomorrow.

-Mark

Hello again...

Wow, I sure have send out a lot of email over the past few days,
huh?  Hopefully this won't be the last time I have a reason to send so
much.  Hopefully Jose will get a job offer, come out of retirement, and get
to 500 homers.  Hopefully.

But in the mean time, Jose is retired.

I'd like to schedule a chat session, so people can share their thoughts
about the situation (or anything else).  Let's say Friday night, at 9:00
ET.  And since some people probably won't be able to make that, how about
if we schedule another chat for Monday night at 9:00 ET as well.  Sound
good?  Here's the link:
http://www.canseconet.com/josechat.htm

I'll try to stop in for a while both nights, but I can't guarantee I'll be
able to.  In any case, have a fun chat!

Oh, by the way, I added some new photos of Jose to Canseconet.com tonight
(at the bottom of the main Photo Gallery page).  Subscriber Mike Burke sent
in what might turn out to be the last photo of Jose crossing the plate
after a home run.  Thanks, Mike.

-Mark

==========
  From the Chicago Sun Times:
Bay Area was shaken up when Canseco departed
May 15, 2002
BY RON RAPOPORT

So, Jose Canseco retires from baseball, and immediately the Bay Area has an
earthquake.

Not quite like the one he saw from a front-row seat, of course. The earth
shook and bridges fell during the 1989 World Series at Candlestick Park
when Canseco was playing for the Oakland Athletics. The 5.2 Richter jolt
Monday night was so small by comparison that hardly anybody playing ball in
the area even noticed.

"They were either too excited or too cold to feel it,'' San Francisco
Giants manager Dusty Baker said of the 36,331 fans at Pac Bell Park. "This
building is pretty loud, so it was shaking anyway.''

The San Jose Sharks, who were in the midst of a playoff game with the
Colorado Avalanche, had their show go on, too.

Everybody has their own memories of Canseco, of course, but my favorite
always will be his line-drive grand slam early in the first game of the
1988 World Series that was hit so hard, it left a dent in a television
camera beyond the center-field fence. You figured the Los Angeles Dodgers
were in big trouble if they couldn't do any better than that, but Kirk
Gibson had the answer in the ninth inning of that game, and the A's were
barely heard from after that.

Certain segments of the Bay Area went into mourning when Canseco left the
A's. Some merchants were particularly hard hit. Canseco's wife, Esther, was
reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to have spent $20,000 in a year in
one store on leather bicycle shorts and the like, while a Porsche dealer
said: "His leaving hurts us all. I mean, just as people aspire to hit
homers like Jose, some people aspire to drive the same cars he does. And I
must say, he has excellent taste in cars.''

==========
  From the Chicago Daily Southtown:
Best Seller

Jose Canseco, who announcing his retirement Monday as a member of the
Triple-A Charlotte Knights, said he plans to author at "tell-all" book.

Manuel, who managed Canseco for a part of last season with the Sox, wasn't
worried about any bombshells from Canseco.

"I probably won't make it in (the book)," Manuel said, laughing. "We didn't
talk that much.

"To be honest, I hate to see that he hung it up."

==========
  From Fox Sports:
Baseball Etiquette Always a Sticky Subject.
BY RANDY HILL
May. 16, 2002

Baseball doesn't seem to mind if you cross the line, but does reserve
vigorous and dirty looks for anyone who may step on it. For the record,
spitting on this line within the flow of the game is encouraged.

Today's issue is maintenance of baseball protocol, a solemn consideration
that was pushed into this week's limelight by Sammy Sosa.

My agenda regarding baseball protocol is progressive: we'll examine two
recent and taboo incidents - one starring Sosa, the other highlighted by a
self-proclaimed bombshell from Jose "I Think I" Canseco.

When that smokes clears, I'll list a few more staples of baseball etiquette
that can't be violated without a companion free-for-all.

Anyway, Sammy, who works for the Chicago Cubs, has been accused of stealing
signs that belong to the St. Louis Cardinals....

...Unlike your card-carrying mime, Jose Canseco has a lot to say. And his
writing partner will have a lot to type.

Mr. Canseco, who also numbed the baseball world by retiring from Triple-A
this week, is planning to spill his guts in a "tell-all" book.

Expect a meeting of the minds over this one on Oprah's Bookie Club.

Realizing that Jose is in cahoots with a prospective author smells even
more dangerous and promising than strapping a polygraph on Bill Clinton.

During a controversial radio interview he granted to explain his
motivations, Canseco promised the dirt on several big issues and many large
names.

A team of radio commentators encouraged Jose to reconsider. You'll lose all
of your baseball cronies, they said.

I no longer have any baseball cronies, Jose replied.

Well, you'll never be able to return as a big-league coach, they said.

Who would want a guy who allowed a fly ball to bounce off of his head for a
home run as a coach? Jose should have replied.

Good point, they would have said. OK, smart guy, you'll completely
annihilate any chance you have for the Hall of Fame.

My chances are slim and none ... and slim ain't showin', Jose said.

Time out while we chew on that Hall of Fame jazz. According to many talking
baseball heads, Canseco would have a puncher's chance of landing in
Cooperstown if he'd slugged 500 home runs.

Not counting the homer that bounced off of his head, Jose has retired just
38 short. So, by this reasoning, if Canseco had loitered for another, oh,
three years and managed 38 marginal taters, he's in?

That's wild. But the worthiness debate rages. Pro-Jose forces remind us he
was Rookie of the Year, MVP, a six-time All-Star and MLB's first 40-homer,
40-steal citizen.

Jose's critics remind us he was a full-time DH by age 29 and recorded an
insufficient number of monster seasons.

However, he may have a Cooperstown-caliber manuscript.

Hey, if Omar Vizquel can lay the Albert Belle-bat-corking revelation on a
yawning audience, a publisher should beg for Canseco literature.

What's Jose's sacrifice, an Old-Timers' Game invite?

Baseball is terrified at the prospect of careening toward another strike
while fans learn that players drink a lot, cheat on their wives or
boyfriends, take steroids, cork their bats, cheat on their wives or
boyfriends some more, and do all of this while swearing in French.

According to sources who think "steroids" refers to a video game, Jose may
even reveal that he's 67 years old, not the 37 listed on his bio.

While searching for a publisher, Canseco can goose the interest by
revealing these sample chapters:

Baseball's First 40-40 Man: How Double-Play Eyesight Caused Me to Mistake
My Wife's Car For A Hall Of Fame Voter In A Crosswalk.
Steroids: They're Not Just For Ben Johnson Anymore.
Evil Twin: How Ozzie Head-Butted A Fly Ball Into A Home Run.
Madonna: What's Really Up With Those Armpits.
Growth Hormone Over Miami: Who Uses Illegal Muscle-Building Substances And
Who Coughed Up Good Money To Keep Off My List.
Danny Almonte: Our Crazy High School Days.

Now that I'm in the mood for lists, how about leaving Jose and picking up a
few more baseball etiquette no-no's?...

...Obviously, the greatest baseball no-no I can think of would be another
labor-related World Series cancellation.

As for Sammy Sosa, I advise opposing teams to use trickier signals.

Canseco? Well, a tell-all book won't help his popularity with the
rank-and-file, but he would be guaranteed a new best friend.

Guy by the name of Larry King.

Randy Hill can be reached at his e-mail address, rhill@....

==========
  From Fox Sports:
Canseco Was One of a Kind
BY DAVE VAN DYCK
May. 14, 2002

Jose Canseco is gone. And along with him went the last of baseball's
characters.

Never again - at least not any time soon - will baseball allow another Jose
Canseco, someone who created his own fun and his own trouble, and could
laugh about both.

It just doesn't work that way anymore, not since baseball became reliant on
the corporate business world.

Baseball now wears a button-down shirt and has a motto of button-up your lip.

Players are now processed to be carbon copies of each, sterilized to avoid
contamination, threatened if they step out of line. What the heck, you
can't even chase down your wife in the family Porsche anymore.

I'll miss Canseco, that big galoof, the last of the do-it-my-way baseball
players who probably could have been better at baseball but had too much
fun doing other things.

Think baseball hasn't changed? Name one young character now. Even Turk
Wendell was muffled and hog-tied before he reached the major leagues, so
that his quirkiest characteristic became his fascination with the number 9.

"It's hard to be a character in today's game," said Ken "Hawk" Harrelson,
baseball's version of Joe Namath and now a White Sox broadcaster. "Jose was
one of the most enjoyable guys to watch I have ever seen. He could laugh at
himself.

"The clubhouse today is a different place. There's so much pressure on
these guys. What's happening today is that corporate money is coming in and
driving baseball people out."

"It's too bad there's not two or three characters on every team, because
the game of baseball would be better," said Tom Grieve, the man who brought
Canseco from Oakland to Texas. As general manager, Grieve also gave
approval for Canseco to pitch, not knowing he would blow out his arm in the
process and create an even larger mystique around his career.

"Players have media consultants now, they are taught sound bites," said
Grieve, now an announcer for the Rangers. "I think maybe they try to
condition kids too much not to be flaky. I don't know if he was the last
one, but he was a true character. He was more like a rock star than a
baseball player."

Now we have Alex Rodriguez, more of a CEO than a baseball player. That is
nothing against Rodriguez, except to illustrate the point that the days of
players-as-personalities are over.

"Characters were good for the game, they were good copy, made for good
stories," said long-time executive Roland Hemond, who learned his trade
under ownership character Bill Veeck. "Maybe we're just more serious now as
a society."

There is no more Harrelson, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Joe Pepitone, Bo
Belinsky, Pete Rose, et al. For some, David Wells is as close as it gets,
and he's at the end of his career as well.

Name a young one.

"We still have them," said Ken Williams, the young White Sox GM who gave
Canseco his last major league job. "They're just under the radar screen,
they're flying stealth."

Maybe, but I don't think so.

Sure, maybe Harrelson could have played longer and been better. And we know
that Canseco could have prolonged his career had it not been for the late
nights with Madonna and perhaps the steroid abuse.

But, as Harrelson says: "Nobody ever had more fun than I did. When I
retired, I was the fourth-highest paid player in the league and I called my
mama and told her and she said, 'Come on home.'

"I did. I went and played golf."

Turns out Harrelson was never quite the pro golfer he thought he was. But
at least he tried.

As for Canseco, you get the feeling he is leaving before his career is
over. But, obviously, the fun had passed for him, a 37-year-old playing in
the minor leagues with the new-generation kids. He was a square peg in a
round hole.

Maybe he could have caught on somewhere and hit the 38 homers he needed to
reach the magical 500 plateau. Maybe not.

As it is, he finishes with 462 home runs and his Hall of Fame class will
include Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn and his old Oakland teammate Mark McGwire.

He was more talented than any of them - the first 40-40 man, six of the
most storied baseball years as a youngster in Oakland - but he will not
make the Hall of Fame. He doesn't deserve to.

He didn't exactly fritter a career away, but he never allowed himself to
fulfill his potential either. Maybe he was just having too much fun living,
making his star burn out too soon.

That's OK. Jose Canseco surely enjoyed doing whatever it was he was doing
all those nights after games and in the off-season. And people who know him
really well say he did marvelous things for youth foundations and
children's charities. He was a Ruthian-type figure, able to swat home runs
so easily and able to make headlines just as easily. Well, I'm not even
sure that Babe Ruth could play now. His act would have to be stifled at a
young age, those tons of hot dogs would have been changed into yogurt and
all that beer would have become Gatorade.

In the end, Canseco packed up his bags and moved around, playing in an
independent league, in the minor leagues, always looking to re-capture what
once was and never could be again.

He told us last year he would write a tell-all autobiography, Madonna and
all. Now he says he might name names about the steroid users in baseball,
which will make for some sleepless nights around several cities. Let's hope
that's not part of it, unless he just wants to tell on himself.

When Canseco was pushing his yet unscripted book, this is what he had to say:

"I've been probably the best player in the world, the worst player in the
world, disregarded, nobody wanted me to play for them, sent down to the
independent league, rumors, this and that, that and this, and I will
probably be the only individual where no one has ever known who I really am.
. . .

"People who are going to look at (my career) in total are going to be
totally confused."

Amen. And we think there's nothing wrong with that.

Dave van Dyck can be reached at his e-mail address: dvandyck@....

==========
  From www.charlotteknights.com:
Canseco Q & A

Last week, Jay Catalano sat down one on one with Jose Canseco for an
interview to be published in JOUST, the official publication of the
Charlotte Knights.  Below is the transcript of that interview.  For those
attending Knights games this interview will be published along with a one
on one with Joe Borchard available at Knights Stadium starting May 24th
through May 31st.

JOUST: You've been playing professional baseball for about twenty years now
and have played for several teams and had hundreds of teammates. Are there
any players that stick out as being great teammates or that you've
developed close friendships with?

CANSECO: Anyone that has played with him would tell you that Roger Clemens
is a great teammate. He stands out because I'm friends with him and he's
actually been a golfing buddy of mine when we were together in Boston and
again with the Yankees. But normally off-the-field, I like to spend most of
my time with my family.

JOUST: Over the past few seasons several players have accomplished amazing
individual feats. Which players or accomplishments are you most impressed with?

CANSECO: I think Bonds' 73 home runs was obviously a great achievement,
especially when you consider how much he was pitched around. Also, I'd put
Sosa averaging 60 homers over the last four years in that same category.

JOUST: If you had the type of season that you had in 1988 when you went
40-40, stayed healthy and swung the bat well all year, what kind of
statistics do you think that would translate to in today's power-oriented game?

CANSECO: I think probably about 60 home runs. Remember I've had years where
I had 31 and 29 homers at the All-Star break so the main thing for me has
always been just staying healthy.

JOUST: Over the past several years we've seen players whose careers look to
be in decline who rededicate themselves and come back to have great years.
Do you consider yourself as one of these players who is on a mission to
prove to everyone, especially the teams that passed you over, that you can
still be a productive player?

CANSECO: Injuries are part of any sport. One thing that a lot of people
don't understand is that just because you're injured doesn't mean you're
skills have diminished. Once you get healthy, you're still the same player
as before the injuries.

JOUST: You've mentioned a few times that you think you're a better hitter
than when you were younger. How has your hitting approach changed over the
years? Are you thinking the same thing now when you walk up to the plate as
when you were a rookie?

CANSECO: No. I'm not thinking the same things as when I was younger. I'm
usually thinking about the pitcher because over the years you get to know
how the pitchers throw. Although, that doesn't really apply here in
Charlotte since I've never faced these pitchers. But I'm also more
knowledgeable about myself in terms of knowing my own strengths and
weaknesses and I think, like most hitters, have adapted my swing to suit
what I can and can't do. I'd say I'm probably more productive power-wise
and driving in runs than earlier in my career, I just haven't had the
opportunity the last few years.

JOUST: You've had some remarkable accomplishments throughout your career
and have 38 homers to go before you reach 500. To this point, everyone in
the 500 home run club is in the Hall of Fame. Do you think that your Hall
of Fame candidacy hinges on whether you reach the 500 home run plateau?

CANSECO: Yes. If I don't make it back to the Majors and reach 500 homers, I
don't think there is any way I would make it into the Hall. I'm only 38
away, but if I don't reach 500, then I might as well be 200 away.

JOUST: Do you think your chances for Hall of Fame induction will be hurt
because you've spent so much time strictly as a DH?

CANSECO: Maybe, but I still think the determining factor will be whether or
not I can reach 500 homers.

Hey everyone,

Over the past few days, I've received a LOT of email from you guys about
Jose.  Most of you are sad he retired, a lot of you hope it isn't really
over, some of you are mad because you think he's being blackballed, but the
one theme that is consistent through all the emails is your support of Jose
Canseco.  You (we) are all Jose Canseco fans, and most of us have been for
as long as we can remember.  Some of the emails you guys have sent in have
been very thoughtful, and I think Jose should see your words of
encouragement and understanding.

So, here's what I'm going to do... Sometime in the next week, I am going to
set up a special email address so you can send a personal message to
Jose.  I'll combine all the messages I get and post them on my web site for
everyone to see (like I did with the Get Well wishes in 1999 -
http://www.canseconet.com/getwell.htm ), and I'll also do my best to make
sure Jose gets a hard copy of all the messages.  I can't guarantee that he
will get them or that he will ever read them even if he does, but I'll do
my best... And for the record, I DO think Jose will read them.  It's not
like he has anything better to do this summer, right? :)

DO NOT send in your messages yet.  I'm going to set up a special email
address for them soon.  I just wanted to let you know now, so you can start
thinking about what you'd like to write.  And remember, there are about
1500 people reading this email right now, so the shorter your message will
be, the better.  I know if I was Jose, I'd be more likely to actually read
the short messages than the novels.

Again, DO NOT send in your messages for Jose yet.  Take a few days, think
about what you'd like to say, and I'll let you know when/where to send them
soon.

Below are some more (great) articles about Jose's retirement and a bunch of
speculation on if he will get into the Hall of Fame or not... Personally,
as it stands right now, I don't think he'll make it.  I think he should, of
course, but I don't think he will - kind of like how I think he should be
playing for a major league team right now, but he isn't.

-Mark

P.S. Oh, one more thing.  My site was reviewed in a Pittsburgh newspaper
today (see the first story below).  While I don't disagree with the review,
I do wish he had mentioned this email list.  I know parts of my site has
gotten a bit outdated (I just don't have the time to keep up with it any
more), but I do my best to stay on top of this list for you guys... Anyway,
there is an email address you can use if you'd like to send him your
comments about Jose or my site.  If you're in the mood, feel free...

==========
  From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Caught on the Web: www.canseconet.com
Wednesday, May 15, 2002

This week, Our WebMaster, Seth Rorabaugh, scrolls through a site dedicated
All That! which made the late 1980s such a totally awesome time, dude:
Aliens on TV, untied high-tops and the rappers who wore them, metal bands
and that Boy Toy who swung for the fences in Oakland. Party on ...

This week's web site
http://www.canseconet.com/

What It Is

A Web site dedicated to an individual who was pretty much "The Man" from
1986-1991, Jose Canseco.

Why Visit?

Canseco, who came to symbolize the late 1980s as much as ALF and Run DMC,
announced his retirement Monday, ending a career that bore witness to some
good baseball, as well as some interesting moments on and off the field.

While Canseco might best remembered by baseball fans as the first player to
hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season, he is more famous
around the world as one of Madonna's many beaus.

Many people remember his many moon shots, such as the one he sent into
Skydome's upper deck in the 1989 American League Championship Series.
However, so many more people will remember him for his cup of coffee with
the Texas Rangers, in which he allowed a fly ball to careen off his noggin
and bounce over the wall for a home run, and his pitching "career" -- 1
inning, 3 earned runs, two hits, an ERA of 27.00 and a blown-out elbow.

He was almost like a sports version of Dudley Moore or Robert Downey Jr. in
the respect that he hasn't made many waves recently but still is one of
those icons of pop culture who had immense talent and plenty of baggage.
Plus, he had a mullet.

What's There?

When you initially log on to the site, a montage of the one-time Topps
All-Star Rookie greets you, showing Canseco in the six uniforms he wore in
the major leagues before his stint with the White Sox last season -- the
Athletics, Rangers, Red Sox, Athletics (again), Blue Jays, Devil Rays and
Yankees. Canseco was a non-roster invitee with the Expos in spring training
this season but did not make the final roster.

Also available is a checklist of Canseco cards and game programs, a photo
gallery, audio and video clips, e-mail postcards, home run contests where
participants attempted to predict Conseco's totals, a collection of
memories from various fans, as well as links to other sites related to him.

Upon Further Review

A little of the information is dated, but if you're looking for information
on Canseco, you probably don't have a single CD in your possession that was
released past 1993, anyway. The absence of any mention of his brother,
Ozzie, is a huge disappointment as well.

Overall

A very neat, clean look for what is basically a fan site. For all you still
hanging on to Guns n' Roses debut CD, "Appetite for Destruction," this is a
site to visit.

Score

3 out of 5.

Your Say

Want to get your name in the paper? Well this is your lucky day. In pursuit
of an easy way to fill up space, we invite you to visit the sites profiled
here and offer your opinion. We also accept and encourage submissions
because we don't like to do our own work from time to time. Criticism is
also accepted, just not very well. Send e-mail to srorabaugh@....

==========
  From the Chicago Sun:
Canseco gives up the chase
May 14, 2002
BY TONI GINNETTI

The hot-tempered, car-crashing, headline-grabbing player that once was Jose
Canseco never showed up at Comiskey Park last season. A friendly,
easy-talking team player had taken his place.

It was that Canseco, not the Bash Brother of colossal home runs and
confounding off-field controversy, who endeared himself to the White Sox
and their fans. And it was that Canseco whom general manager Ken Williams
wanted to thank when he signed him last month to a minor-league contract
for one more shot at a burning goal: 500 home runs and a chance at the Hall
of Fame.

But Canseco, 37, retired Monday, 38 homers shy of his goal, after
struggling at Class AAA Charlotte.

''Jose felt that because of personal reasons and a strong desire to spend
more quality time with his young daughter, it was time to announce his
retirement,'' Alan Nero, Canseco's agent, said in a statement released by
the Sox.

Canseco was hitting .172 for the Knights with five homers and nine RBI in
18 games. His coaches and teammates were saddened but not surprised by his
decision.

"He was a very professional man that everyone looked up to,'' manager Nick
Capra said. "I'm happy it was his own decision, but at the same time, this
is sad for baseball.''

Catcher Josh Paul said Canseco was a good mentor.

"I loved being around the guy,'' Paul said. "He and I would talk during
batting practice, before games and after games. Just the other day, he was
telling me: 'I've gone 0-for-40 and also hit 10 home runs in a week. So
always try to keep your head right in the middle.'''

That wasn't always Canseco's style. He slugged his way into the record
books with the Oakland Athletics powerhouses of the late 1980s, teaming
with Mark McGwire as the most potent long-ball duo in the game. But
Canseco's off-field life often drew equal attention, between altercations
with his first wife, reckless driving habits, a gun-related arrest and a
brief courtship with rock diva Madonna.

A mellower Canseco signed with the Sox last season after Frank Thomas
suffered a season-ending triceps injury. Perhaps humbled by a stint with
the independent minor-league Newark Bears, Canseco loved talking about his
daughter or bantering with the press about his sure-handed--in his mind, at
least--outfielder's glove.

He hit .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI in 76 games for the Sox.

"He didn't come with an ego. He carried himself and performed well,''
Williams said last month before re-signing Canseco, who was released in
spring training by the Montreal Expos.

Canseco ends his career with 462 homers, 22nd on the all-time list. The
first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season, he's
one of only nine players in history with 400 homers and 200 steals.

He was American League Rookie of the Year in 1986, and his 40-40 season in
1988 earned him MVP honors. He led the A's to the first of three straight
AL pennants that season, and they won the World Series in 1989.

But the six-time All-Star's career was hampered by injuries. He blew out
his elbow in 1993 and needed reconstructive surgery. He spent time on the
disabled list in five of the last seven seasons.

==========
  From Fox Sports:

..."He's one of the most significant Latin guys that there were in the
game," Roberto Alomar said. "It's sad to see a guy like that go, but on the
other hand, he did the best he could for the game and I wish him well."...

==========
  From the St. Petersburg Times:
Canseco's exit is far too quiet
By GARY SHELTON
May 15, 2002

He would stand at the plate, a hero out of mythology, and you could not
look elsewhere.

Even during batting practice, you had to watch. His face would twitch, and
he would tug at his sleeve, and adjust his elbow pad. Then he would lean
over, the cartoon-sized muscles coiled for attack.

His swing was ferocious, and when he missed, there was a ripping noise that
threatened the sound barrier. When he connected, the sound was clean and
sharp and the ball would soar impossible distances, almost fading from
sight before it began to fall.

That was when Jose Canseco would turn around and wink.

"I didn't quite get all of that one," he would announce to everyone watching.

For Canseco, that was a standard line. If you listened to Jose, he never
got all of a baseball, no matter how far it went.

Now he is gone, and the sadness is this:

Baseball never quite got all of Jose, either.

He could have been a legend. He should have been. Canseco was one of those
players blessed by the heavens. He had that uncommon blend of power and
speed. Someone that big should not be able to run that fast; someone that
fast should not be that strong.

Given that, he should have been immortal. He should have had Mickey
Mantle's career, or at least, Mark McGwire's.

It's hard to remember Canseco the younger now. It's hard to remember what a
great player he was before he turned into a half-dimensional hitter who
hopped from one franchise to another in search of at-bats.

He went from one cap to another, from one city to another, seeking the
absolution that his 500th home run promised. It backfired. Every time a
team allowed him to go, it pronounced him no longer the player he had been,
and his greatness would fade a little more.

As Canseco heads toward the exit, the question is how people will remember
him. As the flaming star of his youth? Or as the vagabond slugger trying to
hang around at the end?

Sadly, you know the answer. In all likelihood, the Hall of Fame closed its
doors to Canseco with his retirement. If he had reached 500 home runs, he
probably would have gotten in eventually. Everyone else has. Five hundred
would have made you remember his MVP, his 40-40 season, his dominance with
the A's.

Not now. There have been too many seasons of mediocrity since his
greatness. There have been too many bus stops in Texas and Boston and
Toronto and Tampa Bay and New York and Montreal and Chicago.

Oh, what Canseco could have been. If only his back hadn't given out. If
only he hadn't overbuilt his muscles to the point they worked against him.
If only he could have tamed some of the wildness of his youth. If only he
could have remained a player who could hurt you when he didn't hit it over
the fence. If only it were still 1991.

He was something to see back then. No one was more electric than Canseco.
He had an actor's smile and a comic book hero's body and a Hall of Famer's
ability. You didn't have to be Madonna to appreciate Canseco, though, it
has been noted, she was among the crowd.

What numbers could he have had? Six hundred home runs? Two hundred and
fifty stolen bases? Let your imagination run wild. We'll never know, the
same as we will never know how much Canseco's love of being bigger and
stronger may have played in his decline.

It bears remembering that by the time Canseco reached Tampa Bay, he was a
shell of what he had been. And his half-season of '99 is still more
memorable than any full season any Ray has had. The Rays picked him up as a
bargain and squeezed the last drops of his greatness. Canseco hit 31 home
runs by the All-Star break, and if he had stayed healthy, he might have hit
60.

"Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff gave us a presence," general manager Chuck
Lamar said. "But Jose brought more electricity here than any player we've
had. Power and speed are the most exciting combination in our game. It's
safe to say that if Jose had been injury-free, he'd be in the top five of
players who have both."

Canseco was also a delight to be around. He is a bright, self-effacing,
funny man. He'd joke about how unnecessary his glove was. You couldn't help
but like him.

I remember leaning next to him on the dugout rail one afternoon, talking
about Hispanics in baseball, and suddenly, he was talking about ways to add
pizazz to the game. He talked about cheerleaders and bases that lit up when
you touched them and batters painting their faces like pro wrestlers. He
talked about orange baseballs, which would make a home run count for two or
three runs instead of just one. He talked about giving more runs for long
home runs than those that barely clear the fence.

Deep down, however, Canseco loved the game. And he missed being a star.

To the last days, Canseco believed. Canseco always believed. He believed
his body was going to be just fine, and he'd still crank out 40 or 50 home
runs in a season. He was incredulous no one else saw the same. Two weeks
ago, he told the Miami Herald he felt he was being blackballed.

By then, however, it was hard to blame a team for taking a pass on Canseco.
A general manager never knew how many games Canseco was going to be in the
dugout and how many he was going to be in the training room.

In the end, we'll all remember Canseco as a guy who entered loudly and left
quietly.

A shame. With his ability, it should have been the other way around.

==========
  From CNN/SI:
Jose Canseco -- Hall of Famer?

Not likely, we're afraid, no matter how you crunch the numbers.

On Canseco's plus side -- and when Jose had it going, in the late '80s into
the mid '90s, few had bigger pluses -- are the home runs. He had 462 of
them in a 17-year career. The homers, in fact, are the biggest bullet point
on his baseball resume.

There are only 22 people in baseball history who have hit more home runs
than Canseco. Two of them, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, are still active.
Another, Mark McGwire, just retired. Another, Eddie Murray, will not be
eligible for Hall of Fame consideration until 2003.

Everyone else ahead of Canseco on the list is in the Hall of Fame.

But you have to draw the line somewhere.

It's clear that if Canseco had avoided the injuries that ruined much of his
career he would have reached 500 homers and he would have climbed far
enough up the charts to be a practical no-brainer inductee. He did win a
World Series (in 1989). He was a Rookie of the Year (1986) and a Most
Valuable Player (1988). He was the first 40-40 man in baseball (homers and
stolen bases in the same season, in '88), though that odd statistic holds
considerably less weight in the current state of baseball. He is one of
only nine men who have hit 400 homers and stolen 200 bases. St. Louis
manager Tony La Russa calls Canseco "the most complete athlete I've ever
managed."

But Canseco's .266 career average is not good, even among sluggers. Among
those home run hitters already in, only Harmon Killebrew and Reggie Jackson
have lower averages, and they both have at least 100 more homers than Canseco.

Canseco had 1,407 RBIs, too. That's the fewest of anyone ahead of him on
the home run list except Sosa, who is 144 behind. (A quick note: McGwire
has only seven more RBIs than Canseco and a lower batting average, though
he does have 121 more dingers. McGwire is eligible for consideration in 2007.)

Canseco was a defensive liability for much of his career. He hit better
than .300 only twice. And he struck out a ton. Of those 22 homer hitters
ahead of Canseco, only Jackson struck out more.

At the height of his power, Canseco was one of the most dangerous players
ever to wield a bat. His home runs were prodigious. His whole aura -- the
fast cars, the fast personal life, the fast-twitch muscles at bat, the
bulging biceps, the pure talent on the field -- screamed superstar.

But it didn't scream long enough, or loud enough, for the Hall of Fame.

==========
  From USA Today:
Canseco's retirement stirs Hall debate
By Mel Antonen

In 2007, Mark McGwire, Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken will be inducted into
baseball's Hall of Fame. The question: Will newly retired Jose Canseco ever
join them in Cooperstown?

Canseco, 37, is borderline.

He was the first to have at least 40 home runs and 40 steals in the same
season. He has an MVP award, 462 home runs, 1,407 RBI, 200 steals and two
World Series championship rings.

But he also was a journeyman DH with injury problems and a .266 average.
Eight Hall of Famers have hit less and gotten in, thanks to strong defense.

Canseco's case will test what voters from the Baseball Writers Association
of America think of players who were DHs most of their careers in an era
when the Hall of Fame standards for career home runs might jump from the
traditional total of 500.

"You can make a case, but the dramatic upsurge in home runs is going to
make his home run total less and less impressive as he gets closer to his
year of eligibility," says voter Pete Schmuck of The Sun in Baltimore.

"I'd be surprised if he gets in on the first ballot, but I wouldn't be
surprised if he gets in eventually."

Voter John Hickey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer says his first
inclination is to not vote for Canseco, but that might not always be the
case.

"At some point, I could see changing my mind," says Hickey, who covered
Canseco when he played for the Oakland Athletics. "He was not a great
player long enough. That's the essence."

Canseco's best years came in Oakland. He was the AL's top rookie in 1986
and the AL's unanimous MVP pick in 1988. He won two home run titles.

But after 1992 there was only one season, 1998 with the Toronto Blue Jays,
where he had more than 100 RBI.

"The last 10 years people have been laughing at him," says voter Bruce
Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Hall of Famers are not the object
of scorn."

How Canseco compares

Jose Canseco finished his 17-year career with 462 home runs, 38 shy of 500,
a .266 career average and 1,407 RBI. By the time he's eligible for the Hall
of Fame, his numbers might not look as impressive. Active players, with
numbers as of May 14, 2002, who have time to improve their statistics.

Player  Age  Avg.  HR  RBI
Barry Bonds  37  .292  580  1,565
Sammy Sosa  33  .279  465  1,262
Ken Griffey Jr.  32  .296  461  1,338
Rafael Palmeiro  37 .294  455  1,496
Fred McGriff  38  .286  451  1,422
Juan Gonzalez  32  .296  397  1,282

Jose Canseco is one of seven players in major league history with at least
450 home runs, 1,400 RBI and 200 stolen bases. Five are in the Hall of
Fame, and Barry Bonds is a sure first-ballot selection.

Player  HR  RBI  SB
Hank Aaron  755  2,297  240
Willie Mays  660  1,903  338
Frank Robinson  586  1,812  204
Barry Bonds  580  1,565  486
Reggie Jackson  563  1,702  228
Dave Winfield  465  1,833  223
Jose Canseco  462  1,407  200

==========
  From USA Today:
Canseco's next project: Tell-all book
By Mel Antonen

Now that Jose Canseco has retired from baseball, he's going to write a book.

"It's going to be the most interesting book sports has even seen," Canseco
told USA TODAY on Tuesday, a day after announcing his retirement. "It's
going to turn baseball on its ear. It's going to be incredible. It will
have all my experiences, good and bad.

"People don't know me. They don't know anything about me. They only know
what they see in the media. It's all about the truth. I'm going to clarify
everything. If you don't want to find out what's going on in baseball,
don't turn the pages of my book."

Canseco, 37, will tell his story to Bill Chastain, former baseball writer
for the Tampa Tribune, and the two are in the process of looking for a
publisher.

Canseco will not get specific but says the book will cover what's wrong
with baseball, from steroid use to racial problems. Later, on ESPN Radio,
he said steroids "renovated" the game and there are "shocking names" among
the players who used steroids.

At the start of his career in the late 1980s, Canseco was a Mickey
Mantle-type player with power, speed and an arm strong enough for his
original team, the Oakland Athletics, to think of him as a center fielder.

He has plenty of experiences to explain. Thanks to injuries and a lack of
discipline, Canseco developed into a journeyman who bounced from team to
team, never living up to his potential.

And he had a string of gaffes that contributed to his reputation. He talked
Texas manager Kevin Kennedy into letting him pitch, and he blew out his
arm. One night in Cleveland, he had a ball bounce off his head in right
field and go over the fence for a home run. (The replay has been on TV
thousands of times.)

He was the center of a steroids controversy. He got away from working on
defensive aspects of the game. He had relationship problems.

After being released from the Montreal Expos in spring training, Canseco
was playing for the Chicago White Sox's Class AAA team in Charlotte when he
announced his retirement. He said his emotions are mixed about retirement
because he wanted to reach 500 career home runs. He finished with 462.

"It hurts, because I know I could have done it easily," Canseco said. "What
hurts more is that I'm not getting an opportunity to do it."

The good news about his retirement is that he will get to spend more time
with his 5-year-old daughter, Josie, who lives in California.

"It's been 3 1/2 months since I've seen my daughter, and I figure she needs
a father more than I need Triple-A baseball," Canseco said. "The choice was
between suffering at Triple-A or going to see my daughter. The decision was
a no-brainer."

==========
  From CNN/SI:
Unfulfilled yet understandable
Canseco didn't live up to his potential, but he had fun
By Phil Taylor

Jose Canseco hit baseballs harder than anyone I ever saw. I had many
occasions to be on the field during batting practice when Canseco was in
his prime with the Oakland A's in the late 1980s and early '90s, and no one
I've ever seen before or since, not Mark McGwire, not Barry Bonds, not
Sammy Sosa, can match the sheer power with which Canseco simply pulverized
the ball. It wasn't just the tape-measure missiles he pounded over fences,
it was the laser-like grounders and line drives he bashed. As Canseco stood
at the plate, muscles bulging in his always skin-tight uniform, waggling
his bat in anticipation, you wondered if he might hit the ball so hard it
would just explode on impact, disintegrating into grains of white powder.

He never did that, of course, just as he never accomplished many of the
more realistic feats he seemed capable of. Canseco announced his retirement
Monday at the age of 37, after 17 years spent with seven teams. He hit 462
home runs -- 22nd on the all-time list -- won a World Series, was voted
Rookie of the Year (1986) and Most Valuable Player (1988), and was the
first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same
season. Yet, he somehow leaves a legacy of promise unfulfilled. He had a
fine career that could have been a legendary one if he'd been just a little
more serious, shown just a touch more commitment.

Canseco didn't get the most out of his talent. But you know what? That's
OK. He was the kind of underachiever who made you smile, the charming rogue
who could have really accomplished something if he'd just applied himself.
He had late-night dalliances with Madonna, drove Italian sportscars and
treated speed limits as if they were just a suggestion. He let a fly ball
bounce off his noggin and over the right field wall of Cleveland Stadium,
and he blew out his elbow in 1993 when he came in to pitch an inning
against the Boston Red Sox on a lark. Canseco had tons of fun, and if it
cost him Cooperstown, so be it.

Unlike others who fell short of greatness, like Darryl Strawberry or Dwight
Gooden, there's no element of tragedy to Canseco's story. He was just a guy
who wanted to have as good a time off the field as he did on it. Not every
player with great talent is meant to have a career that lives up to his
talent. Not every slugger can have the white-hot intensity and unwavering
focus of someone like Bonds.

Canseco put off retirement as long as he could, hoping to hang on long
enough to reach the 500-homer milestone, but he would have blown by that
mark long ago if he had taken better care of himself. Injuries cost him
hundreds of at-bats over the second half of his career, and he might have
avoided many of them if he hadn't seemed more interested in his body's form
than its function. Canseco always seemed to care more about how he filled
out a uniform than he did about flexibility and conditioning. It was no
coincidence that his chiseled body slowly began to crumble.

When it did, he became just another stone-handed American Leaguer who could
give the ball a ride when he got a hold of one. It's hard to believe a
player who was once the most feared slugger and valued commodity in
baseball wound up a vagabond DH with Oakland, Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa
Bay, the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox. Canseco may have done more
traveling than he ever envisioned, but at least he -- and we -- had fun on
the ride.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button
issue every Monday on CNNSI.com.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
No way, Jose
By Dan Patrick

Just 38 home runs shy of 500, six-time All-Star slugger Jose Canseco
begrudgingly retired from baseball on Monday. But make no mistake, Canseco
is not going out on his own terms and he's not leaving quietly. In fact,
he's going out kicking, screaming and threatening to take a couple of
literary swings at major-league baseball.

Reaching the 500 home-run mark could punch Canseco's ticket to the Hall of
Fame, but he's leaving the game because he feels he doesn't have a real
chance to play in the majors again. And he feels that chance is being taken
from him for reasons unrelated to his playing ability.

The former "Bash Brother" most recently found a home with the Chicago White
Sox but was pushed out when Frank Thomas returned to resume the designated
hitter spot. Sent down to Triple-A in Charlotte, Canseco was given the
opportunity to display his talent in hopes another team would pick him up.

There were no takers.

At 37, Canseco feels he's got a lot of game left. He can't understand why
no one would give him a chance. Therefore, the only logical answer (to him)
is that he's been blackballed in the game. Once the superstar icon of MLB,
Canseco found himself friendless and rejected by the sport that once
crowned him king. He feels he deserves more. Maybe so. But he's not going
to get it.

The sport that created him has abandoned him. And like many players before
him, Canseco now faces some harsh realities. In baseball, when you're no
longer hitting home runs, having 40-40 seasons, winning MVPs and playing on
championship teams, people are going to forget about you.

All of which has left Canseco bitter and vindictive. In turn, he's not
simply taking his ball and going home. Canseco is threatening to write a
tell-all book. In which he'll be naming names and citing episodes of
steroid use, extramarital affairs and other indiscretions.

I'd like to tell you more, but each time I asked Canseco to be more
specific, he replied, "It will be in the book."

Canseco wants to lash out at somebody. And I can understand that to a
point. But he's lashing out at the wrong people. If he wants to tell the
truth, fine. But if he's going to bring down other players, he'll be doing
a disservice to individuals who have nothing to do with the end of his
playing days. If he wants to talk about being blackballed, he should target
owners, general managers and coaches, not players and former teammates.

If anyone is familiar with the fallout from a tell-all book, it's "Ball
Four" author Jim Bouton. Bouton chronicled his 1969 season with the Seattle
Pilots to give fans an inside look at the baseball world. In doing so,
Bouton not only turned the establishment on its ear but also alienated
himself from many teammates and friends. He was ostracized from baseball
and three decades later, continues to try to repair broken relationships.

As titillating as "Ball Four" was at the time, its content was tame in
comparison to the gossip, and news, of today. For instance, Bouton wrote
that Mickey Mantle once hit a home run when he was hung over. As a guest on
my radio show, Bouton explained that if you're going to write a tell-all
these days, you've got to come to the table with more than just steroids
and affairs.

He also pointed out that if Canseco didn't actually keep a journal, he'd be
hard-pressed to remember details that would give his stories credibility.
Bouton said that "Ball Four" was an attempt to bring fans closer to the
game. Unlike Canseco, Bouton didn't have malicious intent.

"Ball Four" has stayed in print for 30 years because, at its heart, it was
an expression of Bouton's love for the game that had given him a life and
career. He ruffled the establishment and it cost him because so many people
(players, executives and writers mostly) weren't ready for that line to be
crossed. But his book is still around because Bouton did what he set out to
do: bring fans into the daily world of being a professional baseball
player. In doing so, he literally spawned a genre of sports books. No such
contributions would result from what Canseco has in mind.

Early in Canseco's career, it was clear that he had the makings of a Hall
of Famer. But somewhere along the way, he bought into the persona he
created for himself: the guy who hit the majestic home runs, dated Madonna
and put rocket fuel in his car. He became the dashing Jose Canseco and
forgot about being a baseball player.

So while his retirement has sparked re-evaluation of his talents and a
debate regarding the Hall of Fame, what may be more important is that Jose
Canseco the man finds peace within himself and thinks twice before
tarnishing his baseball reputation forever. Certainly, writing this book
would make the debate moot: He'd have no chance at the Hall.

I doubt this book will ever be written. I think Canseco will realize he'll
do more harm to himself than good. He's angry now. When he calms down,
hopefully he realize that selling out your friends is not striking back.

It's striking out.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Career clouded by injuries, outrageousness
By Mark Kreidler

It's just so easy to turn down Buffoon Avenue when searching for Jose
Canseco. Shoot, the man drew up the map himself: Left on Outrageous St.,
straight through the stop sign (don't even think about slowing down), right
at Wasted Talent Drive, and pretty soon you're there.

Cut by the Expos in the spring, Jose Canseco played for Triple-A Charlotte
before retiring this week. Packing heat, if at all possible.

Canseco made it that simple; over time, he became the punch line to most of
his own favorite stories. He went from speeding tickets to Madonna to
steroid rumors to baseballs bouncin' off his noggin with equal parts
panache and clown routine. Half the time, you waited for the fright wig and
red rubber nose to appear in the locker stall.

But you know the thing about all that? It's actually too easy. It becomes
the most convenient dodge to consign Canseco to the Coulda Bin, because it
is so much simpler than actually taking the time to reckon with his career
in baseball.

That reckoning takes a few minutes. Because before he was a lounge act,
Jose Canseco was a genuinely huge figure in baseball.

What you'll hear around the coffee press this week is Canseco's name being
lumped in there with Dave Kingman's, the suggestion being that had Canseco
managed to hang around at the major-league level a while longer, he might
ultimately have been able to hit 500 home runs while still having no shot
at the Hall of Fame.

It's the predictable comparison -- and it's a total insult to Canseco's
body of work. It shouldn't be necessary to love Canseco as a guy (or even
particularly like him) in order to appreciate the truth that, at a certain
point in his career, he was as well-rounded a player as anyone in baseball.

Don't take my word for it; take Tony LaRussa's. LaRussa had Canseco in
Oakland, beginning in the mid-1980s, and describes him as the most complete
athlete he ever managed. Said LaRussa, "This guy really could run, and,
when he was concentrating, play defense. And he loved to take the tough
at-bat. Injuries just took the important part of his career from him."

It doesn't mean Canseco joins baseball's pantheon of immortals; it means
Canseco was pretty amazingly good long before he was pretty amazingly
obnoxious. Nine players in history have hit 400 home runs and stolen 200
bases; Canseco is one of them. He finishes with 462 home runs, 1,407 RBI
and the 200 steals. You can't make up those statistics in the actual major
leagues; you have to earn them.

Canseco was a pure showman, but even that obscures the point of his talent.
He was a prodigious swinger at the plate -- prone to awe-inspiring whiffs
and 450-foot homers, usually in the same game -- but controlled enough to
have batted over .300 twice and to finish at a non-miserable .266 over
7,000-plus at-bats.

More than that, though, Canseco was, for quite a long time, the guy who
made people lean forward in their seats every time he came to the plate.
Barry Bonds is in that category now; Mark McGwire, Canseco's old Bash
Brother, certainly held the distinction. There are others, no question. But
Canseco was right there.

For more than a while, he was considered McGwire's superior, and it was a
genuine distinction. Canseco was good enough to draw the compliment. And in
the end, he and McGwire shared at least one commonality: Both players are
classic What-Ifs in the baseball conversation, because so much of their
career primes were lost to injury.

McGwire ultimately seemed twice as serious about finding the highest use of
his talent; Canseco's game deteriorated under the blanket suspicion that he
just didn't care enough to get better. Closer to the truth was that Canseco
was in only his fourth full season, in 1989, when he first suffered
significant injury. A year later, his back began to betray him, and there
ensued a decade of on-again, off-again work, of schlepping his act from one
destination to another.

No point in feeling sorry for the man; it is what it is. Canseco brought
the substantial sum of baseball's ridicule on himself, and he never
apologized for it, so you have to assume that he did things the way he
decided he wanted to, for better and for worse. Now he says he'll write a
tell-all book that names names (let's see him slip a steroid rumor past a
publishing-house lawyer), and that'll pretty much cement Canseco's
reputation as a vaudevillian rather than an athlete.

If there's any shame here at all, that's probably the one. Over time, Jose
Canseco created exactly enough nuttiness and foolishness around him to
throw a gauzy haze permanently over his baseball career. Lost in the
cover-up is the notion that, once upon a time, the man really could play.

Mark Kreidler of the Sacramento Bee is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Which Canseco will Hall voters remember?
By Joe Morgan

Now that Jose Canseco has announced his retirement from baseball, the
debate will rage over the next five years about whether or not he should be
inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

While I have a high regard for Canseco as a player and a man, I will not
judge his credentials. As the Hall's vice chairman, I would rather not make
an argument for or against him.

Canseco, however, is a unique case. His induction will depend on what the
Hall voters remember about his career. Will they focus on Canseco as a
player at the beginning of his career or as a DH at the end?

Numbers alone should not be the telltale sign of a Hall of Famer, but most
people will gravitate toward them first. Canseco finished his career with
462 home runs, or 38 short of the magical 500 mark. Of the Hall-eligible
players with 400 or more home runs, only two -- Andre Dawson and Darrell
Evans -- have yet to be enshrined.

Canseco also distinguished himself as baseball's first 40-40 man (40 homers
and 40 steals) and was one of only nine players in baseball history to
record 400 home runs and 200 steals. But beyond the numbers, Canseco was a
league MVP, a Rookie of the Year, a six-time All-Star and a World Series
champion.

When he was a young player for the Oakland A's in the late '80s and early
'90s, there was no doubt he was headed for a Hall of Fame career. Tony La
Russa called Canseco the most complete player he ever managed, one who
could hit towering home runs, hit for average, run the bases, throw and
play defense.

The 40-40 season in 1988 showed he had the rare combination of power and
speed. He was a superstar and a presence, a charismatic player who caught
peoples' attention. He was one of the most dominant players in the game and
the best player on a team that went to three straight World Series (1988-90).

When Canseco and Mark McGwire formed "The Bash Brothers" in Oakland,
Canseco was the better all-around player. I expected them to produce
similar offensive numbers during their careers, but McGwire ended up
becoming one of the most prolific home-run hitters in baseball history.

While McGwire is expected to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, Canseco's
future in Cooperstown is cast in doubt. Injuries and off-the-field problems
affected his path toward greatness. Then he became a DH, a spot unsuitable
for a potential Hall of Famer. Over his final eight seasons, Canseco played
only 148 games in the outfield.

Living in the Bay Area, I saw the best Canseco had to offer during his
career. Not only will I remember his great years in Oakland, but also his
maturity as a person.

Canseco is one of my favorite guys. When he played for the A's, he lived
around the corner from me. As a young man, he made some poor choices. But
once he got his personal life in order, Canseco grew into a heck of a man.

I admire his willingness late in his career to go to the minor leagues and
work his way back to the majors. Canseco had once been perhaps the biggest
star in the game, yet he was willing to play even in an independent league
to earn another chance.

His journey reminded me of the one Andre Agassi once traveled in tennis,
hitting the bottom and then rising again. Canseco showed his love for the
game and a desire to continue playing, no matter what.

Canseco will be a tough choice for the Hall of Fame. One must not discount
the early part of his career, when he was one of the game's most special
players. Whether it was special enough to earn him a permanent place in
Cooperstown will be for the voters to decide.

Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan is a baseball analyst for ESPN and
contributes a weekly column for ESPN.com.

Hi Cansecoites,

Here we are, one day after the big announcement.  Before I say anything
else, I want to tell you to go listen to Jose talking on today's Dan
Patrick Show: http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0514/1382336.html

It is a "must-hear" interview.  Jose talks about why he decided to retire
(he'd rather spend time with his daughter than play AAA ball, knowing he'll
probably never get back to the majors anyway), but that's just the tip of
the iceberg.  He also discussed how he thinks he's being blackballed from
the game, and he says he's in the process of writing a tell-all book.  It's
going to discuss the good and the bad of his career and the game of
baseball.  He plans to talk about how steroids have changed the game, the
politics of baseball, the antics of well respected players, and more.  And
he's planning on naming names.

Personally, I agree with Dan Patrick, who was cautioning Jose to take a
step back and not do anything he'll end up regretting.  I really think this
is a bad idea.  Don't get me wrong - I'd love to read about Jose's career
from his point of view, both the good and the bad, but I think making
accusations (even if they are true) about other players is only asking for
trouble.  I just don't see what good can come of it.

I think Jose is upset that he's being kept out of baseball, knowing he
still has the ability to play, and I think he's justified in that, but I
don't see how making other people look bad is going to make him look any
better.  If anything, I think it will make him look worse and will seal his
exile from the baseball community.

Maybe I'm being optimistic, but I don't think there is an organized
conspiracy against Jose, and I think he could get back to the majors
someday.  Then again, maybe I'm just naive.  Maybe he's right.  Maybe he's
doomed.

Whatever he decides, I hope it turns out well.  I just have a bad feeling
about this book.

There has been a LOT of news out there in the past 24 hours, including some
really great articles, both pro and anti-Jose... Enjoy.

-Mark

==========
Does Jose Canseco belong in the Hall of Fame?  Go vote YES here:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0513/1382016.html
http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/

Also, you can vote for your favorite Jose moment/memory here:
http://foxsports.lycos.com/content/view?contentId=486032
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/

==========
This first article is a few days old - Kudos to Mike Watson (a subscriber
of this list) for getting quoted...

  From the AP:
Canseco's finding his way and leaving mark in Charlotte
By PETE IACOBELLI

FORT MILL, S.C. (AP) The Triple-A Charlotte Knights have worked hard to
make Jose Canseco a star attraction.

Canseco knows the rest is up to him. He's hit 462 home runs in the major
leagues and would love a chance to reach 500.

The 37-year-old slugger made his debut for the Chicago White Sox's Triple-A
franchise last month, and the Knights and other International League teams
have taken advantage. The teams let fans in early for batting practice,
used his picture in full-page ads promoting games, and reminded everyone
over and over about his success in the big leagues.

Fans appeared to pay attention at the outset: Attendance at Knights' home
games jumped more than 50 percent from about 3,000 to about 4,600 on
average in his first week with the team.

``He's made no bones about his desire to get back to the big leagues and
get a shot at 500 home runs,'' Charlotte general manager Bill Blackwell
said this week.

``He's willing to work and do what it takes to get that done. ... He's been
good with the fans, with the media and made most of the outlandish requests
that we make of him every day.''

Canseco, released by the Montreal Expos after spring training, was hitting
.215 (11-of-51) with five homers and nine RBIs in 15 games through
Thursday, but the buzz that surrounded his return has slowed. Charlotte had
only 2,033 people at Tuesday's 7-3 loss to Scranton at the Knights Castle
in Fort Mill, which is about 10 miles south of Charlotte.

``He's still rounding into shape,'' Blackwell said. ``He had about a month
layoff. He's just now starting to get timing and things back. Hopefully,
he's going to break out and put up some monster numbers very shortly.''

Canseco's solo homer Thursday night helped Charlotte top Scranton 4-2 to
end a four-game losing streak.

Canseco never had trouble attracting notice. During his 17 years in the
majors, he made headlines as much for his colorful lifestyle as his
enormous baseball talent.

He would be on the news one day for hitting 42 homers and stealing 40 bases
for Oakland in 1988 to become the first to the 40-40 milestone, then on the
news the next day because he was dating Madonna or driving at 125 mph.

These days, he eases his rental car around the Charlotte area trying to
learn about his latest baseball stop.

``I'm no better than these guys,'' Canseco said. ``They're in Triple A,
too, trying to make it up. We're all teammates. We're all in this together.''

After signing a dozen baseballs that Blackwell gave him, Canseco smiled and
waved to a group of Little Leaguers.

``We couldn't ask for a better teammate,'' Charlotte reliever Clay Eason
said. ``He's been great.''

Another International League club, the Syracuse SkyChiefs, experienced a
small attendance surge last year when Deion Sanders joined it for a month,
assistant general manager Tom van Shaack said. But as the novelty wore off,
attendance slowed.

The SkyChiefs did what they could to showcase Canseco last week when the
Knights played at Syracuse. The park opened about 45 minutes early for
batting practice so people could watch Canseco, who also held a press
conference where he talked about an autobiography he says is in the works.

Canseco's personality and his ability to swat a baseball keep people
interested, said Mike Watson, one of about a dozen fans watching BP before
the Knights' game against Scranton on Wednesday.

Watson, visiting from Pittsburgh, jumped at the chance to see Canseco. ``He
was the best player in the game for a long time,'' Watson said. ``Look
what's he's done. It's incredible.''

Each time Canseco batted during Wednesday's game, fans broke out with
cheers of ``Go, go, go, Jose!'' He responded by driving in a run, albeit on
a first-inning groundout.

Canseco thinks he's got two or three good seasons left. If that means
spending all year with the Knights in hopes of proving himself again to
major league teams, he says, ``That's what I'm going to do. I want to play.
I know I can do it.''

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco in major-league exile
By STAN OLSON
Staff Writer

FORT MILL - Jose Canseco has hit 462 major league home runs. He's in peak
physical condition, with cannonball biceps and a beer keg chest that tapers
to a sprinter's waist. Not quite 38, he's four years younger than Tim
Raines, five years younger than Rickey Henderson and seven years younger
than Jesse Orosco, all of whom are in the big leagues.

And yet Canseco is a Charlotte Knight.

If that surprises you, think of how Canseco feels. He says he has been told
by people in baseball -- players and team officials -- that he has been
blackballed from the game.

"I'm just repeating what other people have been telling me," Canseco said
before a recent game at Knights Stadium. "People have been telling me this
for a while, and I don't want to believe it.

"But I'm starting to believe it because they're saying it so much. Players
in general are starting to say, `We know what's going on, you're being
blackballed.' "

No one, though, can give him a reason why.

"I would understand if someone would say, `This is the reason why,' " he
said. "Maybe they're right, or maybe it's not reason enough, but I haven't
heard a reason yet."

Canseco went to spring training with the Montreal Expos. When they told him
he wouldn't make the team and offered him a minor-league assignment, he
declined. Then his agent called around, looking for a major league roster
spot. He would play for the minimum salary, he said. And yet no club seemed
to have a position available.

Which left Canseco incredulous.

"Are you going to tell me you have so many players you can pay minimum
salary to guys who are going to hit you 40 home runs and drive in 100 runs"
he said. "You must have a lot of those guys hanging around?"

Finally, three weeks into the season, the Chicago White Sox offered him a
spot with Charlotte. He had filled in ably for the injured Frank Thomas at
designated hitter in the second half of 2001, and Chicago general manager
Ken Williams appreciated his good work.

Chicago really doesn't have a position available since Thomas is healthy
again. But Williams likes Canseco enough to put him in Charlotte as an
injury insurance policy and to give him a chance to display his skills for
other teams.

"He was nothing but a quality guy for us," Williams said, and while he
knows of no concerted effort to keep Canseco out of the big leagues, he is
surprised Canseco can't find a job.

"The No. 1 thing is that he can still play; this is a guy that has
something to offer. And as far as other teams' interest or lack thereof, I
can't
explain it. I don't understand it."

There is a public perception of Canseco as something of a glamorous
goofball, a bit self-absorbed, perhaps. But his teammates tell another
story.

"I was actually kind of surprised; I didn't know what to expect with Jose
Canseco," said first baseman Chris Saunders. "But he's just one of the
guys, he fits in perfectly. He doesn't think he's any better than anyone
else. He's flying coach with the rest of us instead of first class. I
really respect that."

With Saunders enduring a slump on the last road trip, Canseco sat with him
on the bench, talked about hitting and being patient at the plate, and to
relax.

"He's got 17 years in the big leagues so he's got a lot of advice and he's
not afraid to share it with you," Saunders said. "He helped me so much,
telling me not to try to do too much and not to put so much pressure on
myself."

On a recent flight, Knights broadcaster Matt Swierad sat near Canseco and a
Knights player who has a fear of flying.

"Any kind of turbulence and the guy gets scared," Swierad said. "And Jose
was talking to him in Spanish and saying that it was no big deal, really
helping him."

Canseco, Swierad said, also takes the team bus to the airport with the
majority of the players, even though it means getting there 90 minutes
before he's required to arrive.

Canseco seemed surprised that his being a good teammate was a big deal to
the other Knights.

"I'm no better than these guys," he said. "I'm in Triple-A too and these
guys are trying to make it back up just like I am. We're all on the same
team, and we're all in it together. If I can help them out in any way to
get where they want to go, that's fine."

That has carried over. When Canseco reaches his black Lincoln Navigator
after games, there are always fans waiting, wanting autographs. He always
signs.

"Just around the clubhouse, he's been great," said relief pitcher Clay
Eason. "Especially for the young guys, hitting-wise. And I was pretty
surprised; most of the time, you look at power hitters. ... I didn't
realize how knowledgeable he was about the pitching aspect, about defense,
and everything in general."

About that defense. Part of Canseco's problem could be that some see him as
strictly a designated hitter, and thus limited to a single role in the
American League.

But he still has great speed, and was once a competent outfielder. Knights
manager Nick Capra says Canseco will play in the outfield as soon as he
rounds into game shape, and adds, "We've even got him taking ground balls
at first base."

That leaves some teams skeptical.

"The guy can't play defense," said one National League general manager, who
could not comment for attribution on another organization's players. "His
blackballing reaction is sour grapes. He's competitive, and lots of time
guys in Jose's position don't want to deal with reality.

"But at the same time, you have to be open-minded and check these things
out. There's always a chance of another Ruben Sierra being out there."

Sierra, now with Seattle, had been out of the majors since 1995, only to
resurface last year with his batting stroke restored.

Canseco, who has struggled with the Knights Stadium lighting but has hit
five home runs, believes he can do the same. And for little cost to the
team that finally believes in him. Meanwhile, he lives out of a suitcase in
a hotel, vowing to stay in Charlotte as long as it takes to be noticed
again, all season if necessary.

While he's here, he is keeping a low profile, listening to techno and
classic rock ("I like songs that remind me of certain times of my life"),
watching movies (action and sci-fi thrillers, baseball flicks like "A
League of Their Own," and "The Natural"), lifting weights and hanging with
his girlfriend, who visits occasionally from Miami.

All the time, thinking about getting back to the big leagues, where he once
was the best player in the game.

Canseco was struggling with allergies, coughing and snorting but still
talking earnestly in the Knights clubhouse, his words coming in staccato
bursts.

"I don't want to believe that a guy who is 38 home runs from 500 -- if I
get a whole year, I hit that with my eyes closed -- who still has three or
four good years in him, who can still put fans in the seats, who still can
put excitement into the game and help a team win, is being blackballed," he
said. "If it's true I just don't want to believe it.

"Eventually, it'll all come out. I believe somewhere down the line, it will
all be plain and simple. Does it make sense for me to be here? It's kind of
scary to believe that no teams are looking at me."

And you wonder; if Canseco already had those 500 home runs, would he still
be here? The question brought a slight smile in reply.

"Probably," he said. "I just love the game in its simple form; just playing
the game. Just like when you were a little kid. When you were a kid, you
didn't stretch; you didn't have all that other stuff. You just picked up
and you played.

"I still can't wait until the game starts."

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco retires short of HR goal
By DENNY SEITZ

FORT MILL - Charlotte Knights slugger and former AL Most Valuable Player
Jose Canseco announced his retirement Monday.

Canseco, 37, struggled through much of his brief stint with the Charlotte
Knights, batting .172 with five home runs and nine RBIs in 18 games. He was
trying to earn his way back onto a major-league roster in hopes of reaching
the 500-home run mark.

Canseco's 462 home runs rank 22nd in history.

He spoke about missing his young daughter, though, and questioning whether
he had been blackballed by major-league teams.

"Jose felt that because of personal reasons and a strong desire on his part
to spend more quality time with his young daughter, it was time to announce
his retirement," said Alan Nero, Canseco's agent.

Knights manager Nick Capra said, unlike many, he was not surprised by the news.

"He'd been contemplating this for the last couple of days," said Capra, who
learned of the retirement after the Knights' parent team -- the Chicago
White Sox -- relayed the news Monday. "I'm sure it was a very tough
decision for him to make."

A couple of dozen fans mulled around the locked doors of Knights Stadium
after the team's game against Toledo was postponed because of rain. They
were hoping to get one last glimpse of Canseco.

Meanwhile, Knights No. 33 jerseys with "Canseco" stitched on the back sat
on a chair in the teams' public relations office, instant collector's items.

Canseco retires as one of nine players with 400 home runs and 200 stolen
bases. A lifetime .266 hitter, he recorded 1,407 RBIs in 1,887 games with
Oakland (1985-92), Texas (1992-94), Boston (1995-96), Oakland (1997),
Toronto (1998), Tampa Bay (1999-2000), the Yankees (2000) and the White Sox
(2001).

In 1986, he earned AL Rookie of the Year honors, hitting 33 home runs with
117 RBIs. Two years later, he was a unanimous selection as MVP after
becoming the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases the same
season. His abilities and his off-the-field penchant for fast driving and
attention-grabbing behavior -- he had a fling with Madonna -- found him
frequently in the spotlight.

"Whether we were home or away, people came to see him play," Capra said.
"The aura he brought to the game was unbelievable."

==========
  From the Miami Herald:
Canseco swings -- and misses Hall call
By Jeff Miller - jamiller@...

So his career is over now, and he ends up short, a most inappropriate
resting place for the final swing of José Canseco.

How could a man who hit baseballs to the tops of domed stadiums and into
the parking lots of open-air ones finish short? How could this burly
one-time ''Bash Brother'' turn out to be not quite strong enough?

There were injuries, way too many injuries, and distractions, way too many
of those, as well, and, Canseco wants us to believe, a conspiracy, too.
That's why he disappears in oblivion, his last uniform being issued by the
Charlotte Knights, a personality so major going out with a team so minor.

Two weeks ago, Canseco told this newspaper he was being blackballed by
baseball's executives. Why? That revelation would come later, he explained,
perhaps in one of those diss-and-tell books. But, he promised, he would not
quit.

On Monday, Canseco quit, saying goodbye in a statement released through a
team -- the White Sox, parent club of the Knights -- he wasn't playing for,
in words that belonged to someone else, his agent, Alan Nero.

This also was inappropriate, yet it somehow was strangely predictable for a
player who never seemed to find the smoothest path, the easiest way.
Canseco could run remarkably well for a man his size, but, unless he was
stealing second, he rarely took a straight line.

So he ends up short, his 462 home runs 38 swings from the number that would
have carried him into the Hall of Fame. As for his wild-card chances at
Cooperstown, sorry, but Canseco is short again.

He finishes with a career batting average of .266. Among the enshrined
power hitters, only Reggie Jackson (.262) and Harmon Killebrew (.256) had
lower averages. Both, of course, surpassed 500 home runs.

Canseco had 1,877 hits during his 17 seasons. There are 270 players with
more, including Ruben Sierra, Dante Bichette and Steve Finley.

Canseco's signature was the way he blended speed with power. He gave
baseball the term ''40-40,'' a reference to 40 home runs and 40 stolen
bases in the same season. Only eight other players have had 400 homers and
200 steals. Of that group, seven are in the Hall of Fame or headed there.

The eighth, Andre Dawson, was named on fewer than half of the most recent
ballots, and his career statistics -- in nearly 800 more games than the
too-fragile Canseco -- are superior in almost every category.

If not in bronze, then how are we to remember the career of this man? Some
might suggest Styrofoam, noting how Canseco's sculpted body so often
betrayed him, those muscles not nearly as imposing while on the disabled list.

Others will choose to dismiss all the home runs he hit with his bat in
favor of the one he hit with his head. They also will talk about the day he
pitched for the Texas Rangers, leaving a blown-out elbow and washed-out
season on the mound.

Funny? Yes. But unfair, as well. Compacting Canseco in such a way -- and
those last two incidents did occur on the same road trip -- is as effective
as describing a thunderstorm by the first few rain drops.

No, to appreciate Canseco we must remember all of him, from his violent
swing to his volatile relationships, from his days with McGwire to his
nights with Madonna, from his tape-measure highlights to his brain-lock
lowlights.

Because Canseco was much more than a baseball player, his persona always
seeping beyond the foul lines. From his rookie year, he was larger than
almost everyone around him. He was bigger physically, too.

Face it, even today, even as he was cast aside in Triple A, how many
players are genuinely more compelling? If Canseco came to the plate right
now, matched against, say, Curt Schilling, wouldn't you watch?

Remember him that way, as a photo taken with a wide-angle lens. Remember
him as one of the most exciting players in the game. Remember him as one of
the most exciting players out of the game.

Hall of Famer?

No.

Entertainer?

Yes.

First ballot.

====================================
  From the Miami Herald:
Canseco throws in the towel
1988 AL MVP from Miami retires 38 homers shy of 500
By JUAN C. RODRIGUEZ - jrodriguez@...

END OF THE ROAD: Jose Canseco was a unanimous choice for MVP with the
Oakland Athletics in 1988, when he became the first player with 40 home
runs and stolen bases in a season.

With neither a membership in the 500 home run club nor a reservation for
the Hall of Fame, Miami slugger José Canseco quietly retired from
professional baseball Monday.

Canseco, 37, renounced his bid to return to the majors and log the 38
homers he needed to reach 500. Most recently, he was toiling in the Chicago
White Sox organization, hitting .172 (11 for 64) with five homers and nine
RBI in 18 games with Charlotte (N.C.) of the Triple A International League.

In a prepared statement released by the White Sox, Canseco's agent, Alan
Nero, said, ``José felt that because of personal reasons and a strong
desire on his part to spend more quality time with his young daughter, it
was time to announce his retirement.''

Nero did not return a phone message.

The Cuban-born Canseco spent 17 years in the majors with seven teams. In
1986, he won American League Rookie of the Year honors with Oakland. Two
years later, Canseco was the unanimous AL MVP after becoming the first
player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a season.

The ''Bash Brothers'' tandem of Canseco and Mark McGwire led Oakland to
three consecutive American League pennants and a World Series title in 1989.

This season began with Canseco at No. 22 on the career home run list with
462. Sammy Sosa (465) has since leapfrogged him, with Ken Griffey Jr.
(461), Rafael Palmeiro (455) and Fred McGriff (451) close behind. Though
he's one of nine players to total 400 homers and 200 steals, even Canseco
had acknowledged 500 homers was the way into Cooperstown.

Canseco's plate appearances produced ''oohs'' and ''aahs'' well before
McGwire started sending pitches into other zip codes. After his MVP season,
Canseco signed what was then the most lucrative deal in baseball: $23
million over five years.

Canseco never denied being worth every penny. He once said fans would
rather pay to watch him strike out than see Wade Boggs hit opposite-field
singles.

''I thought he was the most complete athlete I've ever managed,'' said Tony
La Russa, Canseco's manager in Oakland. ``This guy really could run and
when he was concentrating, play defense. . . . Injuries just took the
important part of his career from him.''

A product of Coral Park High, Canseco struck out plenty. His 1,942 whiffs
is second only to Reggie Jackson's 2,597.

Once among South Florida's most popular resident athletes, Canseco grew up
in Miami, where a street (Southwest 16th) bore his name from 1988-2000. He
ultimately moved to Weston and sold his mansion there two years ago before
buying a Brickell Avenue condominium.

Canseco's personal life was no less eventful than his on-field exploits.
Linked to late-night visits with Madonna and arrested for everything from
gun possession to domestic violence to nightclub brawls, Canseco is
divorced twice and the father of a 5-year-old daughter, Josie.

Canseco's last full season came in 2000, when he batted .252 with 15 homers
and 49 RBI in 98 games with Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees. He totaled
a career 1,407 RBI and 200 steals in 1,887 games.

Released by the Anaheim Angels during spring training last year, Canseco
played for the Newark (N.J.) Bears of the Atlantic League before joining
the White Sox midway through the season.

After hitting .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI, Canseco never conceived of
not finding a big-league home in 2002. He agreed to a minor-league deal
with the Montreal Expos and was released in late March after hitting .200
with three homers and five RBI in 14 spring training games.

Deteriorating defensive skills made Canseco a liability in the outfield.
Despite all his accomplishments, he is probably best known for a fly ball
bouncing off his head and over an outfield wall at Cleveland's Municipal
Stadium in 1993.

Except for spot starts, he was exclusively a designated hitter in the final
years of his career.

During an interview with The Herald two weeks ago, Canseco speculated he
was being blackballed.

''This is very hurtful, very stressful, very depressing, very demeaning,''
Canseco said of his latest stint in the minors. ``If I don't play baseball
anymore it's because they've finally kicked me out of the game. . . . I
can't believe or understand why nobody will touch a guy who will give them
40 or 50 homers a year, guaranteed.

``It's shocking, terrifying, depressing.''

Arguably the game's best player in the late 1980s, Canseco garnered
rock-star popularity thanks to his violent swing and tape-measure home
runs. Former Athletics teammate Walt Weiss once likened road trips with
Canseco to traveling with Elvis Presley.

==========
  From CBS Sporsline:
Canseco has no chance in Hall to reach Cooperstown
May 13, 2002
By Scott Miller

Had he hung around longer, finagled more playing time and finally joined
the 500-home run club like he hoped to, Jose Canseco still would not have
been a Hall of Famer.

At least, he wouldn't be listed on my ballot when the time came -- and I'm
pretty sure I'm not alone here.

Canseco, who broke into the majors with Oakland in 1985, was a terrific
player during his prime who hit home runs of epic proportions and often
created excitement on the bases. He retired Monday as one of only nine
players in history to have crossed the thresholds of both 400 homers (he
finishes with 462) and 200 thefts (he had 200 on the button).

Yet even at that, Canseco simply was not a Hall-caliber player.

One of Cooperstown's greatest assets is that, unlike halls of fame in other
sports, it is an extremely difficult destination that can only be reached
by meeting exceptionally high standards. And despite his credentials in
some areas, Canseco's iron glove will be weighed heavily against him when
he becomes eligible for the Hall in five years -- as it should.

The lasting image of Canseco in the field will be of the fly ball that
bounced off of his head and over the fence for a home run during a game in
Cleveland in 1992.

Still tilting at windmills this spring, Canseco came to camp with the
Montreal Expos before being released, then signed a minor-league deal with
the Chicago White Sox.

Just the other day, he said if he had to stick around and become the Crash
Davis of the minors -- the fictional character from the movie Bull Durham
who held the all-time minor-league homer record -- he'd do it.

Monday, he apparently changed his mind. Which, I think, is much better than
him extending his career indefinitely in search of that 500th homer under
the delusion that it would secure him a place in Cooperstown.

"I've always felt being inducted into the Hall of Fame is very special --
very, very special,'' Montreal manager Frank Robinson, a Hall of Famer
himself whose 586 home runs rank fourth all time in the majors, said Monday
after hearing news of Canseco's retirement. "When you use the term
'superstar,' to me you're talking about someone who stands above the pack,
an elite-type player.

"He had a very good career. He was a proficient long-ball hitter. But I
don't think you go into the Hall of Fame because of one number -- 500 home
runs, or 3,000 hits.

"I think the Hall of Fame means, 'You were outstanding.'"

==========
  From Fox Sports:
Rome: Jose Canseco was a True Classic
BY JIM ROME
May. 14, 2002

It's a dark day here in the jungle. Jungle legend Jose Canseco is going
into his own personal operation shutdown, calling off his pursuit of 500
bombs and retiring at age 38.

Sadly, his 462 bombs probably won't be enough to get him into Cooperstown.

Now, while my man might not be a hall of famer in person, he certainly is
in personality. The guy was larger than life. There was nobody like Jose
Canseco.

We're talking about the sport's first 40-40 guy ... guys that big and that
strong are not supposed to run like that. And speaking of running, who will
ever forget Jose telling me on this show that he ran a 4.2 40. A 4.2 40!
Jesse Owens never ran a 4.2 40. Secretariat never ran a 4.2 40.

Jose also insisted that he had never been thrown out at the plate. Los
Angeles Dodger outfielder Shawn Green told me once he and his fellow
teammates in the outfield would always play in because they wanted to be
the one to hose him at the plate.

His bat speed was frightening. His power legendary. Time stood still when
this guy got into the box. And on top of that, he was part of two of the
most legendary plays in the history of the game. Once, when he bounced a
ball of his coconut over the outfield wall for a homerun; a feat that will
never be duplicated. And of course, there was the time he blew out his
elbow throwing 95 mile per hour knuckleballs in relief, an event which
would have been hilarious had it not cost him even more time on the shelf
and a possible shot at 500.

And as legendary as his exploits were between the lines, they were often
times even more impressive off the field: the fast cars, the fast women, a
few trips around the block with Madonna, the run-ins with the law, him
crashing his first wife's car, authorities coming down on him for having a
gun in his car, the fact that he may have been the first athlete ever with
a 900 number to chronicle his own exploits, the time he brought a land
tortoise into the A's clubhouse, stop me when you've heard enough.

Oh and one more thought about Jose: at times, he may have seemed like a
circus and possibly not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm here to tell
you the guy is very bright, and always the most popular guy in any
clubhouse. Injuries probably will deprive him of a shot at Cooperstown, but
for my money this guy is a hall of fame personality.

There will never be another like Jose. Jose Canseco is a bonafide classic.

==========
  From tuscaloosanews.com:
It was never difficult to be a Jose Canseco fan
By Chris Olds (another member of this email list)
May 14, 2002

Psst ... Let me tell you a little secret that most sports writers won’t
ever divulge. They’ll never admit it, at least in print, and they’ll
probably deny it after they say so.

Everybody has a favorite baseball player.

If you haven’t read the above headline yet, it’s not tough for me to admit
I’m a fan of the guy who brought biceps and half of the Bash Brothers to
baseball. I’m a fan of the guy who was the first to hit 40 home runs and
steal 40 bases in a season. I’m a fan of the guy who, until his retirement
Monday evening, was at Triple A just trying to make it back to the majors.

I’m a fan of Jose Canseco.

He’s the guy who never seemed to wear his hat unless he was on the field or
at the plate to hit a 500-foot home run. He’s the guy who, before a
powerful sweeping swing, would twitch his neck and blink his eyes at the
plate. He’s also the guy who, in his early days, had his share of bad
press. He’s also the guy who should eventually make it into the Hall of Fame.

He is my baseball hero.

Canseco, 37, hit 462 home runs during a 17-year career in the majors for
the A’s, Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Devil Rays, Yankees and White Sox.
(He signed with the Angels last spring and the Expos this spring, but did
not play for either team.)

In 1985, Canseco was named the Southern League MVP as a member of the
Huntsville Stars, hitting 25 homers and driving in 80 runs in only 58
games. He also hit .318. The next season, he was named the American League
Rookie of the Year.

By 1988, he was the best player in the world and was a unanimous pick as
the AL Most Valuable Player after one of the best seasons in history.
Canseco has two World Series rings, one as a superstar right fielder with
the A’s in 1989 and one as a backup designated hitter with the Yankees in
2000.

Before Sammy Sosa surpassed him this season, Canseco’s homers were the most
by a player born outside the United States. (He was born in Havana, Cuba,
and grew up in Miami, Fla.)

As a designated hitter for the Charlotte Knights in the White Sox
organization, Canseco wasn’t playing for the money that he once drew as the
game’s highest-paid player. He was just playing his way back to The Show so
he could get 38 more Canseco-sized hits to join the 500 home run club and
help his chances of making it to Cooperstown.

He hit .172 with five home runs and nine RBI in 18 minor league games this
season.

"I’m no better than these guys," Canseco told The Associated Press last
week. "They’re in Triple A, too, trying to make it up. We’re all teammates.
We’re all in this together."

As a kid, I remember my first card was Canseco’s 1987 Topps. It’s No. 620
-- a number that goes right there with 33 (his original uniform number),
.307 (his career-high batting average in 1988) and 46 (his career high in
home runs in 1998). That card is one that stands out today; his green
jersey and the Topps All-Star Rookie team trophy forever etched into my memory.

Just like when I saw him play.

I grew up a day’s drive from Denver, Colo., so I got the chance to see
Canseco play only once. (I had tickets for an A’s-Rockies interleague
series at Coors Field in 1997, but Canseco didn’t make the trip because of
an injury.) Seven years ago, I saw him play during a family trip to Cleveland.

He went 0-for-4 for the Red Sox, but hit a few homers in batting practice.
He didn’t sign any autographs because it was the day after a group of
autograph seekers got more than pushy in Pawtucket, R.I., during his
well-publicized injury rehab assignment.

Even then, I was lucky to see him play.

I haven’t met Canseco, and I don’t have a shrine or Web site dedicated to
him. But my personal collection has always centered around him. Nearly all
of my Ken Griffey Jr., Bo Jackson and Nolan Ryan cards were traded for what
were always just called "Joses" instead of cards.

Years ago, I received a signed baseball as a birthday present. After that,
I used my paycheck from a part-time job bagging groceries to buy a signed bat.

Forget all of the cards and autographs, my dream item (one that still
eludes me) is a bat that he actually used during a game. I guess now
there’s a limited number of those, too.

No one has ever heard this before -- consider it another one of those
sports writer secrets -- but one of those abstract, hyperidealized reasons
I got into journalism was so I could, somehow, cast just one Hall of Fame
vote for Canseco. Does admitting this hurt my chances of joining the
Baseball Writers’ Association of America? Maybe, but my first requirement
would probably be to write about baseball rather than baseball cards and
memorabilia.

So, does Canseco have a shot at Cooperstown? I believe so, even without 500
homers. He was part of a dynasty (Oakland, 1988-1990). He brought more
power to the majors and about half of his home runs came before the power
explosion sparked by expansion.

Even after his MVP glory had passed and injuries really caught up with him,
he put up surprisingly solid power numbers during the 1990s.

Among active players at the time of his retirement, only Barry Bonds and
Sosa have more home runs. He’s 22nd on the career list and has the
eighth-highest home run total in American League history.

He is also one of only nine players to steal 200 bases and hit 400 home runs.

Canseco’s 1,407 RBI trailed only Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff
among active players.

As a whole, his statistics compare favorably with Reggie Jackson, McGriff,
Willie Stargell, Harmon Killebrew, Griffey Jr. and Sosa -- all Hall of Fame
material.

Let me also put an end to one myth, too. Although he was the active career
leader in strikeouts (1,942), he led the majors in strikeouts only one
time. With Canseco’s retirement, Andres Galarraga is now the active leader
(1,867).

Canseco knows his injuries have derailed a sure shot at the Hall. Perhaps a
comeback may be in the works sometime if a team needs a designated hitter?

I can only dream -- I’ll be there if it happens. After all, he was set on
joining the 500 home run club long ago.

"Before I die, I am going to hit those 500 home runs," Canseco told ESPN’s
"Up Close" in 1999 after back surgery that prevented him from playing in
his sixth All-Star game.

"I’ve probably gone through more ups and downs than any player in the
history of the game," he said. "I’ve been the worst player in the world
with injuries."

At that time, Canseco was projected to hit his 500th home run in June of
this season.

Next month, he’ll be enjoying the start of a new game -- retirement -- and
I’ll have to figure out how to watch baseball without him.

So long, Jose. It’s been a bash.

Chris Olds has collected sports cards and memorabilia since 1987. Have a
question or idea? Send e-mail to chris.olds@.... His column
appears each Tuesday in The Tuscaloosa News.

==========
  From www.-billy-ball.com (another subscriber of this list, actually)
May 14, 2002

Top of the 3rd
NO WAY JOSE
Well, it looks like he’s gone. Jose Canseco yesterday announced his
retirement (I say “looks like” because you have to figure with a mercurial
personality like Jose, if he gets another offer he’ll jump back into the
pool). Alan Nero, Canseco's agent said, "Jose felt that because of personal
reasons and a strong desire on his part to spend more quality time with his
young daughter, it was time to announce his retirement." Billy-Ball says,
in 17 games with the Knights, Canseco has hit five homers, tying him for
the team lead but he drove in just nine runs, and was batting a weak .186
(11-for-59) with 19 strikeouts. Canseco retirement leaves him with 38
homers short of 500, 22nd on the career list, three behind Dave Winfield.
He's one of only nine players in history with 400 homers and 200 stolen
bases. He played for Oakland, Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, the New
York Yankees and the White Sox and ends his career with a .266 batting
average and five years from now he’ll watch fellow “Bash Brother” Mark
McGwire get inducted into the Hall of Fame from the audience just like the
rest of us schlubs.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Retired slugger says he plans to write tell-all book

A day after announcing his retirement from baseball, Jose Canseco told ESPN
Radio's Dan Patrick that he plans to write a tell-all book that will "name
names" about Major League Baseball regarding women, steroids and more.

Canseco did not say whether or not he took steroids. He did acknowledge,
however, that it's fair to say that steroids revolutionized baseball during
his era.

Hampered by injuries in recent years, the former AL MVP retired 38 homers
shy of the 500 mark he'd hoped to reach to bolster his Hall of Fame chances.

The 37-year-old Canseco finished 22nd on the career list with 462 home
runs. He was the first to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a season, and
he's one of only nine players in history with 400 home runs and 200 stolen
bases.

"I know he wanted to get to 500 home runs, but that's not important. He
should still be proud of himself," Mets catcher Mike Piazza said. "He
really did a lot to further the game and raise the bar for all the players
today."

A career .266 hitter, he finishes with 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases in
1,887 games with Oakland, Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, the New York
Yankees and the White Sox.

His numbers would be even more gaudy if not for the injuries. Canseco spent
time on the disabled list in seven of his last 10 seasons, mostly with back
problems.

Most recently, he'd been playing at Triple-A Charlotte. He was hitting .172
with five home runs and nine RBI in 18 games.

Hello fellow Jose Canseco fans...

I have some pretty big (and bad) news for you: Jose retired from the game
of baseball today.  One of the most exciting players of our generation has
officially called it quits.  He says it was for family reasons, but my
money is on it being because no one would give him a chance.

I'll send more information soon, but I wanted to get the news out
now.  Sorry I didn't get this out earlier - I had a roller-hockey game
tonight, and I've been gone since the announcement was made.

And for those of you who have already asked, yes, Canseconet.com will
remain on the web, and I will continue to send updates via this email
list.... at least for the foreseeable future.

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Jose Canseco announces retirement
May 13, 2002

CHICAGO (TICKER) -- Former American League Most Valuable Player Jose
Canseco announced his retirement Monday, abandoning his pursuit of 500 home
runs.

The announcement was made by the Chicago White Sox, who signed the former
AL Rookie of the Year to a minor league contract on April 18.

"Jose felt that because of personal reasons and a strong desire on his part
to spend more quality time with his young daughter, it was time to announce
his retirement," said Alan L. Nero, Canseco's agent.

Canseco, 37, retires with 462 home runs, placing him 22nd on the all-time
list and just three behind Hall of Famer Dave Winfield.

Canseco appeared a sure-fire Hall of Famer after breaking into the majors
with five spectacular seasons with the Oakland Athletics. Aside from an
injury-plagued year in 1989, the brawny slugger averaged 37 homers, 115 RBI
and 23 stolen bases from 1986-91.

In 1988, he became the first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in
the same season, winning MVP honors. Canseco and teammate Mark McGwire
became known as the "Bash Brothers" and helped lead the A's to three
American League pennants and the 1989 World Series championship.

During the 1989 American League Championship Series, Canseco hit a towering
home run into the fifth deck at Toronto's SkyDome.

But injuries limited Canseco's durability and reduced him to a largely
one-dimensional player over the rest of a 17-year career that included
stints with Texas, Boston, Tampa Bay, the New York Yankees and the White Sox.

Never known for his fielding, Canseco once had a ball carom off his head
and over the fence in right field for a home run. He stole more than 10
bases just twice after 1991 while racking up at least 102 strikeouts 11 times.

There were flashes of the old imposing Canseco. In 1994 with Texas, he won
AL Comeback Player of the Year honors after hitting 31 homers and driving
in 90 runs in just 111 games. Four years later with Toronto, the Cuban-born
Canseco slugged a career-best 46 homers and had 107 RBI and 29 steals.

He tailed off a little with Tampa Bay in 1999, hitting 34 homers and 95
RBI, then played only sparingly over the last two years -- a span that
included a stint in the lightly regarded Atlantic League. Canseco returned
to the majors with the White Sox last year and batted .258 with 16 homers
and 49 RBI in 76 games.

With Class AAA Charlotte this season, he hit just .172 with five homers and
nine RBI in 18 games.

Canseco is second all-time with 1,942 strikeouts and ranks among the top 60
with 1,407 RBI and a .515 slugging percentage. Along with Fred McGriff of
the Chicago Cubs, he is the only player to hit at least 30 homers with four
different teams and has the most home runs by anyone born outside the
United States.

One of only nine players with 400 career homers and 200 stolen bases,
Canseco retires with a .266 career batting average.

In 1993, Canseco was used in relief by the Rangers during a lopsided game
with the Red Sox at Fenway Park. He retired the side despite allowing three
runs, but suffered an elbow injury that eventually sidelined him for the
season.

His twin brother, Ozzie, played two seasons in the majors.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco announces retirement, 38 homers shy of 500
By NANCY ARMOUR
May 13, 2002

CHICAGO (AP) -- Former AL MVP Jose Canseco announced his retirement Monday,
38 home runs shy of the 500 mark he hoped to reach to bolster his Hall of
Fame chances.

Canseco, 37, was cut by Montreal in spring training and signed a minor
league contract with the Chicago White Sox on April 18. He was hitting .172
with five homers and nine RBIs in 18 games at Triple-A Charlotte.

``Jose felt that because of personal reasons and a strong desire on his
part to spend more quality time with his young daughter, it was time to
announce his retirement,'' Alan Nero, Canseco's agent, said in a statement
released by the White Sox.

Messages for Nero and the White Sox were not immediately returned.

Canseco didn't come to the ballpark Monday, and Charlotte Knights manager
Nick Capra said he found out the slugger was retiring through a news release.

But it wasn't a total surprise, Capra said.

``I just saw some frustrations that Jose was having this year,'' Capra
said. ``He just didn't look comfortable at the plate.''

Canseco's decision leaves him with 462 home runs, 22nd on the career list,
three behind Dave Winfield. A career .266 hitter, Canseco finishes with
1,407 RBIs and 200 stolen bases in 1,887 games with Oakland, Texas, Boston,
Toronto, Tampa Bay, the New York Yankees and the White Sox.

He's one of only nine players in history with 400 homers and 200 stolen bases.

``He's one of the most knowledgeable hitters I've been around,'' the Mets'
Mo Vaughn said. ``He was the first 40-40 guy, MVP, rookie of the year, and
he's got a couple of rings under his belt. So he's had a tremendous career.''

His numbers would probably be even more gaudy if not for all of his
injuries. He spent time on the disabled list in seven of his last 10
seasons, mostly with back problems.

As one of the Oakland Athletics' ``Bash Brothers'' along with Mark McGwire,
Canseco was once one of the most colorful players in the game. Born in Cuba
and raised in Miami, he was called up by the A's on Sept. 2, 1985. One week
later, he hit his first major league home run.

He hit 33 homers and drove in 117 runs the following year, earning him
rookie of the year honors. In 1988, he led the majors with 42 home runs and
124 RBIs, and he was a unanimous choice as MVP. He became the first player
to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases, and he led the A's to the first of
three straight AL pennants.

Oakland won the World Series in 1989, but it was Canseco's homer in Game 4
of the AL championship series that stands out. He put Mike Flanagan's pitch
in the upper deck of Toronto's SkyDome, some 480 feet away, a place where
no ball had been hit before during a game.

But it wasn't just the way he crushed the ball that made him famous. He was
as entertaining off the field as he was on. He drove his cars fast, and was
cited several times for driving violations such as speeding. He was once
arrested for having a gun in his car at a hospital.

He bashed the car of his first wife, Esther, and had a rendezvous with
Madonna. He once brought a large land tortoise into the Oakland clubhouse,
and drew complaints from his neighbors because of his unusual collection of
pets.

Even his misfortunes were the stuff of tabloid fodder. When he blew out his
right elbow on May 29, 1993, he was pitching mop-up duty for the Rangers
late in a rout by Boston. The injury eventually cost him the last half of
that season.

He once let a ball bounce off his head and over the wall for a homer.

``Jose had done some things in his career that gave the impression that he
wasn't very smart -- but he was very smart,'' Vaughn said. ``To really get
to know him was great. He had a tremendous amount of knowledge on the
offensive side.''

He was still drawing crowds in Charlotte, with attendance at Knight's home
games jumping more than 50 percent in his first week with the team.

``He had a flair for the game. People were coming out of the woodwork to
see him,'' Capra said. ``He brought out a lot of people not just to the
ballpark here in Charlotte, but when we were on the road, too.''

He was good in the clubhouse, as well, Capra said.

``A very professional man,'' he said. ``He was nothing but a positive thing.''

Released by the Angels in spring training in 2001, Canseco did a stint with
Newark of the independent Atlantic League. He signed with the White Sox
last June as a replacement for the injured Frank Thomas, and hit .258 with
16 home runs and 49 RBIs. He played 76 games, almost all of them as a DH.

But with Thomas healthy again, the White Sox didn't have a place for
Canseco and he became a free agent. He went to spring training with
Montreal Expos but was released after being told he wouldn't be an everyday
player.

``I think he does,'' Vaughn said when asked if Canseco belongs in the Hall
of Fame. ``He's got tremendous stats. And if you just judge him on the
numbers and don't think about the (public's) perception, he has as much of
a chance as anybody else.''

Hey Canseco fans...

There were some more good articles in the press this week.  See below...

-Mark

==========
  From the Ottawa Sun
Canseco no white Knight
May 1, 2002
By Dave Gross

Jose Canseco plunks himself down on the chair in front of his locker and
proceeds to make a pretty good argument for himself.

"Give me 500 at-bats and I'll hit 40-50 home runs...How many guys can claim
that?"

Not many.

Tugging on his Charlotte Knights' practice jersey yesterday at JetForm
Park,  the 37-year-old continues.

"My gut feeling on getting back to the majors?  Very rare.  Things are
developing internally ( in baseball) regarding my situation...There are a
lot of players coming up and telling me I'm being blackballed out of
baseball.  I wish I knew the reason why...look at Reuben Sierra, they kept
him out of the game for three years before letting him back.

"Am I being blackballed?  It's too obvious not to accept it."

And Canseco continues to make his case a solid one.

"You can't tell me somebody in the American League can't use me as a DH
(designated hitter) ...Every DH in the American League can do better than
me?  Hmm?

Obviously Canseco's gift for talk hasn't slowed down.  Neither has his bat.

Signed by the Chicago White Sox organization to a minor league deal two
weeks ago, Canseco is coming off a season with the parent club that saw him
whack 16 homers in just 256 at-bats.

But interest in the career 462-home-run man was limited this past winter.

A free agent initially signed by Montreal, Canseco left the organization
after being told to report to Ottawa.  From that point, Canseco said the
only club showing any kind of interest was Chicago.

His thinking?  If he ever does get another major league offer, it will be
as a DH.  Hence the thank-you-very-much-but-no-thanks to the National
League Expos.

He's been with Triple-A Charlotte for less than a week and has already made
a splash, connecting for three homers in just five games.

Still Canseco maintains no matter how good the numbers become, the chances
for a return to big league ball are remote.  His reputation as a baseball
bad boy-valid or not- he believes keeps him on the outside.

The former Sporting News and Associated Press player of the year (1988) had
trouble follow him in Miami recently.  Reports say Jose and brother Ozzie
were involved in a bar fight.  A court case is pending.

"Every individual has a preconceived notion about me," he said.  "Some
people think I have motor oil in my veins... I'd like to know what the
issue is.  Still he smiles.  Nods.  Smiles again.

"You know what though?  Maybe I will become like that guy in Bull Durham, a
minor league legend.  Maybe I'll set records for home runs down here."

Canseco contends he'd be setting records up in the majors if it wasn't for
a slew of injuries.  At the very least, he'd be chasing them. Among active
players only Barry Bonds (575) has more homers.

Again it is hard to argue.

Canseco's gone through two major back injuries, an abdominal injury, a
banged up rib, several knee injuries and to cap it off threw his shoulder
out while "pitching" for Texas in 1993.

"It's cost me big, probably about 300 home runs."

"But you know what?  There's no crying in baseball."

Just another smile from the 17 year major league veteran hoping for another
opportunity.

An opportunity to be an 18 year veteran.

"It's baseball," he said with a shrug.  "It's what I do."

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Knights' victory spurred by rally in 6th
May 2, 2002

OTTAWA - Joe Borchard's one-out home run to left field opened a four-run
sixth inning Wednesday to key the Charlotte Knights' 6-4 victory over the
host Ottawa Lynx.

It could have been more.

Former major-league slugger Jose Canseco accounted for two outs in the
sixth -- including a bases-loaded strikeout to end the inning -- as the
Knights sent 10 men to the plate. Eric Battersby and Willie Harris each
doubled to drive in a run in the inning....

==========
  From the Syracuse Post-Standard:
Right now, majors off limits to Canseco
May 03, 2002
By Matt Michael

Why did the Ottawa Lynx fan cross the road?

To chase a foul ball hit by Jose Canseco out of Ottawa's JetForm Park and
onto Coventry Road, roughly 500 feet from home plate.

Even at 37, Canseco still has the power that made him one of baseball's
most celebrated sluggers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Now the
question is this: Will a major-league team give Canseco another chance, or
is he destined to finish his career making jaws drop in minor-league cities
like Ottawa?

"Maybe I'll become like that guy in 'Bull Durham,' a minor-league legend,"
Canseco said. "Maybe I'll set the records for home runs down here."

Canseco is playing for the Charlotte Knights, the Chicago White Sox's
Triple-A team that just finished a series in Ottawa. Canseco and the
Knights open a four-game set against the Syracuse SkyChiefs at 6 p.m. today
at P&C Stadium.

"Down here" is not where Canseco thinks he belongs. Cut by the Montreal
Expos at the end of spring training, he signed with Chicago because it was
the only team that offered him a place to play.

Some of his friends, in and out of baseball, are telling him that
major-league teams are blackballing him. And Canseco, who had 16 home runs
and 49 runs batted in in 256 at-bats for the White Sox last season, is
starting to wonder if his friends are right.

"You can't tell me somebody in the American League can't use me as a DH
(designated hitter)," Canseco said. "Give me 500 at-bats and I'll hit 40,
50 home runs. How many guys can claim that?"

Not many, which is why Canseco's 462 career home runs rank second to Barry
Bonds among active players and 22nd on the all-time list. But at the same
time, Canseco is a full-time DH these days, and the trend in the American
League is for teams to rotate players between the field and DH (the
National League does not use the DH).

Canseco is seven years removed from his last .300 batting average, and
people have long stopped thinking of him as one of the game's best hitters.
Instead, they see a one-dimensional player who'll break open a few games
with a home run, but also kill a lot of rallies with a strikeout.

But that's not the kind of hitter who showed up in Charlotte last week,
according to Greg Walker, the Knights' batting coach. Walker, a former
first baseman for the White Sox and Baltimore Orioles, said Canseco is not
a "freelancer" who goes up to the plate trying to hit the ball 500 feet on
every pitch.

In his first eight games for the Knights, Canseco hit .231 (6-for-26) with
three home runs, five RBIs, seven walks and six strikeouts.

"You don't hit 462 home runs on just raw talent," Walker said. "He's got a
plan every time he goes up there. Like everybody else, it doesn't always
work. But he's got a plan."

Unfortunately for Canseco, the White Sox do not have any plans for Canseco
in the major leagues, unless DH Frank Thomas is injured again (that's why
Chicago signed Canseco last year out of the independent Atlantic League).
Canseco does have the freedom to leave Charlotte, but his options are limited.

He said the White Sox will let him join another team as long as that team
is not in Chicago's division and it's not contending with the White Sox for
the wild-card playoff berth. In the American League, that eliminates the
four teams other than Chicago in the Central Division, and the two playoff
contenders from the other two divisions (Boston and New York in the East,
and Seattle and Oakland in the West).

That leaves Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Texas and Anaheim in the AL,
plus the National League if a team wants to use Canseco in the outfield.
Tampa Bay and Toronto are in youth movements, Texas doesn't need another
slugger, Anaheim released Canseco at the end of spring training last year,
and Baltimore declined to sign Canseco over the winter. So when Canseco
says he'll stay in Charlotte all season if he has to, we may find out if he
means it.

"There's no telling what might happen," Charlotte manager Nick Capra said.
"Somebody gets hurt up there and they think he's the guy to go, then I'm
sure he'll get the call. There's 29 other teams out there and if an
opportunity arises, I'm sure he'll be more than ready to go."

Naturally, Canseco wants a chance to reach 500 career home runs. Without a
string of injuries - Canseco has been on the disabled list 11 times -
Canseco believes he would have been able to challenge Hank Aaron's all-time
record of 755 homers.

Except for the two players who are not yet eligible (Bonds and Eddie
Murray), every player who hit 500 or more home runs has been inducted into
the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

"I've been playing for so long, and I've been through so many injuries, you
want to be considered for the Hall of Fame," Canseco said. "I'm so close
that I can easily do it (reach 500) if I get back up to the major-league
level."

But Canseco swears the Hall of Fame is not the only reason he has accepted
the life of a baseball nomad. Canseco said he still loves playing the game,
even if the game is not loving him back.

"The politics of the game are horrible," Canseco said. "But the game in its
simplest form, between the white lines, is still a great game."

==========
  From the Syracuse Post-Standard
Dismissed Canseco just wants a chance
May 04, 2002
By Bud Poliquin

Though he didn't realize it at the time, Jimmy Dean once sang about this
fellow. Only, he called him Big John. Or more specifically, Big Bad John,
who was wide at the shoulder and narrow at the hip ... and now lies dead at
the bottom of a caved-in mine shaft.

But make no mistake that when he took pen to paper once upon a time to
write his country verse, ol' Jimmy had a certain baseball player in mind.

''I am an unusual-looking person,'' Jose Canseco said Friday evening. ''I
am that entity that's out of the ordinary.''

One imagines that there are no shortages of mirrors in Jose's house. Why,
the guy probably has one on his bathroom ceiling so he can watch himself
gargle. But who could blame him? Those old Greeks, the ones who forever
ruminated about gods and such, used to chisel statues out of marble in
tribute to lesser bodies than the one Canseco now spills into his Charlotte
Knights uniform.

He'll be 38 in July, but no matter. If you do something with his hair,
shove him into a loincloth and put a sword in his hand, you've got The
Rock. Yeah, that's it. The Scorpion King as designated hitter. And Jose,
whose eyes are still good, knows it.

''When people see me out in malls or in the crowd,'' he said, ''they look
at me like I'm some kind of freak.''

Well, the 4,769 gawkers in the joint got their fill at P&C Stadium where
Canseco - who stands 6-foot-4, weighs some 250 pounds and has a back that
could serve as a kitchen table - flexed and swung ... and went hitless in
four at-bats as the SkyChiefs knocked off the Knights 4-1 in the opener of
a four-game series that will conclude on Monday.

Strange? Of course, it was strange. This was the former Most Valuable
Player, by unanimous vote, in the American League. This was baseball's
first 40-40 man and, for a while, the highest-salaried performer in the
history of the sport. This was, for crying out loud, the one-time main
squeeze of Madonna.

And yet, there he was, in Charlotte togs, taking his hacks on the north
side of our little burg. And doing so, a bit sheepishly.

''I wish I knew why I was here,'' said Jose, who did belt one through a
fierce wind and to the edge of the center-field warning track against the
Knights. ''You never think it would come to this. Being 38 home runs short
of 500. Only being 37 years old. And knowing that if you were given the
opportunity, you could easily hit 40 home runs in the big leagues. I never
thought it would come to this, no. I never thought this would happen.''

He's been tossed on baseball's heap is what has happened to him. Jose
Canseco, who was big enough and bawdy enough and bashed baseballs far
enough to be considered a kind of Cuban Babe Ruth back when he was in his
20s, has been pretty much forgotten.

No, wait. That isn't accurate. He hasn't been forgotten. He has been dismissed.

''Very few athletes can say they were once the best athlete in the world at
what they did,'' said Canseco, who is one of them. ''And at this point in
my career, I am being considered a washed-up athlete that is not being
given the opportunity to play again.''

It is true, you know. All true. Jose was, indeed, baseball's greatest
property in the late '80s and early '90s when he drove in 117, 113, 124,
101 and 122 runs for the Oakland Athletics while jacking 33, 31, 42, 37 and
44 homers. He was the circus star coming to town - the strongman with the
bulging biceps, the happy wink and the massive swing. And so, a whole lot
of folks in a lot of places plunked down their money to peek under the tent.

But then the other stuff happened. The cartoon stuff. The buffoonery that
accompanied the fame and fortune.

Jose rammed his first wife's car. Jose was ticketed for driving his Jaguar
125 mph and his Porsche, the one filled with aviation fuel, 104 mph. Jose
was nabbed for packing a loaded handgun in violation of California law.
Jose had a ball bounce off his head near the outfield fence for a home run.
Jose blew out his arm while pitching during a rout in Fenway Park. Jose
married a Hooters waitress and then divorced her. Jose landed on the
disabled list 11 times, was released three times and was traded three times
including once, he said, ''to Ethiopia for a box of Fruit Loops and a camel
to be named later.'' Jose dropped into the independent Atlantic League,
suiting up for the Newark Bears.

And so, the oohs and ahs turned into chortles and wise cracks. And the guy
who was paid more than $45 million through the years to play in the big
leagues and was the first batter since Ted Williams to drive in 750 runs in
his first 1,000 games has his regrets.

''Of course, I do,'' Canseco admitted. ''Don't we all? Definitely, I wish,
'Darn, I should never have done that.' Or, 'Maybe I should never have said
that.' If people haven't learned from my career, then they haven't learned
from anything.''

For his part, Jose - who is as charming as he is gigantic - seems to have
learned that wishing may make things so.

''If I'm given the chance to play two or three more years at the
major-league level and stay healthy, could I hit 600 home runs?'' mused the
largest of the Charlotte Knights.

''Yeah. No ifs or buts about it. I wasn't lucky enough to be a Cal Ripken,
Jr., and play 20 years without getting injured. If I could have done that,
I'd have well over 700 home runs right now. My physical ability is still
there. My bat speed hasn't diminished, nor my foot speed. My arm is coming
back now as an outfielder. I think I still have a lot to offer to this
game. I'm no quitter. I'll keep going for as long as it takes. I'll go 100
years. I don't age.''

His mirror keeps telling him that. However, what it hasn't yet told Jose -
that is, Big Jose ... Big Bad Jose, who remains wide at the shoulder and
narrow at the hip - is that his baseball career just might be at the bottom
of its very own caved-in mine shaft. And nobody who matters is expected to
wander by with a shovel.

Bud Poliquin is a columnist for The Post-Standard. His column appears
regularly on these pages. He can be reached via telephone at 315-470-2213
or via e-mail at bPOLIQUIN@....

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco homers, but Knights lose

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Jayson Werth hit a grand slam to lift Syracuse to an 11-5
win over the Charlotte Knights on Sunday.Werth drove a two-out, 3-2 pitch
deep to right in the fifth inning. Werth had five RBIs in the game, a
season high for the SkyChiefs (13-15), and doubled home Brian Lesher in the
second.

Charlotte's Jose Canseco, who came into the game with one hit in his past
11 at-bats, doubled and scored in a two-run fourth inning for Charlotte
(10-20) and homered to right-center field in the eighth. It was his fourth
homer of the season.

==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:
May 6, 2002

Top of the 7th
FOR THOSE OF YOU KEEPING TRACK
When the amazing Sammy Sosa hit his 13th homer of the season on Saturday it
enabled him to pass Jose Canseco and move into 22nd place on the all time
HR list with 463. Sunday, Canseco hit his 4th of the season for the
Charlotte Knights.

Hey Cansecoites,

After a not so hot first game (0-4, 3 K), Jose's really been lighting
things up in Charlotte.  His base running won the second game he played in
and he's homered in all three games since then.  Monday's game was rained
out, so Jose will have two games (a double header) to work on his streak on
Tuesday.

After 5 games (20 ABs), Jose is batting .250 with 3 homers, 5 RBIs, 5 runs
scored, and even one SB.  His slugging percentage is a whopping .700.  He
has 2 walks and 6 strikeouts.

And yes, of course I realize that five games isn't enough to measure a
player's value, but I think this is a very encouraging start.  And to those
of you who emailed me after just ONE GAME, saying Jose was washed up and
worthless and should retire, etc, etc, etc (you know who you are), you
should be ashamed.

For some reason, the Knights have their web site (www.charlotteknights.com)
set up so you can't copy/paste the text of their articles, so don't be
expecting to see any of them from me any time soon.  It's quite annoying.

But the rest of the news is below... The first article is a MUST-READ story
for all Canseco fans.  It's from Sunday's Miami Herald, and is one of the
best articles I've read about Jose in quite some time.  The writer dug a
little deeper than most and got Jose to open up about his current
situation.  Jose is convinced there is a conspiracy to keep him out of
MLB.  I don't know if there is or not, but he makes some pretty good points.

I just hope he's wrong.

-Mark

==========
  From the Miami Herald:
Blinded by hurt and anger, Canseco sees a conspiracy
By dlebatard@...
Sun, Apr. 28, 2002

He stood atop the baseball mountain once, a home run king, but now he is
calling from Charlotte, where he has been reduced to wearing the uniform of
the minor-league Knights. José Canseco is clinging to baseball's fringes by
his fingertips, his journey having gone from the paparazzi-lined trail
outside Madonna's New York apartment to, well, where exactly?

Canseco was, bar none, the best player in his sport for a flash, a
streaking star, but now his vagabond résumé includes stops with Oakland,
Texas, Boston, Oakland again, Toronto, Tampa Bay, the Yankees and the White
Sox. He was released by the Angels and Expos without even surviving spring
training, the Expos saying they were going with youth even as they kept
40-year-old Andrés Galarraga. Canseco was a Newark Bear for much of last
season, his cartoon muscles and outsized swing as out of place in the
independent league as the Rolling Stones playing a bowling alley lounge.

''Why am I here?'' Canseco says from Triple A. ``Because I've got two or
three good years left in me.''

His answers are clipped and careful, not exactly curt but nowhere close to
forthcoming, either. He sounds somewhere between wounded and scarred, maybe
both. I've talked to Canseco a lot over the past 15 years, about his
divorces, about visiting dying babies in hospitals, about how he thought
about killing himself, and he has always been expansive, pouring out his
soul without much provocation. But now he has a wall up, and it isn't a
small one.

''Talking about suicide is different,'' he explains. ``I could control
that, obviously. This, I can't control.''

He isn't discussing his feelings with any kind of depth here. Is he ashamed
about being in the minor leagues at this stage in his career, especially
given where he has been?

''No,'' he says. ``Absolutely not. I've never had a huge ego or been a
prideful person, but I can't control what people think.''

Is he angry? Bitter? Does he feel sorry for himself?

''No,'' he says. ``Absolutely not. I just have to handle it. I have no
choice. It's out of my control.''

He keeps giving short answers, followed by long silences. I tell Canseco he
doesn't sound very human or convincing, filing everything neatly and coldly
under it's-out-of-my-control without any introspection or feeling. I tell
him I might not be able to control whether a loved one dies, either, but it
doesn't mean it wouldn't make me feel everything from anger to grief. There
is a long silence on the other end of the line, then the wall comes
crumbling down.

''This is very hurtful, very stressful, very depressing, very demeaning,
OK?'' Canseco finally says. ``Most people can't believe I haven't quit or
retired. Most athletes would have, I guess. But I'm not a quitter. It's
that simple. I'll never quit. If I don't play baseball anymore it's because
they've finally kicked me out of the game.''

All over baseball, old men get chances. Jesse Orosco comes out of the
bullpen for the Dodgers at 743 years old. Julio Franco, much older than
whatever he is claiming to be today, sits out of major-league baseball for
a couple of years and then is suddenly resurrected, just like Ruben Sierra
and Chris Hammond and José Rijo.

Canseco? He is just 37, the same age as Barry Bonds. He is one good season,
38 homers, away from the exclusive 500-career-homer club, every member of
which is in the Hall of Fame. Canseco remains a gate attraction, still more
entertaining when he swings and misses than most are when they connect. The
Marlins could certainly use one of those, but they opted instead for
42-year-old Tim Raines.

''And Tim Raines can't give you 40 or 50 homers a year,'' Canseco says.
``I'm in shock, OK? Complete and utter shock. I can't believe or understand
why nobody will touch a guy who will give them 40 or 50 homers a year,
guaranteed. It's shocking, terrifying, depressing. If I ever get the
chance, I'll prove the world wrong. But I don't think I will. They won't
let me.''

They. He uses that word a lot over the next few meandering minutes.
''They'' are keeping him out of the game. They. It doesn't sound very
realistic, the idea that so many owners or general managers could agree
upon anything, nevermind that they would agree en masse to deny themselves
40 to 50 homers a year just to shame Canseco, but he clearly believes it.

''I've heard from top players in the game, guys making $20 million a year,
that I'm being blackballed and conspired against,'' he says. ``Every player
knows it. The truth has to come out eventually. How can a player who puts
fans in the seats, whether you like him or not, be left alone when all he's
asking is minimum salary? Explain that one to me.''

Blackballed?

But why?

''That's exactly right,'' he says. ``Why? Why? Why? It'll all come out in
the end. The players, who are the blood and bones of the game, know the
truth of the story. I do know more than what I can tell you, but we'll
leave something for the end. There will be a story to tell later. Maybe in
a book I'll tell the truth.''

I tell him he sounds like something out of The X-Files, with all this talk
about the truth being out there somewhere.

''Sometimes,'' he says, ``the truth is out of The X-Files.''

I ask him if he really wants to talk about being blackballed in the
newspaper when it would probably be better to just keep quiet and hope a
team comes calling.

''What difference does it make at this point?'' he says.

Can't his situation be simpler than that, though? Can't it be that teams
just don't think he can play anymore?

''If that were the case, I'd be the first to admit it,'' Canseco says.
``But this is the first time I've ever been 100 percent healthy and not
been allowed to play. Put me against the five fastest guys in baseball, any
time, any place, and I'll run right with them, even at 245 pounds. If you
can give me an honest, legitimate answer for why I'm not in the big
leagues, I'll listen. But no one can. Nobody has told me I can't play,
nobody. Just say it, if that's what you think. If you think my bat has
slowed, just say it. But nobody does.''

Aren't they saying it by not wanting you, though, José?

''If they are saying I can't play, it's a lie,'' he says. ``They can't say
what isn't so. Just watch me. If I have to lead the minor leagues in homers
for the next two years, I will. I'll do whatever it takes. I'd bet a
million dollars that if I'm allowed to play and get 500 to 600 at-bats, I'd
hit 40 homers. I'd return a team's million dollars if I didn't get it. Will
I ever get the chance?''

The question hangs there on the other end of the line.

Canseco finally answers it himself.

''No,'' he says.

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco's smarts pay off
Fri, Apr. 26, 2002
By DENNY SEITZ

FORT MILL - minor-league baseball Stolen base propels Knights past Clippers
Jose Canseco became the hero Thursday night, in just his second game in a
Charlotte Knights uniform.

It wasn't the bulging biceps that have produced 462 major league home runs
that sparked the Knights' 2-1 victory over the Columbus Clippers.

It wasn't the once-quick feet of the 6-foot-4, 240-pound Canseco either.

Chalk this one up to veteran instinct.

Canseco reached base on an error in the sixth inning, then stunned the
Clippers -- and his teammates -- by stealing second base, eventually
scoring the winning run.

"I may have caught them off-guard a little," laughed Canseco, 37, who went
to third when Columbus catcher Chris Widger threw wildly on the steal.

Jeff Inglin's sacrifice fly scored Canseco, making a winner of reliever
Corey Lee, who retired nine of the 10 batters he faced.

"We might still be out there if I didn't steal that base," Canseco said.

Knights manager Nick Capra agreed the play was the key one in the game.

"He has a lot of experience," Capra said. "He knows when to go. And he
picked a good time to do it."

The win for the Knights (6-15) could be attributed as much to solid
pitching as any other factor. Columbus managed four hits against five
Charlotte pitchers. Two of the hits didn't leave the infield.

The 3,189 fans at Knights Stadium weren't there to see a pitcher's duel,
though. They were there to see Canseco.

"I think they know, sooner or later, that I'm going to hit one out," said
Canseco, whose every move earned wild applause. "I hope it comes soon, like
(today)."

He hit the ball hard just once, lining out to left field in the first inning.

His hustle in the sixth on a slow roller to third baseman Drew Henson,
however, forced a rushed throw, which pulled Columbus first baseman Scott
Seabol off the bag.

Two pitches later, Columbus pitcher Brandon Claussen paid little attention
to Canseco, allowing him a huge jump on his way to the unexpected stolen base.

"He wasn't even looking at me," said Canseco. "I was just trying to make
something happen."

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco Hits 2-Run Homer in Minors

FORT MILL, S.C. (AP) - Jose Canseco hit a two-run homer Friday night for
Triple-A Charlotte, his first as he tries to make it back to the major leagues.

The homer was Canseco's first hit for the Knights since joining the club
Tuesday. Canseco later added a single to left field against Columbus,
finishing the night 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Charlotte won 3-1.

Canseco, cut by Montreal during spring training, signed a minor league
contract with the Chicago White Sox on April 18.

Canseco, 37, needs 38 home runs to reach 500 in his major league career.

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco delivers in Knights' win
By STAN OLSON

FORT MILL - Jose Canseco gave the fans what they came for Friday night.

Canseco, owner of 462 major-league home runs, hit his first as a Knight in
Charlotte's 3-1 International League victory over Columbus at Knights Stadium.

Fittingly, Canseco's first hit with the Knights was that homer, a line
drive over the left-center field fence on a 1-0 pitch in the first inning. The
shot, off of Mike Thurman, scored Joe Crede, who had singled.

Canseco also walked, singled and lined out hard to left, going 2-for-3
after opening the season 0-for-8.

"I felt a little better, it's coming around," Canseco said. "You want to
get that first (home run) out of the way and go on with your business. But
that was my first at-bat. It's still very hard to see the ball here once it
turns dark."

So much so that during his last at-bat, he felt he missed an opportunity.

"The pitcher hung a breaking ball in the middle of the plate, but I
couldn't see the spin," Canseco said of his lineout. "... I actually got a
pitch that I should have hit out."

Still, he accomplished plenty.

"He's a professional hitter," Charlotte manager Nick Capra said. "He has a
lot of knowledge and know-how. You figure he's going to get it done."

Canseco's homer was all Charlotte needed, as Mitch Wylie and two relievers
shut down Columbus on seven hits.

Wylie left with runners on first and third and no outs in the eighth. Kelly
Wunsch came in and retired the side in order, and Edwin Almonte worked the
ninth for his third save.

To give you an idea of how much more imposing the Charlotte lineup has
become, consider former clean-up hitter Jeff Inglin. He's batting sixth,
with Canseco fourth and newly healthy center fielder Joe Borchard,
considered the top prospect in the Chicago White Sox organization, in the
fifth slot.

The victory was Charlotte's second straight after a 4-15 start.

"Hopefully," said Canseco, "we can turn it around."

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco homers in second straight game
April 27, 2002

FORT MILL, S.C. (AP) -- Jose Canseco hit his second homer in as many games
in the Charlotte Knights' 7-6 loss to Columbus Clippers on Saturday night
in the International League.

Canseco, 38 homers shy of 500 in the major leagues, hit a long homer to
left-center field in the seventh inning to pull the Knights to 7-4. He came
up again in the ninth with Charlotte trailing by a run, but grounded out.

Canseco, 2-for-4 Saturday, joined the Knights this week after signing a
minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox on April 18. He was cut by
Montreal during spring training.

==========
  From the Daily Southtown (Chicago area) Sox notebook:
Told you so

Jose Canseco, who is with the Sox's Triple-A Charlotte affiliate after
spending most of last season with the South Siders, kept insisting last
season that he still had the legs that once made him the first 40-40 player
in baseball history (at least 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in the same
season).

Canseco was even willing to bet he could beat any major leaguer who weighed
at least 230 pounds in the 40-yard dash.

"Just bring your paycheck. I'll take it from you," Canseco promised.

While he entered Friday's action hitless in his first two games with the
Knights (0-for-8), the 37-year-old Canseco did help Charlotte beat Columbus
2-1 Thursday. He stole second base after reaching on an error in the sixth
inning, and he eventually scored the go-ahead run.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco homers in second straight game
04/28/2002

FORT MILL, S.C. -- Jose Canseco had his second homer in as many games, but
the Charlotte Knights still fell to Columbus 7-6 on Saturday night.

Canseco hit a long homer to left center field in the seventh inning,
cutting the Clippers' lead to 7-4. He came up again in the ninth with
Charlotte trailing by a run and grounded out.

Brett Jodie (1-1) worked five innings for Columbus to get the victory. He
gave up six hits and three runs.

Charlotte starter Geronimo Mendoza (1-4) allowed six runs on five hits in 4
2/3 innings for the loss.

But the main show again was Canseco, who finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and
two runs scored for the Knights, the Chicago White Sox Triple A affiliate.

Canseco is, 38 homers shy of 500 for his major league career, has had an
impact during his minor-league assignment, and not only because of the big
crowd of 9,085 at Knights Castle on Saturday night.

He scored the winning run Thursday in Charlotte's 2-1 victory, reaching
first on a throwing error, stealing second and taking third when the ball
skipped into the center field. Canseco came home on a sacrifice fly.

On Friday night, Canseco ended his 0-for-8 start in the minors with a
first-inning homer, and the Knights went on to a 3-1 victory. Canseco added
a single to left field in that one, finishing 2-for-3 with two RBIs.

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Knights lose, split series with Clippers
By KEITH CANNON

FORT MILL - The Charlotte Knights swung their bats with authority on Sunday
afternoon. Unfortunately for them, so did the Columbus Clippers.

The teams combined for seven home runs in the Clippers' 10-7 victory over
the Knights (7-17) at Knights Stadium, in the kind of game that typifies
pitcher frustration with the hitter-friendly park.

Jose Canseco, Joe Crede and Tim Hummel homered for the Knights. But
Columbus (8-15) hitters pounded four Charlotte pitchers for 16 hits, and
the Clippers hit a season-high four home runs to earn a split of the
four-game series....

...Canseco's third home run in three games, a two-run blast to left field
on a 3-2 pitch, cut the Clippers lead to 4-3. Joe Crede had singled ahead
of him.

"I've been watching his swing and he's getting some results," Capra said.
"He says he's not comfortable with what he's doing. If that's the case,
then I can't wait till he gets going a little bit."...

...Trailing 7-5 in the sixth, The Knights loaded the bases for Canseco on a
single by Dalesandro, a walk and a hit batter. But Clippers relief pitcher
Alex Pacheco struck out Canseco to end the inning. Canseco finished the
game 1-for-5....

Hi everyone,

Jose made his debut with the Charlotte Knights last night, going 0-4 with 3
strikeouts.  Youch.  Of course, it was his first game, so cut him some
slack.  Hopefully he'll be tearing things up in a week or two and a major
league team will have some interest.

All the latest news is below...

-Mark

P.S. This is a bit old now, but go vote for Jose anyway:
http://www.forums.mlb.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=ml-whitesox&msg=7871.1&ctx=0

==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:
April 19, 2002

Bottom of the 7th
OH WHAT A KNIGHT
Billy-Ball is thanking the baseball gods. I must lead a charmed life. I
love writing baseball. I have wonderful readers and Jose Canseco signed a
contract with the Chicago White Sox and was assigned to the AAA, Charlotte
Knights. He joined the Knights in Louisville yesterday, and will be
activated Tuesday, when the Knights host Norfolk at 7:15 p.m.

Now Billy-Ball wants you to be happy Jose so here are the top restaurants
in Center City (that's Uptown Charlotte, Canseco-man):
Bravo! Ristorante     ($$$$ - Italian)
Adam's Mark Hotel
555 South McDowell Street
(704) 372-5440 (phone)...

...See how life evens out? The poor people of Charlotte lose their NBA team
(now there's a loss) and now they've gained Jose.

==========
  From the AP:

...Jose Canseco, who signed a minor league contract with the White Sox, is
already an attraction for Triple A Charlotte. The team plans to open the
gates at Knights Stadium 90 minutes earlier than normal to allow fans to
see Canseco, who has 462 career home runs. Said Charlotte general manager
Bill Blackwell: "We may have to get a full-time employee just to change the
lights in the scoreboard with Jose here."

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco in the house, uh, dugout
STAN OLSON
By Staff Writer

FORT MILL - Jose Canseco didn't play after all Tuesday night.

The famed slugger was there at Knights Stadium, but he didn't arrive in
Charlotte until 3 in the afternoon, and the Knights couldn't get his signed
contract to the commissioner's office in time to have him activated. He's
expected to start his Charlotte career tonight instead.

Without him, the Knights still managed to snap their three-game losing
streak, knocking off Norfolk 6-2 in the International League. A
hoping-for-Jose crowd of 3,556 showed up, well above the usual weeknight
crowd of just over 2,000.

Canseco, in uniform and wearing No. 33 as always, watched from the dugout.

Knights manager Nick Capra believes Canseco will be able to contribute to a
team off to a .239 start at the plate.

"I think it's going to add a presence to the team, and hopefully, he'll add
a little spark that we've been missing," Capra said. "It's obvious we've
been struggling and we need somebody to come in and spark our offense, and
this is the guy we got to do that."

Canseco, of course, thinks he can still spark an offense in the major
leagues, and the powerfully built possessor of 462 big-league homers talked
about that in a pre-game news conference.

"Basically, with my ability, if I can play every day in the big leagues, I
can hit 40 or 45 home runs," he said. "My own goals, if I get 500 or 600
at-bats in the big leagues and I don't hit more than 30 or 40 home runs,
I'll probably retire."

Capra said Canseco would be a designated hitter initially, but would play
outfield once he's in game condition. If he hits well and gets another
big-league chance, it is likely to be with some team other than the Chicago
White Sox, who gave him this opportunity. The Sox are solid at DH with
Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko.

"I'm sure if some team sees some positive things come out of him, they
wouldn't be afraid to jump all over the situation," Capra said.

Canseco, 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, should have an impact, given Knights
Stadium's 347-foot power alleys.

"The ballpark suits me, it's very conducive to power hitting," he said. "So
hopefully I can use that to my advantage."

Although he hit just one batting practice homer before the game, Canseco
still made an impression on his young teammates.

After hitting, he stood alone in left fielding balls, an oak in a grove of
saplings.

"I'm still a little in awe," said Knights DH Darron Ingram. "I walked in
the clubhouse today and there's Jose Canseco standing right there. I'm
like, `wow.' It was kind of low-key in the clubhouse. Not too many people
wanted to say too much because they didn't know what his mind-set was.

"I'm sure as the day goes on, the ice will break and everybody will start
getting to know him."

Knights fans, though, must wait one more day.

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Canseco looking to prove skills still sharp enough
By STAN OLSON

We first heard of Jose Canseco in 1985, when he was not yet 21 and was
tearing up the Southern League for Huntsville. He was the Class AA league's
next great slugger, people were saying, maybe even as good as Steve
"Bye-Bye" Balboni.

Canseco -- the newest Charlotte Knight -- was much better than that. In 58
games with Huntsville, he hit 25 homers and had 80 RBIs. By the end of the
season he was in Oakland, looking very much like the next Mickey Mantle.

That's who Canseco, with his rare combination of speed and power, was
usually compared to in those days, and at first he lived up to that
standard. Rookie of the Year in '86. American League Most Valuable Player
in '88, when he became the first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases
in the same season.

Canseco, who was 0-for-4 in Charlotte's 12-0 loss to Norfolk on Wednesday,
turned 24 that summer. Little did we know it would never really get any
better than that.

Major injuries and minor brushes with the law followed, and while Mark
McGwire, his fellow Bash Brother in Oakland, went on to become the slugging
symbol of the game, Canseco became a baseball gypsy. He played for seven
teams, hurting himself while trying to pitch for Boston, and having a ball
bounce off his head for a home run while with Texas.

He was on the disabled list 11 times, and people stopped thinking of him as
one of the game's great sluggers but rather as a one-dimensional designated
hitter, good for a few homers and a whole bunch of strikeouts.

Finally, baseball seemed to write Canseco off altogether.

"It's very unusual; I'm having difficulty dealing with the fact that no
teams can use a DH that can hit 40-plus home runs and play DH or the
outfield," he said Tuesday after joining the Charlotte Knights. "I'm 37
going on 38. ... The way I've kept myself in shape, 38's still young."

You look at him and have to agree. Massive shoulders still taper to a
narrow waist, and Canseco says he is stronger and faster than he was early
in his career.

But he is now typecast as a DH, and more importantly to some people, as
washed up.

That's why he's here.

Asked about the perception that he can no longer play in the field, he
said, "That could be what the issue is right now. I'm going to try and play
outfield as much as possible, and maybe there will be some opportunities
not just in a DH role."

Canseco played for Charlotte's parent Chicago White Sox last season when
Frank Thomas was hurt. Now Thomas is back and the Sox don't really have an
opening. Charlotte manager Nick Capra figures Canseco can showcase his
talents for other teams while he helps the Knights.

"We signed him to come in and help, and for him it'll be an opportunity for
people to see him and see his abilities and skills at this level at this
stage of his career," Capra said.

So now Canseco, 22 days older than Barry Bonds, gets to prove that he too
can still play. That reaching 500 home runs (he has 462) is simple if only
he gets one more chance. And if that doesn't come quickly?

"That's completely out of my control," he said.

"If I've got to be here all year, I'll be here."

The Knights wouldn't mind. He arrived Tuesday and didn't play, but that
didn't stop the crowd from occasionally chanting, "Jose, Jose!"

And his newest baseball team looks considerably more imposing with
"Canseco-DH" in the middle its lineup.

==========
  From the Charlotte Observer:
Norfolk breaks open tight game
By STAN OLSON

FORT MILL - Jose Canseco looked great at the plate in his Charlotte Knights
uniform Wednesday night, huge and intimidating. Just wait until he starts
making contact.

Actually Canseco, who struck out three times in his 0-for-4 first game for
Charlotte, can be excused, since Wednesday brought his first game action
since spring training.

The same can't be said for the rest of the Knights, who flailed their way
to a 12-0 International League loss to Norfolk at Stadium.

Canseco finally hit the ball in his final at-bat, lining out hard to right
field.

His first game in the park left him shaking his head.

"Either those pitchers were throwing 100 mph, or there's a shadow out there
somewhere," he said.

"The guys were telling me about it, but until I saw it myself ... it's dark
out there. Major league lighting's definitely a lot better than this here.

"You can't see the spin at all on breaking balls. It's dark; it's
definitely dark. I couldn't attack; it was tough to see the ball. Even when
I was
taking, it was tough to see the ball. And you've got to see what you're
hitting. I've never played in a ballpark where the lighting is as poor as
it is here."

Hey everyone,

I apologize if you end up getting this twice, but I sent it out a number of
hours ago and it seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.  So,
here it is again...

-Mark

P.S. Here's a link you'll want to keep handy: http://www.charlotteknights.com/

----------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:48:38 -0400
To: jose list
From: Mark Petrillo <mark@...>
Subject: BREAKING NEWS: Canseco signs...

...a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox!

Jose will be playing with the White Sox AAA team in Charlotte, NC.  If/when
he'll make it back to the majors is anyone's guess, but at least he'll be
playing regularly and will have a chance to show everyone he's still got
what it takes.  Hopefully he'll put up some good numbers down there and the
Sox will give him a chance or trade him to a team that will.

Honestly, I'm glad to see Jose back with the Sox.  They treated him well
last year, and I'm glad they are giving him another chance.  I can't help
but wonder how long it will be until we see him in a major league uniform
though - hopefully not too long.

-Mark

==========
  From the Chicago Sun:
Canseco could return, play in Sox' system
April 16, 2002
BY TONI GINNETTI

Jose Canseco is only a telephone call away from wearing a White Sox uniform
again, if he so desires.

The veteran slugger, who needs 38 home runs to reach 500, was released by
the Montreal Expos in spring training and can't sign again with the Sox
until May 18. But general manager Ken Williams said Monday he has kept in
touch with Canseco, 37, who is keeping himself in shape.

''He's keeping his options open,'' Williams said. ''He has a standing
invitation to join one of our minor-league teams. We owe him that after
what he gave us last year. He didn't come in with an ego, carried himself
well and performed well. If he called today, he'd have a home.''

Canseco joined the Sox before the All-Star break after playing for the
independent Class A Newark Bears. He appeared in 76 games for the Sox and
hit .258 with eight doubles, 16 home runs and 49 RBI.

==========
Canseco agrees to minor league contract with White Sox
April 18, 2002

CHICAGO (AP) -- Jose Canseco's quest for 500 homers brought him back to the
Chicago White Sox.

Canseco, who needs 38 homers to reach 500 in his career, agreed to terms
Thursday on a minor league contract with the White Sox. He'll report to
Triple-A Charlotte and be activated in time for the Knights home game Tuesday.

``Jose still has a desire to play, and we told him last fall that we would
have a place for him in our minor league system if he needed it,'' White
Sox general manager Kenny Williams said.

``He will have a chance to play himself back into shape in Charlotte and
then we will see where things go from there,'' Williams said.

Canseco, 37, signed with the White Sox last June and hit .258 with 16 home
runs and 49 RBIs in 256 at-bats. He played 76 games, almost all of them as
a DH. He was a good fit at the time, with the White Sox needing someone to
replace the injured Frank Thomas.

``Jose did a tremendous job filling in for us last season and handled
himself with nothing but class,'' Williams said.

With Thomas healthy again, though, the White Sox didn't have a spot for
Canseco and he became a free agent. He went to spring training with the
Montreal Expos but was released after being told he wouldn't be an everyday
player.

An AL player his entire career, he has been in the outfield only 13 times
in the last three years.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco ranks 22nd on the career home run list with
462, three behind Dave Winfield. He is second among active players,
trailing only Barry Bonds.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 1986, he won AL MVP honors in 1988, when he
became the first player in major league history to hit 40 home runs and
steal 40 bases in the same season.

==========
White Sox sign OF Canseco to minor league contract
April 18, 2002

CHICAGO (TICKER) -- Jose Canseco may have a chance to pursue his dream of
500 home runs after agreeing to terms on a minor league contract with the
Chicago White Sox on Thursday.

Canseco, a designated hitter and part-time outfielder, had signed a minor
league deal with the Montreal Expos but was released after batting .200
(7-for-35) with three home runs and four RBI in 14 games during spring
training.

The 37-year-old Canseco, who batted .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI in 76
games with White Sox last season, will be assigned to Class AAA Charlotte
and be activated in time for Tuesday's game against Norfolk.

The American League Rookie of the Year with the Oakland Athletics in 1985,
Canseco was the Most Valuable Player in 1986 when he became the first
player ever to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season. He also
has played with Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco is 22nd all-time on the home run list with
462. Among active players, only Barry Bonds (575) has more.

With the hopes of reaching the Hall of Fame, Canseco has set 500 homers as
a goal. Each eligible member of the 500-member club has made it to the Hall.

The Cuban-born Canseco is one of just nine players with 400 homers and 200
stolen bases. He has hit more home runs than any other player born outside
the United States.

...a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox!

Jose will be playing with the White Sox AAA team in Charlotte, NC.  If/when
he'll make it back to the majors is anyone's guess, but at least he'll be
playing regularly and will have a chance to show everyone he's still got
what it takes.  Hopefully he'll put up some good numbers down there and the
Sox will give him a chance or trade him to a team that will.

Honestly, I'm glad to see Jose back with the Sox.  They treated him well
last year, and I'm glad they are giving him another chance.  I can't help
but wonder how long it will be until we see him in a major league uniform
though - hopefully not too long.

-Mark

==========
  From the Chicago Sun:
Canseco could return, play in Sox' system
April 16, 2002
BY TONI GINNETTI

Jose Canseco is only a telephone call away from wearing a White Sox uniform
again, if he so desires.

The veteran slugger, who needs 38 home runs to reach 500, was released by
the Montreal Expos in spring training and can't sign again with the Sox
until May 18. But general manager Ken Williams said Monday he has kept in
touch with Canseco, 37, who is keeping himself in shape.

''He's keeping his options open,'' Williams said. ''He has a standing
invitation to join one of our minor-league teams. We owe him that after
what he gave us last year. He didn't come in with an ego, carried himself
well and performed well. If he called today, he'd have a home.''

Canseco joined the Sox before the All-Star break after playing for the
independent Class A Newark Bears. He appeared in 76 games for the Sox and
hit .258 with eight doubles, 16 home runs and 49 RBI.

==========
Canseco agrees to minor league contract with White Sox
April 18, 2002

CHICAGO (AP) -- Jose Canseco's quest for 500 homers brought him back to the
Chicago White Sox.

Canseco, who needs 38 homers to reach 500 in his career, agreed to terms
Thursday on a minor league contract with the White Sox. He'll report to
Triple-A Charlotte and be activated in time for the Knights home game Tuesday.

``Jose still has a desire to play, and we told him last fall that we would
have a place for him in our minor league system if he needed it,'' White
Sox general manager Kenny Williams said.

``He will have a chance to play himself back into shape in Charlotte and
then we will see where things go from there,'' Williams said.

Canseco, 37, signed with the White Sox last June and hit .258 with 16 home
runs and 49 RBIs in 256 at-bats. He played 76 games, almost all of them as
a DH. He was a good fit at the time, with the White Sox needing someone to
replace the injured Frank Thomas.

``Jose did a tremendous job filling in for us last season and handled
himself with nothing but class,'' Williams said.

With Thomas healthy again, though, the White Sox didn't have a spot for
Canseco and he became a free agent. He went to spring training with the
Montreal Expos but was released after being told he wouldn't be an everyday
player.

An AL player his entire career, he has been in the outfield only 13 times
in the last three years.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco ranks 22nd on the career home run list with
462, three behind Dave Winfield. He is second among active players,
trailing only Barry Bonds.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 1986, he won AL MVP honors in 1988, when he
became the first player in major league history to hit 40 home runs and
steal 40 bases in the same season.

==========
White Sox sign OF Canseco to minor league contract
April 18, 2002

CHICAGO (TICKER) -- Jose Canseco may have a chance to pursue his dream of
500 home runs after agreeing to terms on a minor league contract with the
Chicago White Sox on Thursday.

Canseco, a designated hitter and part-time outfielder, had signed a minor
league deal with the Montreal Expos but was released after batting .200
(7-for-35) with three home runs and four RBI in 14 games during spring
training.

The 37-year-old Canseco, who batted .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI in 76
games with White Sox last season, will be assigned to Class AAA Charlotte
and be activated in time for Tuesday's game against Norfolk.

The American League Rookie of the Year with the Oakland Athletics in 1985,
Canseco was the Most Valuable Player in 1986 when he became the first
player ever to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season. He also
has played with Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco is 22nd all-time on the home run list with
462. Among active players, only Barry Bonds (575) has more.

With the hopes of reaching the Hall of Fame, Canseco has set 500 homers as
a goal. Each eligible member of the 500-member club has made it to the Hall.

The Cuban-born Canseco is one of just nine players with 400 homers and 200
stolen bases. He has hit more home runs than any other player born outside
the United States.

Hi Canseco fans...

Seeing how I've already gotten 20 or so requests to recap today's episode
of "Unscripted" (it aired on ESPN at 5:00), I figured I better do it now
before I get in any more trouble with you guys :)

According to this link
(http://espn.go.com/page2/tvlistings/unscripted.html) , the show will be
re-airing tonight at 2:30 AM ET on ESPN2, so set your Tivos - or VCRs, as
the case may be for those of you still living in the 1990s.  That comment
was a joke, of course, but I do have a Tivo, and I have to tell you - it's
one of the greatest inventions of all time.  If you have no idea what a
Tivo is, you can get more information here: http://www.tivo.com

Ok, on to the episode recap (don't mind me if I ramble a bit here - I'm
going to try to type this up fairly quickly):

Chris Connelly interviewed Jose via Satellite (Jose was at home in Westin,
FL).  The show opened with a basic summary of Jose's career, with some nice
video clips.  Chris then discussed his current situation (being 38 homers
from 500 and not having a job), and then welcomed Jose to the show.

Jose said the reason he declined to play with the Expos AAA team was
because he was hoping to get a job with a major league team.  He said he's
healthy, and his agent is "speaking with a few clubs right now," and
hopefully someone will need him soon.  Chris pushed for him to name a team
he'd like to play for, and Jose mentioned Boston.  He said they could use a
DH, he enjoyed playing there in the past, and he plays well in Fenway.

I think Jose sounded a little bit nervous throughout the interview, but
it's wasn't very obvious.

Jose said if he plays every day and stays healthy, he's sure he can hit 40
homers and drive in 100.  He said he is healthy right now and has been for
the past couple of years, but he hasn't gotten the playing time he needs.

When asked if he's considering retirement, Jose said no, stating that he's
only 37 and knows he has a few good years left in him.

He said he felt the Expos treated him fairly and he has a lot of respect
for Frank Robinson.

When asked if he'd consider playing in the minors again or with a team like
Newark like he did last year, Jose said he didn't know.  He said he not a
quitter, and just hopes someone gives him a chance to play on a daily basis.

Jose is frustrated by the current situation, especially given that he is
fully healthy right now.  Given the chance to play every day, he's sure he
could hit 40 to 50 home runs (of course, I think we've heard that once or
twice before, huh?).

500 homers is a goal for Jose, but he knows it doesn't guarantee him the
Hall of Fame, since so many guys are hitting so many homers lately.

After those questions were asked, Chris prompted Jose to play "Friend or
Foe."  Chris reads a list of people or things, and Jose says if they are
friends or foes.  Here are his answers:

1. 40-40 Club: Friend.
2. South Beach: Both.
3. DH Rule: Friend, although he wants to play OF this year.
4. Ferraris: Foe ("not good quality cars")
5. Joe Torre: Friend (was upfront with Jose about his situation when he
joined the Yanks).

After a commercial break, Chris reviewed 3 great Canseco moments with Jose.

1. When he stole his 40th base in 1988 to create the 40-40 club - Jose said
he actually wanted to take off on the previous pitch, but he was too
nervous and his legs completely froze.  So he had to go on the next pitch.

2. Grand Slam in the 88 World Series (before Gibson hit his historic game
winner later in the game) - Jose said he watched Gibson's homer (it went
over his head in RF) and couldn't believe it.  It was a nightmare.

3. The 5th deck homer in the Skydome in the 1989 playoffs - Jose said he
hit that ball perfectly, and didn't even realize how far it went until he
was told later.

What's the biggest misconception about Jose right now?  He doesn't
know.  He says people like him, fans enjoy watching him, he's exciting on
the field, etc.  He doesn't know what the misconception is.

He says he thinks he has 3 great years left in him and won't quit until his
skills diminish.

And that was that.

-Mark

Sorry for the short notice - I've been out of town and just walked in.

Jose's on tv right now:
ESPN - "Unscriupted" - 5:00 ET

-Mark

Hey Canseco fans...

First things first - due to popular demand, I'd like to organize a Jose
Canseco chat so we can all discuss Jose's current situation.  I'd be
interested to hear what other people's thoughts are on the subject, and
what you all think his options are for the future.  Let's plan the chat for
tomorrow (Tuesday) night at 9:00 PM ET:
http://www.canseconet.com/josechat.htm

Apparently, some fans in Kansas City are making a push to get the Royals to
sign Jose.  KC wouldn't be my first choice for the big guy, but I'm not
going to be picky.  I just want to see him back in a big league
uniform.  He needs to play if he's going to get to 500.  Here's a post from
a Royals Message Board:

-----
I have made a survey of friends, fans from this board and at the ball park
and contacted 2 baseball experts I have access to; 95% think we should get
Canseco to bat behind Mike.  It is time for faxes to Mr. Biard, (816)
924-0347.  Faxes are the most effective.  If you can not fax, send an
e-mail to allard.baird@... and send a copy to Mr. Glass
dan.glass@...  If you are faxing they use the same number.  I have
already sent a fax to Mr. Baird.   Then I sent it thru again with a note,
"copy for Mr. Glass".  All of you Canseco fans, get your faxes and e-mails
going!  Point out in your faxes that since he is only 38 homers from 500
the race to 500 will be an attendance draw and mean additional $$$ coming
in.  Also state that everyone you know thinks it's a good idea.  Include
what you think the line up should look like.

Paula Marie
-----

I think you should all go ahead and follow Paula's advice.  It certainly
can't hurt, and I'd have to think 1000+ emails/faxes might actually get a
team to seriously consider signing him.  Be sure to mention how they can
probably sign him to a very inexpensive contract and that he's definitely
going to be an attendance draw for them.  Not only will Jose help the
Royals win, but it's a smart financial decision for the team too.

All the latest news (there isn't much) is below.  Eric LeBlanc is (a
subscriber to this list) wrote a very good article, which analyzes Jose's
options.  Enjoy...

-Mark

==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:

...Top of the 9th
PLEASE RELEASE ME
Jose Canseco was released yesterday by the Montreal Expos. How can they do
that? C’mon, I know that Jose is injury-prone, muscle-bound, not
particularly motivated, a poor fielder, has trouble getting around on
fastballs, not a good role model, is not particularly fast…I’m not making a
good argument here, am I? The point is Jose is a drawing card and was bound
to hit a few homers into the empty seats of Olympic Stadium....

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:

...It is hard to know whether it would have made any difference in the
decision to release Jose Canseco, although the decision had come down to
Canseco or Jose.

Both manager Frank Robinson and general manager Omar Minaya said they would
not revisit that decision; it has become fairly clear that Robinson is
stretching pitching and defense, making contact and creating runs -- he has
to, in the absence of a powerful lineup -- and his concerns about Canseco's
defense and strikeouts.

Minaya merely said that, despite the change in circumstances, the club
could still not guarantee Canseco the playing time the 37-year-old felt he
needed to be productive. . . .

==========
  From the St. Charles Herald-Guide (Louisiana):
In the Batter's Box with Eric LeBlanc
Jose can you sign?

Well, it seems as if it has become a tradition the past two years. Spring
training comes to a close and a team desperately needing a power bat in the
lineup releases  Jose Canseco. I guess by now you can tell that I am a fan
of the gargantuan slugger, but that does not effect my opinion of how
unceremoniously and thoroughly he has been banished from Major League Baseball.

To refresh everyone’s memory, let’s go back to last March when Jose was in
training camp with the Anaheim Angels as their designated hitter. Now
Jose’s back was nagging at him and he was attempting to play through the
pain. But the Angles management told him to sit out and save himself for
the regular season. So that Jose did. And what happens at the end of spring
training? The Angels released him saying that he did not put up good enough
numbers in enough games. Uh, you guys told him to sit out. So with most
teams’ rosters set already, Jose had to play with the independent Newark
Bears to convince teams that they could use him.

And who do the Angles in their infinite wisdom replace Jose with? Glenallen
Hill. No offense to Mr. Hill, but he’s no Jose Canseco. And he
proved that very quickly last year, batting .136 with one home run and two
RBIs in 16 games before the Angels released him.

Now let’s see. For the rest of last season, how did Angels designated
hitters fare? They batted .204 with eight home runs, 54 RBIs and 38 runs
scored in 550 at-bats. Well, when Jose finally was redeemed from his exile
by the Chicago White Sox in the middle of the season, he went on to hit
.258 with 16 home runs, 49 RBIs and 46 runs scored in just 256 at-bats. And
if you project that out to 550 at-bats you get 34 home runs, 105 RBIs and
99 runs scored. Wow, how smart were the Angels for passing on that?

And this year, with the left field job almost certainly in his hands, Jose
was told that he was not going to start. The young Brad Wilkerson would be
the starter in left field. The proud owner of one career home run and five
career RBIs evidently looked better to manager Frank Robinson than Jose.
Robinson cited fielding reasons as well that Jose was not going to start.
Jose made one error in all of the games he played this spring, and he made
zero errors in the 30 or 40 games he played with the Bears last season.

But alas, Jose was told that he could play everyday in the minors. That did
not go over well with him, so he decided to be released. And now he has to
search for a team at the beginning of the season once again. Wasn’t it just
in 1999 when he was on pace to break Mark McGwire’s home run record at the
All-Star break. This is not a man who is past his prime. His projected
stats from last year do not show a player who is washed up. Why is he not
able to find a job when each major league team has one or two guys that you
wonder how they ever made it into the minor leagues.

What is wrong here? Everywhere Jose goes, his teammates say that he is a
great clubhouse guy. So that can’t be it. He has been injured often in the
past, but when he is healthy he is a huge producer for his team. And he’s
willing to play for a miniscule amount of money, so that can’t be it. Some
people have a theory that Major League Baseball does not want him to get to
500 home runs, virtually assuring him a spot in the Hall of Fame. Well, I
used to think that was absurd, until we found out just how corrupt baseball
is during this past off-season. I wouldn’t doubt if Bud Selig has it in for
Canseco.

But anyway, will Jose be able to find a team before the All-Star break this
year? Well let’s take a look.

Teams will most likely be looking at him as a DH, so that limits us to the
American League. Let’s eliminate Cleveland and Seattle right off of the bat
because they already have established DHs in Ellis Burks and Edgar Martinez.

Anaheim has Brad Fullmer and will not likely admit that they were wrong in
releasing Jose.

The White Sox let him go as a free agent at the end of last season because
of the return of Frank Thomas, so they won’t sign him unless Thomas goes
down again.

Minnesota has David Ortiz and the only other position he can play is first
base, and I don’t see Doug Mientkiewicz going anywhere anytime soon.

Detroit needs somewhere to put Dean Palmer when he returns, so their DH
spot is taken.

The Yankees’ Joe Torre made it clear that he did want Jose on his team when
the Yanks acquired him in 2000, so I don’t think GM Brian Cashman will make
that mistake again.

Toronto is using its DH spot as a platoon for its crowded outfield of
Shannon Stewart, Jose Cruz, Raul Mondesi and Vernon Wells.

And Texas has so many good hitters that two or three of them are already
sitting on the bench every day.

So that leaves us with five teams: Baltimore, Boston, Kansas City, Oakland
and Tampa Bay.

Tampa Bay and Baltimore have no intention of winning anything this year, so
it would be highly unlikely that they would bring in somebody who would
just get in the way of their young players. Although, Tampa Bay loved
Canseco when he was there, and it would increase ticket sales.

Kansas City does not have a chance to win a division or a wild card but
they have brought in some veterans during the off-season. But Royals
management seems intent on bringing in veterans who don’t help the team, so
getting Jose would be counterproductive to that strategy. But beyond Mike
Sweeney and Carlos Beltran, the Royals offense is very anemic. So this is
one possibility.

Next, we have the Boston Red Sox. Their Opening Day DH was Jose Awfulman,
sorry Offerman, so that tells you something right there. If Manny Ramirez
is healthy enough to play outfield this year, the Sox will need a
productive DH to compete against the Yankees. And they are not going to get
that from Offerman. Besides, Jose was adored by the Boston fans the two
years that he spent with the club. And Jose was lethal in Fenway Park,
ranking in the top five in RBIs at the time he was injured in both seasons.
Also, the Sox are under new management, which means that the owners will
want to make some acquisitions that will let the fans know that they are
committed to winning. So this seems like the best situation, but....

Why not the A’s! Jose began his career with the A’s. Wouldn’t it be great
for him to hit his 500th home run in an Oakland uniform. And since Jermaine
Dye is out for who knows how long, the A’s need a DH. Scott Hatteberg has
been starting at DH for goodness sakes. The same Scott Hatteberg that has
only hit 34 home runs in his entire career of eight seasons. Jose could put
up 34 home runs this season if the A’s were willing to take a chance on
him. I know that A’s are experiencing a youth movement, and they don’t want
anything to disturb their run at the playoffs this year. But give me a
break. GM Billy Beane, with his great baseball savvy (and I’m not being
sarcastic this time) should be able to figure out that Jose is a minimal
gamble. And he could take that roster spot that is currently being stunk up
by Olmedo Seanz.

But that’s just my opinion.

Jose should land with a team sometime this year. It would be a shame to see
one of the greatest sluggers baseball has ever seen to be shunned from the
game when he still has a lot to offer it.

Here’s to you Jose. May you hit your 500th home run against the Angels and
show them what they missed out on.

Eric LeBlanc invites anyone with ideas on how Charlie Hayes has managed to
stay around so long or other theories as to how Jeff Kent broke his wrist
to contact him at EricL@... or at (985) 758-2795, ext. 219.

Bad news.  Jose was released by the Expos today.  I have no idea why, and
personally, I don't think it was a very good move for them.  You know they
could have used him in their lineup.  This move also looks pretty bad for
Jose.... I mean, when the Montreal Expos release you, you know things are bad.

Here's hoping someone out there will give him a shot soon.  I'm SURE he
could be a productive addition to a number of clubs.

-Mark

P.S. Don't forget to go play Heavy Hitters with us.  It's fun and it's
free.  Be sure to join to "Canseconet" group after you sign up:
http://www.sandbox.com/heavyhitters/pub-bin/x_goto?userID=71913847&url=../pub-do\
c/home.jsp

==========
  From the AP:
Expos release OF Jose Canseco
March 27, 2002

JUPITER, FLORIDA (TICKER) -- Jose Canseco will pursue his dream of 500 home
runs with a team other than the Montreal Expos.

The Expos on Wednesday released the 37-year-old Canseco after he decided
against accepting an assignment to the minor leagues.

Canseco signed a minor league contract with the Expos in February after
batting .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI in 76 games with the Chicago White
Sox last season. Canseco has been relegated to designated hitter for most
of the last decade and was trying to demonstrate that he could play the
field in the National League.

In 14 spring games, Canseco hit .200 with three homers and five RBI.

Canseco is a 17-year veteran who broke in with Oakland in 1985 and has
spent time with Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 1985, Canseco was the Most Valuable Player in
1986 when he became the first player ever to hit 40 homers and steal 40
bases in the same season.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco is 22nd all-time on the home run list with
462. Among active players, only Barry Bonds (567) has more.

Canseco has set 500 homers as a goal with the hopes that all eligible
members of the 500-homer club have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. He
already is one of just nine players with 400 homers and 200 stolen bases
and has hit more home runs than any other player born outside the United
States.

The signing of Canseco was the first player move by new Expos general
manager Omar Minaya.

Hey Canseco fans...

Before I get to the latest Canseco news, I want to invite everyone to sign
up to play the free "Heavy Hitters" fantasy baseball game at Sandbox.com
again.  This game is as simple as they come (so don't be intimidated if you
don't know much about baseball), and it's lots of fun.  As in previous
years, I've created a group called "Canseconet," so we can compete with
each other.  Follow this link to sign up and then be sure to join the
Canseconet group if it doesn't join for you up automatically:
http://www.sandbox.com/heavyhitters/pub-bin/x_goto?userID=71913847&url=../pub-do\
c/home.jsp

Ok, on to the Jose news...

-Mark

==========
  From the Ottawa Sun:
Canseco takes aim at homer No. 500
By TIM BAINES

JUPITER, Fla. -- Jose Canseco has always been able to hit.

A ton.

Now 37 and trying to crack the Montreal Expos' roster, he's a home-run
machine, a former soulmate and one half of The Bash Brothers duo in Oakland
with Mark McGwire.

But this spring training has been just another moment in a long string of
stops in his quest to hit 500 homers, a mark he's 38 taters shy of now.

He's never been able to pack away his suitcases for too long.

What's inexplicable is why Canseco has been forced to become a baseball
nomad, a hired gun.

"It's frustrating," said Canseco yesterday, his forearms bulging. "I know I
can still hit, but I have to keep at it, to keep the dream going.

"I still believe I can hit 40-50 home runs if I get the chance."

There have been worries about Canseco's defence, a malady which for the
most part has been nonexistent in spring training, although he did drop a
fly ball in yesterday's 6-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Roger Dean
Stadium.

But Canseco says he's ready to play.

"I know this is it," he said. "There are a few roster spots open ... and I
want to get one of them.

"I just need a chance. I'll never quit. I still want to play baseball."

==========
  From the NY Post:
CANSECO'S HOPING TO LAND IN MONTREAL
By KEVIN KERNAN

March 24, 2002 -- VERO BEACH - Jose Canseco's body remains a modernistic
view of baseball art, still able to launch 450-foot home runs as he did
Friday night against the Dodgers.

Despite that, Canseco, late of the Newark Bears and White Sox, doesn't know
if he will make the cut with the Expos. Somehow, there must be room for
this massive mauler in MLB.

"I just don't know if I'm going to make this team," the ex-Yankee says.

Canseco, who will turn 38 on July 2, needs 38 home runs to make it to the
magic 500 Club. The Hall of Fame is in front of him, especially when you
consider he ranks 22nd on the all-time home run list and needs four home
runs to move ahead of Famer Dave Winfield.

The only active player with more home runs is Barry Bonds (567). Canseco
hit 16 home runs last season in 76 games as the White Sox DH. Now, he's
trying to survive in left field.

"I'm just trying to make this team, and for me that's tough," Canseco says,
"because I know I can still hit 40 and drive in a hundred easily."

Notice Jose's choice of words. "And if I play every day I can still steal
30-40 bases," Canseco adds. "But if I'm not given the opportunity, there's
no chance at all. So this is all very, very difficult.

"If nobody believes in you," the big man concludes, "you'll never play
again. You may have all the talent in the world left, but that's the way
this game works. I don't know what else to do."

Hey everyone,

Even though he hasn't been playing every day, Jose has hit three homers
this spring, which ties him for the Expos lead with Vladimir Guerrero.  And
Guerrero has far more ABs as Jose.  After 29 ABs in spring training games,
Jose has 6 hits, including 3 homers and 2 doubles.  That works out to a
.207 batting average and a .586 slugging percentage.

There has been talk recently that Jose may not be the regular left fielder
for the Expo once he team finalizes their regular season
roster.  Apparently, manager Frank Robinson would prefers Brad Wilkerson
over Jose.  I guess we'll know soon enough.  Keep your fingers crossed.

All the latest is below - including a nice article that sums up pretty much
Jose's entire career, on and off the field...

-Mark

==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:
(Billy Ball is a great email list for all baseball fans.  You should check
it out)
March 15, 2002

...Top of the 6th
20-20 VISION?
Chief Canseco-ite Mark Petrillo (www.canseconet.com) is very excited about
Jose’s first two hits of the spring, a homer and a double, earlier this
week. Mark predicts that it is very possible that Canseco will have a 30-30
season for Les Expos. Billy-Ball presumes he’s referring to 30 games/30
injuries....

==========
  From the AP:
Montreal bests Braves, 5-1
By Mark Bowman

...Jose Canseco's two-run homer off Braves starter Albie Lopez in the first
inning got things started for the Expos. Lopez, who was making his fourth
start of the spring, allowed one more run in his four inning-stint....

...Expos Notes: Canseco's homer was his second of the spring and second in
his last four games....

==========
  From ESPN:
Montreal 5, Atlanta 1

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) _ Jose Canseco homered for the second time this
spring, a two-run shot in the first inning, and the Montreal Expos went on
to a 5-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Saturday....

...Loser Albie Lopez wasn't so good. Working on a new slide step from the
stretch, he hung a curve to Canseco and watched it sail over the left-field
fence....

==========
  From the Sporting News:
Expos season preview
March 15, 2002

WHAT TO LIKE

Everything about this team is better than it was a year ago, ironic since
major league baseball now owns it.

New general manager Omar Minaya was unafraid to bring in experienced
veterans to show the youngsters how it's done and create competition. He
seemingly was the only one willing to take a chance on Jose Canseco, which
would appear a no-brainer with nothing but upside if Canseco stays healthy....

WHAT NOT TO LIKE

...If Canseco can't stay healthy playing in the field, Fernando Tatis'
power bat will be missed even more....

STARTING LINEUP
CF Peter Bergeron: One error in 227 total chances.
2B Jose Vidro: .348 vs. lefthanders.
RF Vladimir Guerrero: 53 stolen base attempts (37 steals).
LF Jose Canseco: 31 games in the outfield with the Newark Bears, zero errors.
SS Orlando Cabrera: Only three errors in 81 games on bad Big O turf.
1B Lee Stevens: 19 walks in 82 at-bats in September.
3B Chris Truby: .327 career hitter vs. lefties.
C Michael Barrett: 2-for-2 as a pinch-hitter.

==========
  From the Montreal Expos:
Another familiar face
Rodriguez hopes to see Oh Henry! bars again at Big O
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Thursday, March 21, 2002

Jose Canseco and Andres Galarraga played in the Ottawa Lynx Triple-A game
yesterday, then walked back from the Siberia of the back fields and through
the door of the major-league clubhouse.

The man in left field, wearing dark shades and an Expos uniform with his
favourite No. 40 on the back, was rather more anonymous, if no less
familiar to the team's fans.

But when Henry Rodriguez left after seven innings of his first baseball
game since last June, he went through the minor-league door where the
prospects, has-beens and never-weres fighting for their baseball lives hang
their jerseys.

It's too soon to say where Rodriguez, who is just 34 - "34 here, 34 in the
Dominican, 34 everywhere," he said yesterday - fits into the picture.

But Rodriguez, who arrived four or five days ago, looks in shape. And he
said he's eager after a strained muscle in his back cost him the 2001 season.

"I feel great," said Rodriguez, who made a diving catch yesterday and lived
to tell about it. "I had an MRI (on the back) two days ago, and it was
fine. I'm 100 per cent. I was sitting at home. I wasn't going to come here
unless I was 100 per cent. I feel fine now."

Despite the rather humbling surroundings, Rodriguez still considers himself
a big-leaguer. He said the organization was surprised at the shape he was
in, and expects to play a few minor-league games, then get some at-bats
with the big-league club.

"You always have to prove yourself," he said. "But I have to prove
something to myself, not to anybody else. I feel great, that's the most
important thing. I'm swinging the bat good."

Rodriguez, who had the best season of his 10-year big-league career with
the Expos in 1996 (36 homers, 103 RBIs) and was a favourite with the crowd,
if not with then-manager Felipe Alou, said he had plenty of invitations
over the winter.

"I chose the Expos because I was here before and people love Henry in
Montreal," he said. "That's why I chose Montreal."

It's difficult to see where there is room, even for a healthy Rodriguez.
The Dominican has another veteran on the comeback trail ahead of him at
that position with the big-league club, Jose Canseco. And even if Canseco
weren't in the picture, the left-field playing time would go to a fellow
left-handed hitter, Brad Wilkerson....

==========
  From the AP:

...Expos manager Frank Robinson and his coaches prefer Brad Wilkerson to
Jose Canseco in left field, and they're reluctant to keep Canseco solely as
a pinch hitter, knowing he has bristled at being a bench player in the
past. The question is whether the on-field staff can persuade Expos GM Omar
Minaya that Canseco is a poor fit. . .

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:

...At most, only two of the group of outfielders, including Jose Canseco,
Felix José, Glen Barker and Lance Johnson, will make the team. It's
unlikely that both Canseco and José, neither of whom can offer much
base-running speed or defensive versatility, will make the cut....

==========
  From the AP:

...Shawn Green snapped his spring-long power slump with a wind-blown
two-run homer, his first of the spring. Jose Canseco slugged a towering
two-run homer off Paul Quantrill in the ninth inning...

========================
  From the Sporting News:
Story:  'Canseco's Last Fling?'
By Jeff Heatherington

Montreal has always been known as an exciting city with a vibrant
nightlife. Jose Canseco has long been known as an electrifying ballplayer
who lives life in the fast lane.

They seem like a perfect fit. But is the city of Montreal really ready for
Canseco?

A monster of a man on the field at 6'4, 240 lbs., Canseco has proven to be
one of the best power hitters in the game when healthy.

But injuries and his well-documented off-the-field problems have steered
most big league clubs away from the big bopper.

In fact, the Montreal Expos were the only major league team to offer
Canseco a contract this year, although it was only a minor-league free
agent contract with an invitation to spring training.

There's still no guarantee that the 37-year-old outfielder will catch-on
with the big club. Although he's only hitting .200 in 20 at-bats through
March 21, popular consensus is that he'll be heading north with the team in
April.

And why not take the chance? A healthy Canseco will definitely supply some
much-needed power to the Expos and take some of the pressure off superstar
Vladimir Guerrero (34 HR last year) and Lee Stevens (25 HR last year).

A six-time All-Star who sits 22nd on the all-time career home runs list
(462), Canseco has definitely proved that he can produce when healthy.
According to him, his chronically injured back has felt, "great for a
couple of years."

So why is every other team out there so reluctant to give him a shot? He is
willing to come cheap (Canseco played with the Chicago White Sox last year
for the league minimum $200,000).

"That's like a million dollar question and I wish someone would answer
that," said a frustrated Canseco. "All I know is that I haven't lost a
step, my bat speed is still there and my arm's coming around now. I've been
injured a few times but when I've been healthy I haven't been given a full
opportunity to play."

If Canseco does in fact make the team and is not limited to a pinch hitting
role, he'll likely play in the outfield, something he hasn't had a chance
to do in the American League over the last few years where he has served
mainly as a designated hitter.

Canseco, who sports a career .971 fielding percentage (average at best),
insists that he can still be an effective defensive player. He played 31
games in the outfield for the Newark Bears (Atlantic League independent
league) last year before signing with the Chicago White Sox, committing no
errors.

"I'm definitely excited to be back out there (in the outfield) again. I
definitely feel comfortable out there," said Canseco.

The Expos say they signed Canseco not with gate revenues in mind, but
because he's the active career home run leader outside of Barry Bonds who
can bring some power numbers to their lineup.

Ask Canseco why he's still playing and he'll admit that the lure of
reaching 500 home runs (believed to be the magic number to get into the
Hall of Fame for power hitters) is what's kept him in the game.

"I'm not considering hitting 500 home runs and then retiring. I'd love to
reach that on my way to playing two to three more years," said Canseco.
"I'm still relatively young, I stay in great shape and I'd like to play in
the outfield everyday. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, a former teammate of Canseco's with the
Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, hopes that Canseco reaches the
500-barrier and thinks that he deserves the chance to get there.

"He's been a very exciting player for baseball and he brings a lot of
presence to the clubhouse. Anybody that knows Jose will be pulling for him
to get to that number," he said.

It's been a roller-coaster 17-year career for Canseco. A Havana, Cuba
native who grew up in Miami, Canseco was drafted out of his Miami high
school by Oakland in the 15th round in 1982.

In 1986, Canseco took the baseball world by storm in his rookie season when
he tore up American League hitting 33 home runs and 117 RBI, and won the AL
Rookie of the Year award, a year after his teammate and "Bash Brother",
Mark McGwire.

Canseco's success on the field matched with his macho good looks made him
an instant crowd favourite.

After posting almost identical numbers in his sophomore season, the Bash
Brothers led the A's to an all-California World Series in 1988 against the
Los Angeles Dodgers.

At age 23, Canseco became the first ever player that year to hit 40 home
runs and steal 40 bases in a season and won the AL MVP award in a
landslide, the first unanimous MVP winner since Reggie Jackson in 1973. He
finished the year with a league-leading 42 HR, while hitting for a .307
average and stealing 40 bases.

Canseco then hit his first ever grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series
against the Dodgers, becoming the first player to hit a grand slam in his
first World Series at-bat.

Although heavily favoured to win, the A's were beaten easily by the
inspired Dodgers in five games.

Canseco then suffered the first of his many injuries in 1989 when he broke
a bone in his hand. That kept him out of action for the first half of the
season. However, a series of speeding tickets - one of which had him
clocked at 125 mph in a Jaguar - and a citation he was given for carrying a
loaded handgun in a car, kept him in the news.

Unfazed by the distractions, Canseco came back to hit 17 home runs in the
second half of the season, leading the A's back to the playoffs.

In Game 4 of the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays, Canseco showed his
power when he became the first player to hit a home run into the fifth deck
in the Skydome, a bomb estimated at over 500 feet.

The A's would go on to win the World Series that year - their fourth
championship since moving to Oakland and first since 1974 - sweeping the
San Francisco Giants in four games thanks in part to Canseco's .357 series
average and one home run.

On June 27, 1990, Canseco signed the most lucrative contract in baseball to
that date, a five-year $23.5 million deal, which would be considered a
bargain nowadays.

Canseco's reputation of being cocky and arrogant was now hitting full
speed, as was his Lamborghini whose plates read "40-40".

Nevertheless, he continued to produce racking up 37 HR and 101 RBI in 1990
as the A's made their third consecutive World Series appearance. This time,
they were swept in four games by the Cincinnati Reds.

In 1991, Canseco added a Porsche to his car collection and was nailed for
another speeding ticket, this one for going 104 mph. Three months later,
Canseco was photographed leaving the New York Upper West Side house of pop
music super-diva Madonna, sparking speculation of a possible romance.

Mounting heckles from the crowd worsened Canseco's attitude, which he took
out on the media saying he would only talk to reporters he knew. Despite
these distractions Canseco still banged out 44 home runs (tied for the
league-lead with Cecil Fielder) and drove in 122 RBI.

By mid 1992, even though he had 22 home runs on the board, Canseco had
become a villain even at home where he was booed during many of his at-bats
at the Oakland Coliseum. His lackadaisical attitude prompted the A's to
trade him to the Texas Rangers for Ruben Sierra, Bobby Witt, Jeff Russell
and cash.

That year, Canseco's off-the-field problems continued to flare up when he
was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his car into the new car of
his first wife, Esther. He agreed to community service and weekly
counseling in return for the charges being dropped.

Things didn't get any better for Canseco in 1993, which would prove to be a
very humbling year for the slugger.

On May 23, 1993, while playing the outfield in a game against the Cleveland
Indians, Canseco jumped in the air to try to catch a ball hit by Carlos
Martinez. He missed the ball with his glove only to have it bounce off his
head and over the wall for a home run.

The embarrassment didn't stop there. Just three days later, as the Rangers
were getting pounded 15-1 by the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, Canseco
convinced manager Kevin Kennedy to let him pitch the eighth inning.

Canseco allowed three earned runs on three walks and a pair of singles in
the inning, but did manage to retire the side in what proved to be a very
comical inning.

That laughter would be short-lived however, when a month later it was
revealed that the strain Canseco had put on his arm by pitching had caused
a complete ligament tear in his right elbow. It would require so-called
"Tommy John surgery" and sideline Canseco for over a year.

A weakened arm forced Canseco to settle into a DH role in 1994, and while
he still produced his typical power numbers at the plate (31 HR, 90 RBI),
the Rangers weren't happy with their damaged goods and dealt him to Boston
for Otis Nixon and Luis Ortiz.

Expected to rack up some big offensive numbers with the Green Monster in
left field only a mere 324 feet away, Canseco's two years in Boston proved
to be more of frustration as several trips to the disabled list limited him
to less than 400 at bats each season. Nevertheless, he still produced 52 HR
and 163 RBI combined.

Canseco did reach a milestone in 1995 when he became the third fastest
player at the time (now fourth since McGwire) to hit 300 home runs (in
1,235 games) behind Ralph Kiner and Babe Ruth.

In 1997 Canseco was briefly reunited with his Bash Brother when he was
traded back to Oakland for John Wasdin and cash, but midway through that
year, McGwire was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals and Canseco was put on
the disabled list a day later with a back injury.

The injury forced Canseco to miss the rest of the 1997 season, but he
resurfaced in the news when he was charged with battery for allegedly
grabbing and pulling his wife's hair and hitting her in the head while
returning in a car from their child's birthday party.

Canseco pleaded no contest and served a year of probation. He was also
ordered to undergo battery counseling.

After three consecutive injury-riddled seasons, the Blue Jays decided to
give Canseco a chance and signed him to a one-year $500,000 contract in the
spring of 1998.

Things finally took a turn for the better for Canseco as he enjoyed his
first healthy season since 1991. With Toronto, Canseco played in 150 games,
set a career high in home runs with 46, racked up 107 RBI and stole 29
bases as the Jays DH.

Being reunited with his former teammate Clemens ironically had an indirect
effect on Canseco's success that year.

"The guy that I brought to Toronto who trains me really got to Jose and
gave him an unbelievable year," said Clemens. "Forty-something home runs in
1998 - he was unbelievable."

While happy on the field, Canseco was also settled off the field with his
new marriage to a former Hooters' waitress and fitness champion.

But even though things were looking up for him after that year, Canseco had
trouble finding any suitors to sign him to a contract until the
power-starved Tampa Bay Devil Rays signed him in the spring of 1999.

While his back flared up again for a month, Canseco was still able to bang
out 34 HR and 95 RBI in 430 at bats with the Devils Rays, which included
his 400th career home run, the third fastest to reach that milestone behind
McGwire and Ruth.

Midway through the 2000 campaign, mired in another injury-riddle season,
Canseco was put on waivers by the Devil Rays, and even to the surprise of
Yankees manager Joe Torre, was picked up by New York. It was no secret that
the Yankees merely grabbed the slugger to prevent other teams in contention
from picking him up.

Much to his chagrin, Canseco was limited to a platoon DH role and the
occasional pinch-hit. Canseco hit .243 with 6 HR and 19 RBI in 111 at-bats
during regular season play with the Yanks, was left off the roster for the
Divisional and League Championship Series', then activated for the World
Series, where he had just one at-bat, a strikeout.

"It was probably the first time in my career where I was completely healthy
and sat down," said Canseco of his time in New York. "It was a very hectic
time for me to say the least. Being completely healthy and not being able
to play was one of the worst times in my life."

Canseco was able to sign-on with the Anaheim Angels the following spring
(2001), but his stay was short-lived as he was released halfway through
spring training. The Angels claimed Canseco was injured.

Baffled by his release, Canseco was out of options and decided to join his
twin brother Ozzie who was playing for the Newark Bears in the independent
Atlantic League. Ozzie had a brief major league career as an outfielder
with the A's (1990) and Cardinals (1992) before becoming Jose's agent.

After two months of playing with second-tier ball players, Canseco was
finally given another shot in the big leagues, signing with the Chicago
White Sox.

Canseco racked up an impressive 16 home runs and 49 RBI in just 256 at bats
with the White Sox last year, a year that showed both sides of his
colourful personality.

While visiting cancer patients at a local hospital last summer, Canseco
told a group of children that he would do his best to go out and hit a home
run for them that night.

Just like "The Babe" who became famous for calling his own home run,
Canseco delivered that evening by hitting two home runs against the Kansas
City Royals.

"I said hopefully I can hit a couple home runs for you guys tonight. But I
also said, if I don't, watch batting practice because I'll probably hit a
couple out in batting practice," said Canseco in an interview last year.

"Whether it was coincidental, whether it was luck or not, who knows? But
like I said, I'm glad and happy for them it actually happened."

With the season long over, Canseco surfaced in the news again in November
when he and his twin brother were involved in a brawl at a Miami Beach
nightclub.

The dispute between the two Canseco's and two California men resulted in
one of the California men suffering a broken nose and the other a split lip
that required 20 stitches.

Jose was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery while Ozzie
was charged with one count, although the two maintained they were
protecting themselves in the Halloween night scuffle.

"A gentleman lifted up my date's skirt and grabbed her butt from behind,
very deep and very hard - very aggressively sexually assaulted her," Jose
told reporters outside the police station. "We are the victims here. We
just defended ourselves."

Canseco later passed a polygraph lie-detector test he took to prove his
innocence and is still awaiting a court hearing.

Now in the Montreal camp, Canseco is hoping to grab a roster spot with the
Expos and experience the same success that he did in Canada with the Blue
Jays in 1998.

A season of full health and regular playing time should be enough to get
Canseco over the 500 home run barrier and into the Hall of Fame, as well as
generate some gate revenue in what appears to be the Expos final season.

Sounds like a perfect ending for both.

Hey everyone,

Good news - Jose had his first two hits of the spring yesterday - a double
and a homer to center field.  He says his ankle isn't 100% yet, but it's
getting better every day... and he knows he still needs to prove himself in
order to make the team.

All the latest news is below...
-Mark

==========
  From the San Francisco Gate:
Canseco insists he still has a field for the game
By John Shea
Sunday, March 10, 2002

Jose Canseco stepped into the batter's box and hit the first pitch off the
fence in left-center. The next three pitches, he cleared the fence. Then he
short-hopped the fence.

This wasn't batting practice in 1988. This was batting practice early this
spring at the Expos' training facility in Jupiter, Fla.

Two young players, waiting to take their turns in the cage, lowered their
bats in awe to watch the display.

"You want to go next?" one asked.

"I don't want to follow that," the other said.

Say this for Canseco: He can still hit, and not just in BP. Last year with
the White Sox, he hit 16 homers in 256 at-bats, improving his career total
to 462, good for 22nd on the all-time list and eighth all-time among
American Leaguers.

Now he's a National League wannabe, signed off the free-agent scrap heap
and determined to hit 500 homers to improve his chances for the Hall of Fame.

The problem is, he's required to play defense. It's a problem because
gloves are foreign, perhaps even frightening, to Canseco.

"I usually have one glove every three years," he said, "and I usually give
it away to kids."

This spring, he has four gloves and is considering getting a first
baseman's mitt, just in case.

He seems serious. So do the Expos, who signed Canseco to a minor-league
contract. After Omar Minaya became the GM last month, he contacted
Canseco's agent and quickly cut a deal, fully aware that Canseco hasn't
played much defense for eight years and is remembered partly for that
home-run ball that bounced off his head and over the wall.

"I think he can play the outfield, and we're going to find out," Minaya
said. "It's not going to cost us because it's just a minor-league contract.
But with his home-run ratio last year, why not take a chance?"

Since 1994, about the time Canseco turned into a designated hitter, he has
started only 137 games in the outfield -- 12 in the last three years, two
last year.

Yet he seems confident he can make a defensive comeback and points to last
year's experience with the independent Newark Bears, for whom he played 41
games before joining the White Sox in June. Canseco made 27 starts in left
and five in center and wasn't charged with any errors.

"Everything came back to me," Canseco said. "I actually felt most
comfortable in center."

The last time Canseco played for the A's, in 1997, he was mostly a DH, but
got 42 starts in the outfield.

"Jose wanted to play more in the field, but his back problems limited his
playing time," A's manager Art Howe said. "If he's healthy, I don't see why
he can't do it now. He's a very good athlete who was one of the better
right fielders when he was young. He can still run and throw."

In his youth, Canseco was impressive enough defensively that then-Oakland
manager Tony La Russa considered moving him to center. But somewhere along
the line -- some say when he signed a five-year contract in 1990 -- Canseco
stopped taking defense seriously.

Nevertheless, La Russa said his Cardinals considered signing Canseco over
the winter.

"He's very motivated. He wants to play," La Russa said. "I think he'd be an
outstanding guy to bring to your team. The question is, can he stay healthy."

Well, well. Canseco strained his right heel and has played only two
exhibition games so far, going 0-for-5 with two strikeouts.

"Look at my ratio of home runs to at-bats," he said. "If I wasn't hurt, or
if I was able to play more when healthy, I easily could have 700 home runs.
I just want to show everyone I can still play the outfield and run a 4.5 (-
second) 40 and steal 30 or 40 bases. I never doubt my ability, ever. All I
need is an opportunity."

He's got it with Montreal. If he doesn't make it work, it might be his last.

==========
  From the Sporting News
Recent additions make for crowded roster
March 8, 2002

...Outfielder Jose Canseco was to get his first start in a week Saturday in
the day game of a day-night doubleheader. Canseco slightly turned his ankle
during pitchers fielding drills, and the club has been cautious with him at
this early stage of camp. . . .

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:
Outfield becomes a battleground
Wilkerson and Bergeron will have to fight to earn spot with Guerrero in
Opening Day lineup
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Sunday, March 10, 2002

There's a good chance Vladimir Guerrero (left) will be joined by Jose
Canseco in the Opening Day lineup.

Before the new regime took over three weeks ago, it was easy to predict the
Expos' Opening Day outfielders. Almost by default, you would have had Brad
Wilkerson in left, Peter Bergeron in centre and, of course, Vladimir
Guerrero in right.

The signings began. Now it's a race for the left- and centre-field jobs.

"I can't say I was surprised, because looking at the roster I knew there
weren't any outfielders from last year," Bergeron said. "With Curtis
(Pride) and Terry (Jones) gone and Mark Smith leaving, I knew that was a
position where we were short. It didn't surprise me at all they were going
out and signing people."

Canseco a Good Bet
Put the stud Guerrero down for one spot right now. If Jose Canseco gets
through March without being put in traction, put him down as well.

The remaining 12 outfielders are fighting for what will probably be three jobs.

Norm Hutchins, Endy Chavez, Valentino Pascucci, Wilkin Ruan and Matt
Cepicky will end up in minor-league camp. That leaves seven.

"I've just been taking it in stride, seeing new faces every day," said
Wilkerson, who pinch-hit in the first game yesterday and pinch-hit and saw
his first action in left field in the nightcap. "It's kind of exciting that
they're going after trying to win this year."

Wilkerson will get his first start of the spring as the designated hitter
in this afternoon's game in Fort Lauderdale against the Baltimore Orioles.
He has a lot of catching up to do.

"If I go on the field and perform, I think (left field) is my job," he
said. "But the main thing is to get back on the field, because you can't try to
win a job coming off the bench or pinch-hitting."

...But as it stands now, put down Guerrero, Canseco, Johnson and perhaps
Bergeron. Barker will stick until Wilkerson gets a few weeks of consistent
at-bats in Ottawa. José will be the pinch-hitter.

But if Bergeron doesn't pick it up, look forward to Calloway - sooner
rather than later.

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:

JOSE HEALTH UPDATE: Jose Canseco, who hadn't played in eight days while
nursing a sore heel/lower ankle, was originally scheduled to start in left
field yesterday. He was switched with Brad Wilkerson, who was to be the
designated hitter, before game time. Canseco went 0-for-2 with a walk and
was replaced by pinch-runner Endy Chavez after the walk.

==========
  From MLB.com:
Expos back on winning track, beat Red Sox
By J.S. Trzcienski

JUPITER, Fla. -- Jose Canseco collected his first two hits of the spring --
a double and a home run to straightaway center field -- as the Expos
snapped their six-game winless string, edging the Red Sox, 6-5. Montreal is
now 7-6-2, while Boston drops to 5-8-2....

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette.
Red Sox Nation Invades

The Nation loved Jose Canseco as one of their own yesterday, probably
because they love players who are larger than life - especially those who
don't turn on them after they leave.

Boston was the last place Canseco spent more than a season; he arguably had
two of his three best statistical years there, in 1995-96. He obliged the
Nation with a double and a sky-high fly ball that turned into a 450-foot
homer - his first two hits of the spring....

...But in his blue Red Sox Jersey, after giving up seven hits and five runs
in 31/3 innings, Hermanson looked vulnerable.

His 2-0 fastball to Canseco was right down the middle. Canseco crushed it.
He gave up a first-pitch opposite-field double to Felix José, a single to
Joe Vitiello, and a double off the wall to Michael Barrett before he was
pulled.

==========
  From MLB.com:
Canseco breaks out
By Jon Trzcienski

JUPITER, Fla. -- For the first time of this spring, Expos fans may have had
a glimpse at the real Jose Canseco.

At least they would hope so.

In what ultimately finished as Montreal's first win in seven tries, the
team's potential left fielder connected for his first two hits of the
spring, a line-shot double down the left field line in the first inning,
then a towering home run to straightaway center field to lead off the
fourth. Canseco finished the afternoon 2-for-2 with a walk and two runs
scored, breaking the 0-for-7 skid he had been on through his first three
games of action. Despite the achievement, however, he sniffed at the
suggestion the effort itself was in any way satisfying.

"I'm just trying to have some quality at-bats up there," Canseco said after
the game. "It's satisfying to play with a team -- a Major League team,
number one -- and have a chance to make the team."

Yes, it will take more than two hits in a Grapefruit League contest to
impress the man who set a new standard for speed and power when he became
the founding member of the 40-40 (home runs-steals) club in 1990. Still
nursing a bothersome right heel, Canseco hardly looked like a burner on the
basepaths on Wednesday, which may be part of the reason he remains
unwilling to get too caught up in his early performances, be they
successful or not.

"In the position that I'm in, I can't even afford a little ankle sprain,"
he pointed out. "People may view that the wrong way and think I can get
released because of that, but I'm doing the best I can. It's getting better
every day. Hopefully in a week or so I can be 100 percent. Right now, we're
watching it, taking it easy, making it sure it doesn't get any worse."

Canseco's position was clarified by Expos' manager Frank Robinson following
Wednesday's game. Despite suggestions to the contrary, there is no
guarantee Canseco will be in Montreal for the team's season opener on April 2.

"Canseco is battling for a position, so he has to perform," noted the
skipper. "A guy like [pitcher Carl] Pavano, if he's healthy, he'll be in our
rotation. With Canseco, it's a bit different."

Indeed, Canseco has to prove himself like any of the other new faces in the
Montreal camp this spring. The fact he did what he did on Wednesday,
however, certainly helped his cause.

"It was just a matter of time," said Robinson. "He's swinging the bat a
little bit better; all he needs to do is get some at-bats and get into a
nice little rhythm, and we hopefully will get him some at-bats between now
and the end of the spring. It's good to get your hits now, because it
builds up your confidence, and you'll get sharper as you go along. The more
you hit, no matter where it is, the more your confidence [builds], and the
more at-ease you are at the plate."

When asked whether he felt he might be seeing fewer quality pitches in
Grapefruit League play due to the fact he was, more often than not, only
one of two or at most three projected regulars who would be in the lineup
at any one time, Canseco shook his head.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Baseball's baseball. I couldn't really tell
you. You're still going to see your fastballs, your breaking balls. I think
pitchers nowadays go one batter at a time. I remember in '87, when I hit in
front of Mark McGwire, I was hitting 3-1, 3-2 breaking balls in the dirt.
When you have strong power hitters up there, most pitchers aren't going to
give you that cookie to hit in any situation."

Cookie or not, the offering Canseco launched out of Roger Dean Stadium on
Wednesday was a treat for Expos fans who had been starving for one of the
big man's trademark blows. If things work out over the balance of Spring
Training, more are sure to follow in Olympic Stadium.

"Major League Baseball is a better place with Jose Canseco"
-Jim Rome

Hey everyone,

Jose hasn't played in a spring training game for four or five days now, and
until today, I didn't know why.  I assumed it was soreness or a minor
injury, but I wasn't sure.  I figured if he was completely healthy, he'd be
playing, and if he had a major injury, we would have read about it by
now.  Sure enough, it turns out it he "rolled his ankle," and they don't
want him running on it just yet.  He hopes to be back in the lineup this
weekend.

All the latest news is below...

-Mark

==========
  From the Denver Post:

EXPOS GOING OUT WITH A BASH: Indeed, if this is the Expos' last year before
contraction, they'll be going out with a Bash Brother on their roster. In
the first major move by new GM Omar Minaya, the now MLB-run Expos signed
Jose Canseco to a minor-league deal. The Angels signed him to a similar
deal last winter and gave up on him early in the spring. Don't expect the
Expos to do the same after seeing what the big slugger did with the White
Sox last year. Besides, maybe Canseco's name will put a few extra fans in
the seats at consistently empty Olympic Stadium. He'll likely platoon in
left field in his first stint in the NL.

==========
  From the Palm Beach Post:

Aging Expos: General Manager Omar Minaya said he tried to bring Tim Raines
back to Montreal and would have platooned him with Jose Canseco, who is in
camp but didn't play Friday.

Raines signed with the Marlins, but Minaya said he was disappointed when
the Expos didn't sign him.

"I envisioned Tim Raines and Jose Canseco in left field in a platoon
situation," Minaya said. "We offered him the job. I thought he was coming
here. I was stunned when he took the Florida job. I thought it would have
been great to have him here as a veteran guy and it would have allowed him
to finish his career here in Montreal."

==========
  From the Sporting News:

...Jose Canseco has held up well so far, getting four at-bats as designated
hitter in the Grapefruit League opener Thursday against the Orioles (going
0-for-3 with a walk), and suffering nothing more serious than sore ankles
from baserunning on an uneven practice field during pitchers' fielding
drills. . . .

...And there seem to be alternatives around with Brad Wilkerson, who won't
have a completely healthy shoulder for another few weeks, but could be
shoved out of the left-field role by a healthy Canseco.

There is also Lance Johnson, Canseco's personal choice for a leadoff
hitter, who must show he has something left at age 38.

==========
  From MLB.com:

"Jose Canseco, meanwhile, who's been out since March 2 with a strain of his
right heel, took batting practice again Wednesday and will be evaluated as
to whether he can move around in the field Thursday or Friday. A start
would appear unlikely for Canseco before the weekend"

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:

- Canseco Improving: Left-field candidate Jose Canseco, who has been on the
shelf the last few days after rolling his ankle slightly during pitcher's
fielding drills, was much improved yesterday.

"I hit and threw today," he said. "The only thing they didn't want me to do
is run. We'll give it one more day, see if it feels good."

Canseco isn't scheduled to go up to Port St. Lucie for tonight's game
against the New York Mets.

==========
  From USA Today:
A DH in any language

The Expos might give Jose Canseco the opportunity to make regular
appearances in the field. Since having Tommy John surgery in 1993, Canseco
has played 148 games in the outfield, fielding .951. No starting outfielder
fielded below .953 last season.

Hey Cansecoites,

So far, it sounds like Jose is fitting in nicely with the Expos.  All the
latest news (plus a nasty article from a few weeks ago that I forgot to
send earlier) is below... Enjoy!

-Mark

==========
(This is a very negative article that I think I forgot to send out a couple
of weeks ago)
  From the Sacramento Bee:
Canseco: No claim to Fame
By Marcos Bretón
Feb. 9, 2002

In a few weeks, when the 2002 Winter Games are over, our attention will
invariably shift to the beautiful mess that is big-league baseball.

Contraction, no collective bargaining agreement, a New York Yankee payroll
at a trim $128 million.

And yes, Jose Canseco.

Baseball's court jester.

A living embodiment of wasted human potential.

A player who seemed destined for Cooperstown when he first donned an A's
uniform and won the Rookie of the Year award in 1986.

And now?

There are some who would argue Canseco is close to posing for a bronze
replica of his face that will hang at baseball's holy shrine.

Hey, he has 462 career home runs.

He has 1,407 RBIs.

He has a Most Valuable Player award to go with his rookie trophy.

He is a five-time All-Star.

He was the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season.

He was the best player in the world in the late 1980s.

He has on many occasions inspired Ruthian awe.

But make no mistake: Even if this guy hits 38 home runs this year to reach
500, he should never be admitted to the Hall of Fame.

Yes, that sounds like heresy. All 17 players who have reached the magic 500
are either in Cooperstown or headed there on a first-class ticket.

Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt, Mark
McGwire -- among the best there ever were.

Does Canseco belong in the same breath with those players?

No way.

And it has nothing to do with his frequent arrests or his loathsome
behavior when he played down the road in Oakland.

It has everything to do with his performance on seven different big-league
teams. That includes two stints with the A's, the second so pathetic that a
woeful Oakland club couldn't wait to be rid of him at the end of the 1997
season.

Canseco did two turns with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays but after a while, even
they didn't want him.

No one did at the start of last season.

No one.

Canseco was cut during spring training by the Anaheim Angels -- the same
team that finished 41 games out of first place last year.

Then he went bush league, forced to sign with the Newark Bears of the
independent Atlantic League.

The Chicago White Sox, decimated by the season-ending injury of Frank
Thomas, signed him only out of desperation.

In 76 games, he hit .258, with 16 home runs and 49 RBIs. He also struck out
75 times in only 256 at-bats. That brought his grand total of strikeouts to
1,942, the second-highest in baseball history.

Only Reggie Jackson has struck out more, fanning 2,597 times -- a feat that
may never be broken.

But Jackson was prime-time, he was a star player on five championship teams
in Oakland and New York. The bigger the game, the bigger he played.

Canseco?

In three World Series, Canseco has batted .156.

His prospects for this season? He's unemployed again.

But when he was playing, there were so many great Canseco moments: the time
the ball bounced off his head for a home run when he was a Texas Ranger. Or
the time he coerced Kevin Kennedy, his Boston Red Sox manager, into letting
him pitch.

And promptly blew out his arm.

Yeah, that'll make a great addition to the Hall of Fame reel.

Canseco will turn 38 this July. He still could make it. But who cares? The
guy has loaded up in a live-ball era of mediocre pitchers and tiny
ballparks. He may be one of the worst outfielders who ever lived, and he is
a decade past his best years.

He's limping to the finish line, playing only for 38 home runs and what he
thinks will be a certain Hall of Fame party someday.

"Hall of Fame, man. That's the ticket," he told the St. Petersburg Times
last year.

Whatever, dude. He had all the talent in the world and played around with
it. He acted as if he didn't care, and he got chased off the worst teams in
the game by malingering and never staying healthy.

Yes, players with lesser numbers than Canseco are in the Hall of Fame --
but numbers lie.

They sure do in his case.

Here's hoping he stays unemployed and stays away from Cooperstown.

==========
  From CBS Sportsline:
Angle in the outfield: Canseco seeks full-time spot with Expos
Feb. 21, 2002
By Scott Miller

Miller: Expos simply looking for stable start

JUPITER, Fla. -- Maybe Jose Canseco, baseball's Adonis, really was chiseled
out of a rock. Each time he reappears -- the latest reappearance being this
week with Montreal -- he looks exactly the same.

Monstrous, cut and slightly amused.

"I'm actually glad to be here in the National League," Canseco said
Thursday after his first workout with the Expos. "I get to play the outfield.

"It will give me a chance to get my legs back in shape and show everybody
that I'm not the worst outfielder in the world.

"Plus, I'll have a chance to steal 30 or 40 bases."

Be careful when attempting to read the twinkle in his eye and the slight
smile on his face. This is not a joke.

"I'm serious," he said of his plans of reversing the popular opinion of him
as an outfielder. "Obviously, I have to get all my skills back. In the
past, I was judged on playing the outfield once in four months. I'd do
that, and people would say, 'Look, he's bad.'

"That was once in four months. Now, I'll have a chance to get my legs under
me."

The thought of the injury-riddled Canseco, at 37, roaming around Olympic
Stadium's rock-hard surface is cringe-inducing. OK, so the Expos are having
their playing surface redone before the season, but still -- Canseco's
medical chart is thicker than the heads of some Olympic judges.

But he swears that's in the past.

His physical condition now?

"Perfect," he said. "So far, I feel perfect."

Of course, the definition of "so far" in this case is "after one short,
early-spring workout."

But, what the heck. The guy still does have arms bigger than redwoods, and
his presence alone Thursday was inspirational to the Expos.

"It's a change from the way things have been in the past here," infielder
Mike Mordecai said. "In the past, we've stayed away from guys like him
because we either didn't have the money or didn't want to spend the money,
whatever the excuse was that they used."

While the Expos' new owner -- Major League Baseball itself -- is keeping a
tight leash and expects Montreal to stay on budget, new general manager
Omar Minaya isn't afraid to investigate his options. He phoned David Cone
the other day after hearing that the free agent would like to pitch another
year, and he took a call from free-agent pitcher Gil Heredia as well. Then
he signed outfielder Felix Jose, based on Jose's solid numbers in the
Korean League.

As for Canseco, the Expos right now figure to line up with Vladimir
Guerrero in right field and Peter Bergeron in center, with left open for
the time being.

"We'll look to see how his overall game will be, and how he fits into the
ballclub," manager Frank Robinson said. "I'm not carried away with power. I
want guys who make consistent contact."

In 76 games for the Chicago White Sox last season, Canseco batted .258 with
16 homers and 49 RBI. He remains motivated by power, though -- at 462
career homers, he needs only 38 to reach the magic 500 mark.

And Canseco, who broke into the majors in 1985 with Oakland, isn't shy
about admitting to being motivated by 500.

"It is big," he said. "I figure I've got three more good years in me.
Hopefully, I can do that. I'd love to play every day. I think I can play
every day."

Said Robinson: "I think it very much motivates him. I think that's
something everybody strives for as a power hitter.

"I'd like to see him do it, and I'd like to see him do it for us."

Still, if the Expos were allowed to place a designated hitter in their
daily lineup it would be one thing. But Canseco in the outfield? To this
day, his most famous fielding moment came in Texas in 1992, when a deep fly
ball bounced off of his head and over the fence for a home run.

Canseco said Thursday that his determination to prove himself in the
outfield has more to do with the overall picture rather than that one play.

"I'm amused people still remember that," he said. "I think it's funny
people still bring that up."

What's not amusing, though, is the fact that that one moment -- a neon
reminder of Canseco's shortcomings as a player -- also might inhibit his
chances of being elected to the Hall of Fame. Because if Canseco somehow is
able to collect the 38 homers he needs for 500, he will present a very
interesting test case: Everybody who has reached the 500-homer mark has
been elected to the Hall, but there is much sentiment that Canseco, even at
500 homers, isn't Cooperstown-worthy.

Asked Thursday if he figures 500 homers guarantees his entry to the Hall,
Canseco shrugged his shoulders.

"It's impossible to tell," he said. "Even though everybody who has hit 500
is in. But I don't take it for granted.

"I thought I had a job with the Angels last spring, too. And then they
released me."

==========
  From the Expos official site:
Canseco anxious to prove doubters wrong
By J.S. Trzcienski

MONTREAL -- For those who know him -- and for those who know of him -- it
should come as no great surprise that Jose Canseco is not lacking for
confidence.

Canseco is many things: the inaugural member of the 40/40 club, a former
flame to pop starlet Madonna, the active player with the most career home
runs outside Barry Bonds, a topic of late night monologues for his
well-publicized indiscretions, and so on. For everything he's accomplished
on the field, much of it has at least been equalled in notoriety by
something outside the game. Such a varied and visible track record has led
to a fascination with Canseco held by both fans and media alike, making him
as much a personality as an athlete, and rendering his arrival at the Expos
camp as much an event as a mere formality.

"He's a known player, and he's been a known player for years," admits
Montreal GM Omar Minaya when asked whether the signing had as much to do
with marketing as it did the Expos' on-field product. Claims that the
37-year-old was invited to camp with Montreal gate revenues in mind,
however, are promptly brushed aside by the GM.

"What played into it for me is that when you look at his numbers last year,
he had 256 at-bats and hit 16 home runs and drove in 49 runs," Minaya says.
"To me, that's a run producer. That's an offensive player. That's a guy
with power, and that was really the main reason we got Jose Canseco."

"I'm very happy he's going to join our club," he adds. "I think that Jose
will hopefully be a force."

Canseco, certainly, is one who buys into Minaya's hype. For a guy who isn't
even technically on the team's 40-man roster, the native of Havana, Cuba,
isn't shy about suggesting the Expos' record book may look a lot different
come October.

"I think I have three or four excellent years in me, so this year, if I can
get in the lineup and play every day, there's no reason why I shouldn't hit
40, 50 home runs, there's no reason why shouldn't drive in 130, 140 runs,
there's no reason whatsoever that if I'm playing a position I shouldn't
steal 20 or 30 bases," Canseco suggests.

When pressed, Canseco also sees no reason to assume he won't be winning a
starting role.

"I'm looking to play every day; I consider myself an everyday player," he
admits. "I think the team will benefit the most from me if I'm in the
lineup day-in, day-out, and getting into that power rhythm. As a player...
I think once I'm in the lineup on an everyday basis the numbers will speak
for themselves. Last year, with the White Sox, even though I had pretty
good numbers I played every two, three days, and sat two, three days, so I
was never able to get into that rhythm -- that home run rhythm -- that I
would have liked."

The question, of course, is where Canseco will likely find himself when all
is said and done. After all, in the DH-enabled American League, he saw a
grand total of 13 games of action in the field over the past three years.

"That'll be up to Frank [Robinson], of course," says Minaya. "I think that
the fact that [Canseco]'s able to play first base is an option that Frank
has. I talked to Jose and told him we're bringing him in here and we're
bringing him in here to compete in the outfield... I think I was pretty
clear that there was going to be a strong possibility of left field, but
the bottom line is, Frank is going to have a player available to him in the
lineup right now that has hit 462 career home runs."

Canseco concurs.

"Not too many people know this, but I played 40 straight games in the
outfield with the [Atlantic League independent club] Newark Bears," he
says. "I played the last six or seven out in center field, and did not make
any errors at all. I think I was second or third in the league in assists
when the White Sox actually acquired me [in June, 2001]. I definitely feel
comfortable out there; I'm extremely comfortable playing center field. I
don't know where the organization exactly wants to play me -- whether it's
the outfield, or first base, or a combination of both, but I'm definitely
excited to be back out there again."

Expos' manager Frank Robinson has adopted a somewhat more tempered
wait-and-see approach when it comes to anointing Canseco as the team's next
anything, though it is apparent he maintains a cautious optimism that the
one-time Bash Brother will find his past form.

"We'll put him through the paces and see what he can do for us," Robinson
reveals. "If he can give us power, RBIs, leadership, it will be a good
boost. We'll see what he can do in the outfield or at first base; if he can
do it, he can bring even more to the table for us."

Canseco admits the only first base action he ever saw came during pick-up
and celebrity softball games, though he's quick to point out with a laugh
that his brother -- former big leaguer Ozzie Canseco -- has informed him
that playing the corner position is easier than covering ground in the
outfield. Still, the Expos would certainly be advised to establish their
own opinions about Canseco's limits, since his own lofty estimations of his
abilities have gotten him into trouble in the past.

Canseco was 28 years old and playing for Texas when the Rangers were at the
wrong end of a 15-1 score at Fenway Park on May 29, 1993. His manager,
Kevin Kennedy, thought it would be novel to use Canseco as a relief pitcher
to spell his bullpen, especially since Canseco himself volunteered. "I had
a fastball in the high 90s, a knuckleball and a changeup, and an uncanny
ability to throw strikes," Canseco told Bloomberg News in 2000. "I pictured
myself like a Charlie Hough with a 98 mile-per-hour fastball. I figured I'd
be untouchable."

The end result made for yet another colorful and bizarre chapter in
Canseco's career. He started off the first Red Sox batter he faced with a
knuckleball, then rared back and fired a fastball. A pain shot through his
arm and eventually settled into a dull numbness in his hand and fingers,
though he continued on, undeterred, throwing another 31 pitches before the
experiment was called off. Canseco attempted to play through the pain, yet
eventually yielded to common sense and underwent an examination with noted
surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe. The diagnosis: a complete tear of the ulnar
collateral ligament in his right elbow, requiring Tommy John ligament
transplant surgery and over a year on the sidelines.

The elbow, naturally, is fine today, as is the back that betrayed Canseco
so many times over the past decade. He credits his doctor's diagnosis that
he was low in both potassium and magnesium with the latter's improvement --
by taking supplements, he has been pain-free for much of the past two
years. He reports that in the off-season, he's been running, throwing, and
shagging fly balls, and promises he'll be coming into camp "in pretty good
shape."

The question, then, begs to be asked: if he can do everything he thinks he
can, if his health is no longer a concern, then why did he end up with the
Expos, the poster-child for MLB's unsettled off-season? Where was the
interest from other teams?

"That is the million-dollar question all of my friends, my family, other
athletes, some people involved in the baseball world have asked me: 'Jose,
what is going on -- why haven't you acquired a job yet?' and I simply do
not have an answer for that," he says. "I was coming out of Spring Training
last year with the Angels and they released me -- they said I was a damaged
player. A week later, I did a special for ESPN and FOX, ran a 4.5 40, threw
and hit, and I was completely 100 percent. I went to Spring Training with
the Newark Bears, started the season with them, played every game in the
outfield, ended up playing six or seven straight games in center field,
went errorless... I was actually brought up by the White Sox and wasn't
given the opportunity to play outfield at all, so that is a question that
has not been answered. I really don't know what's going on."

For now, Canseco is doing his best to put that nagging uncertainty behind
him, likely figuring he will be given a chance to showcase his talents in a
relatively pressure-free environment, away from the microscope made up of
certain of the larger markets' press corps. If he performs, the right
people will notice, and he will play on. The fact he may have to learn the
idiosyncrasies of a new league in the process hardly phases him.

"To me baseball's baseball," he says of the move to the senior circuit.
"You have to hit a fastball, you have to hit a breaking ball. You still
have to deal with the media and the fans. I'm just going to try to keep
things simple, and just try to be Jose Canseco and help out the team as
much as possible."

If it is, in fact, the old Jose Canseco who helps out the Expos this year,
history may well be in the making. Just 38 home runs shy of 500 ("If it
wasn't for all the injuries I've had, I should be approaching 700 home
runs, never mind the 500," he points out), Canseco recognizes the
controlled environment of Olympic Stadium might help his power numbers, and
looks forward to the opportunity to go to work in, as he puts it, "a dome".
Nevertheless, he bristles when the suggestion is made he's heading to
Montreal simply to make a run at a statistical milestone.

"That's one reason, but I think I'm still a very young player," he says.
"There are players in the league who have guaranteed contracts until
they're 41, 42 -- I think [Barry] Bonds has one until he's 43 years old.
"Obviously the 500 home runs, with time, will come, but I'm not considering
hitting 500 home runs then retiring. I think I have a lot more left."

J.S. Trzcienski covers the Expos for MLB.com. MLB.com's Tom Singer
contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of
Major League Baseball or its clubs

==========
  From ESPN.com
(Jayson Stark's column)
Miscellaneous Rumblings

For the sake of entertainment alone, we're always happy to have Jose
Canseco around. But every baseball person we've asked if Canseco can
possibly play in the National League has burst into laughter within seconds.

"Why don't they see if he can play shortstop while they're at it?" said one
scout.

For the record, Canseco has played a total of 13 games in the outfield in
the last three seasons combined.

==========
  From the Sporting News:
Team report:
Deals bring quick infusion of big-league talent
February 22, 2002

After putting together a laudable coaching staff with a combination of
experience, youthful enthusiasm and diversity -- on short notice -- new GM
Omar Minaya turned his attention to player personnel.

Over the winter, the club hadn't signed a single player of major-league
caliber, with the exception of re-signing righthander Masato Yoshii. Minaya
changed that in a week. In addition to slugger Jose Canseco, Minaya signed
lefthander Ed Vosberg and outfielders Glen Barker and Felix Jose to
minor-league deals and invited them to spring training.

Minaya likely has approached most of the available talent remaining,
although an overture to veteran righthander David Cone will be fruitless.
The agent for righthander Gil Heredia, who is unemployed despite winning 15
games for the A's two years ago, has contacted Minaya. . . .

Jose, who has spent two of the past three years in Korea, is an interesting
case although he's likely an old 36. He batted .335 overseas last year and
did well in a standout winter in the Dominican league. . . .

Minaya changed a long-standing policy of the previous administration, which
was to cease contract negotiations once arbitration numbers were exchanged.
He negotiated with the agent for shortstop Orlando Cabrera right until the
time the two walked into the hearing room. He didn't make a deal, but it
worked out well. Cabrera lost his case, and the $700,000 the club saved
will pay for Canseco's contract should he make the club and max out the
incentive clauses. . . .

Righthander Carl Pavano, who was not looking forward to the cross-state,
one-day drive for his hearing Thursday, settled the day before and will
make $1.312 million in 2001. . . .

Manager Frank Robinson hasn't ruled out Cabrera hitting cleanup, despite
the hoped-for return of Fernando Tatis and the arrival of Canseco. Cabrera
batted .276 for the season but .299 in the fourth spot.

Robinson said the role isn't necessarily about power; run production is
key, and Cabrera took advantage of his chances. Robinson will slot Cabrera
in various roles and decide where he fits best. . . .

Cabrera was only moderately thrilled upon hearing about the new turf being
installed at Olympic Stadium. He handled the old rug with ease, as
evidenced by his Gold Glove, and is hesitant to give up the advantage he
had over all those who struggled on it.

EARLY SPRING SURPRISE

That the only option available to Canseco, 38 home runs shy of 500, was a
spot on a last-ditch team is an issue for another day.

The club took no risk in signing Canseco to a minor-league deal. He says
his back spasms are a thing of the past, and says he proved he could play
the outfield by starting some 40 games in the independent Atlantic League
before signing on for half a season with the White Sox in 2001. He was also
healthy all of 2001.

Canseco is remembered for a blunder which resulted in a ball going off his
head and into the right-field stands a decade ago. He has a powerful arm,
and there's no reason to doubt him when he says that playing the outfield
only occasionally, as he has in recent years, is no indication of his ability.

The bigger question is whether he can stay off the disabled list taking a
daily pounding in the field. No one but Canseco expects him to play every
day. But even 400 or 450 at-bats and 25 home runs will be a major boost to
a power-starved team; that he adds some star power and a big-league
presence is a bonus.

The club has entertained the notion of Canseco playing first base, spelling
Lee Stevens against tough lefties. Canseco has played the position only in
softball. First task is getting his outfield legs back; he didn't spend the
winter thinking he might have to play the field again. Second task is
staying off the trainer's table.

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:
Canseco has blisters - but that's good
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Monday, February 25, 2002

Jose Canseco came out for the team warmup yesterday morning with his left
hand wrapped. It wasn't serious; just a few blisters from swinging the bat.
Head trainer Ron McClain quipped that it was probably a good sign. A
veteran of spring training with the Big Red Machine in the 1970s, McClain
said most of that team's big bats suffered the same fate every spring. It
worked for them.

==========
  From CNN/SI:

Player I Saw Whom I Really Liked: Jose Canseco. What's not to like? The
37-year-old outfielder turned down all other suitors to join Montreal and
go after that elusive World Series ti ... aw, who are we kidding? Big Jose
is 38 homers away from 500, and an Instant Access Hall of Fame ID card. Is
he a true Hall of Famer? Probably not. But the chase gives us reason to
follow a sorry franchise in its final crawl.

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette
Hardwareproblem for Expos
No computers, no info
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Wednesday, February 27, 2002

...Outfielder Lance Johnson led off the game with a soft double to right.
And Jose Canseco, who played with Johnson for the independent Newark Bears
last summer when both were looking to get back to the big leagues, thinks
the 38-year-old can be a big help - no offence meant to Peter Bergeron,
whom Canseco probably doesn't know from Michel Bergeron.

"I'm hoping Lance wins that centre-field job. This guy gets on base and
makes things happen. He's a veteran player," Canseco said. "Wherever he
goes, he hits. He still has speed, has a great glove. I'm hoping he's going
to be our leadoff hitter this year."

Canseco played left field yesterday. And even as he fielded questions from
Washington, D.C.-area reporters about playing there in 2003, he wasn't
looking beyond tomorrow. "I haven't played outfield in a 162-game schedule
for a long time, so have to get through this one. There won't be any next
year if I get hurt," he said.

Canseco's flamboyant public image contradicts the way he has gone about his
work so far. When he was with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999 and 2000, he
was reportedly one of the most popular players with his teammates.

So far, he has been extremely approachable, signs autographs every day
before heading out, and treats everyone the same whether he's a lowly
prospect or a contemporary. He was able to joke when right-hander Donald
Levinski, the club's second-round draft pick last year and the youngest
player in camp at 19, blew a series of moving, darting, slippery fastballs
by him during one session.

"How old are you?" he asked Levinski, staring out at the mound at a player
young enough to be his son. "The chemistry is really good so far. I didn't
really know what our lineup was going to look like, but I kind of got a
glimpse of it today with a combination of the two teams out there," Canseco
said. "It's a pretty potent lineup."

==========
  From the Expos Official Site:
A final dress rehearsal
By J.S. Trzcienski

The organized games might only have lasted for two days, yet Expos' manager
Frank Robinson will piece together his lineup for Thursday's game against
the Orioles based in part on what he's seen -- and what he's still looking
to see -- from the players who took part in the pair of Montreal
intra-squad games that were held in Jupiter Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.

Tony Armas was first to the mound Wednesday, and was followed by efforts
from Matt Blank, Donnie Bridges, Justin Wayne, Anthony Ferrari, Donald
Levinski, Joe Davenport, and Jimmy Serrano. While some of the names they
faced were in the starting lineups Tuesday (non-roster invitees Jose
Canseco and Joe Vitiello returned for the second straight day to positions
in left field and at first base, respectively), others made their on-field
spring debuts.

The starting lineups for the two teams that faced off were as follows:

Team 1 Team 2
Calloway - CF Cabrera - SS
Johnson - DH Vidro - 2B
Pascucci - RF Guerrero - RF
Canseco - LF Stevens - 1B
Vitiello - 1B Rumfield - DH
Schneider - C Cruz - LF
Blum - 3B Battle - 3B
De La Rosa - SS Knorr - C
Mateo - 2B Hutchins - CF

The Expos open the Grapefruit League season Thursday night at 7:05 p.m. in
Ft. Lauderdale against the Orioles. Carl Pavano will get the start for
Montreal against Baltimore's Jason Johnson.

Hey everyone,

I have to be honest with you.  A few days ago, if you asked me to rank
every major league team based on where I would like to see Jose sign, the
Expos would have been last on my list.  Dead last.  But you know, the more
I think about it, the more I like it.  First of all, I'm just glad to see
Jose playing for a major league team.  That nonsense he had to go through
last year, missing nearly half the season waiting to get signed was quite
annoying for us fans (not to mention Jose).

And even though the White Sox were willing to take a chance on him last
year, Jose ended up being a part time player like he was with the Yankees,
even though he was producing.  Jose has said many times that his numbers
will be better when he can play every day and get into his home run
groove.  He's also said his legs feel better and he's able to steal more
bases when he plays the outfield instead of DHing.  With the Expos, I think
he's going to have the chance to prove both statements.

I know it's early and this is very optimistic thinking, but can you imagine
if Jose is able to do 30-30 this year?  You might think there's no chance,
but think back to the last time Jose was playing OF regularly.  It was 1998
with the Blue Jays.  He hit a career high 46 homers and stole 29 bases that
year.  I think he had 22 steals at the All Star break, and then slowed down
because of a couple minor injuries later in the year.

My point is, given the chance, a 30-30 year isn't that far fetched for #33
(CF Peter Bergeron offered to give up his number for Jose, so he's ok in my
book).

Jose's power numbers have dropped a bit in the past couple of years, but
I'm hoping that's because he hasn't played enough to get into a
groove.  The last time he was healthy and playing every day was the first
half of the 1999 season with the Devil Rays.  You'll remember Jose had 31
homers at the All Star break, leading the AL and only one behind Sammy Sosa
for the major league lead (don't quote me on this, by the way - this is all
from memory).  Even with a slow finish that year after he came back from
surgery (a pinky injury limited his power numbers), he managed to finish
the year with a .563 slugging percentage.  The only seasons he ever beat
that were 1988 (.569, MVP) and 1996 (.589 in Boston).

Jose also has a couple of things to play for this year.  He's 38 homers shy
of the magical 500, and he needs 123 hits to reach 2000.  He's also 93 RBIs
short of 1500 and 94 walks shy of 1000.  I won't mention the 58 strikeouts
he needs to get to 2000 :)

So, what's the moral of the story?  Am I predicting Jose will have a great
year in Montreal and silence his critics?  Absolutely not.  All I'm saying
is that this is his chance.  Opportunity, also known as the Montreal Expos
team, is knocking.  Let's hope Jose answers and shows the NL pitchers what
the AL has feared for the past 17 seasons.

I've rambled enough.
-Mark

P.S. I added three new photos of Jose the Expo to the Canseconet.com photo
galleries tonight.

==========
Want to talk up Jose with some Expo fans?  Go here:
http://www.forums.mlb.com/ml-expos

==========
  From CNN/SI:
Expos invite Canseco to spring training

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) -- Jose Canseco, needing 38 home runs to reach 500 for
his career, signed a minor league contract with the Montreal Expos on
Tuesday and was invited to spring training.

Canseco, 37, is expected to join the Expos for their first full-squad
workout Thursday. Primarily a designated hitter in recent years, the
outfielder will try to make his first NL team.

Canseco signed last June with the Chicago White Sox and hit .258 with 16
home runs and 49 RBIs in 256 at-bats. He played 76 games, almost all of
them as a DH.

"He was a free agent and was available, so I thought he was worth trying,"
Expos general manager Omar Minaya said. "He is a veteran player, a power
hitter who still has incentive since he is trying to reach the 500-home run
mark."

In the last three seasons, Canseco has played just 13 games in the field.
He made two appearances last season.

Canseco is a six-time All-Star and ranks 22nd on the career home run list
with 462, three behind Dave Winfield. He is second among active players,
trailing only Barry Bonds (567).

Canseco has played for Oakland, Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa Bay, the
Yankees and the White Sox.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 1986, Canseco was the AL MVP in 1988, the year
he became the first player in major league history to hit 40 home runs and
steal 40 bases in the same season.

Canseco and Fred McGriff are the only players ever to hit 30 home runs in a
season for four different teams.

==========
  From MLB.com:
Bash at the beach
By J.S. Trzcienski

MONTREAL -- The perception may have been that the Expos lost out on a
chance at improving their outfield depth Tuesday morning when the Marlins
announced the signing of Tim Raines, yet it didn't take long for the club
to name an attractive alternative.

Hello, Jose Canseco.

In a move that may have been more than a year in the making (Montreal
reportedly had interest in Canseco as early as last spring), the team
announced late Tuesday afternoon that it had signed the one-time Bash
Brother to a minor league free agent contract with an invitation to Spring
Training. The move was revealed by Expos' Vice President and General
Manager Omar Minaya, who continues to work quickly in assembling both a
new-look staff and player roster.

Canseco, the colorful outfielder who once dated Madonna and saw a ball
bounce off his head for a home run, is still best known for his exploits as
a prolific power hitter. He became the first 40-40 (home runs/stolen bases)
Major Leaguer in history in 1988, and hit 30 or more home runs in a season
eight times in his 17-year career. After beginning 2001 out of baseball, he
eventually signed with the Chicago White Sox in June, and went on to hit
.258 (66-for-256) with 16 home runs and 49 RBIs in 76 games. He also scored
46 runs.

Though his career has been hampered by back problems over the course of the
past decade, Canseco remains a dangerous hitter when healthy, as evidenced
by his numbers from both 1998 (46 home runs and 107 RBIs in 151 games for
Toronto) and 1999 (a .279 batting average, 34 homers, 95 RBIs, and a .563
slugging percentage with Tampa Bay, ninth-best in the AL). He also has the
ability to get on base; his career OBP is .353 -- a notch below Vladimir
Guerrero's .378, yet comparable to Jose Vidro's .355.

The 37-year-old unquestionably brings a wealth of experience to the Expos'
clubhouse. He won a World Series with Oakland in 1989 and with the Yankees
in 2000. He was named American League Rookie of the Year in 1986, and won
the AL Most Valuable Player award in 1988 after his historic 40-40 season.
He is a six-time All-Star and sits 22nd all-time for career home runs
(462), second among active players behind only Barry Bonds (567). Overall,
he has played for seven American League teams, including Oakland (1985-92,
1997), Texas (1992-94), Boston (1995-96), Toronto (1998), Tampa Bay
(1999-2000) and the New York Yankees (2000). Montreal will mark Canseco's
indoctrination to the NL.

The native of Havana, Cuba, is one of nine players to hit 400 home runs and
steal 200 bases, having joined the elite club last season. He has hit more
home runs than any other player born outside the United States, and is one
of two players to hit 30 home runs with four different teams (Oakland,
Texas, Toronto and Tampa Bay), a feat shared with Fred McGriff.

Canseco is expected to join the Expos for the team's first full-squad
workout, which will take place Thursday at 10 a.m. at Roger Dean Stadium.

==========
  From Fox Sports:

MONTREAL (Ticker) -- Jose Canseco will have a chance to pursue his dream of
500 home runs but to do it he will have to show he can play the field.

The 37-year-old Canseco, who spent last season with the Chicago White Sox,
on Tuesday signed a minor league contract with the Montreal Expos.

Canseco batted .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI in 76 games last season. But
Canseco has been relgated to designated hitter for most of the last decade
and will have to play the field in the National League.

Canseco, who may fit into Montreal's left field plans, is a 17-year veteran
who will be playing full-time in the NL for the first time. He broke in
with Oakland in 1985 and has spent time with Texas, Boston, Toronto, Tampa
Bay and the New York Yankees.

The AL Rookie of the Year in 1985, Canseco was the Most Valuable Player in
1986 when he became the first player ever to hit 40 homers and steal 40
bases in the same season.

A six-time All-Star, Canseco is 22nd all-time on the home run list with
462. Among active players, only Barry Bonds (567) has more.

Canseco has set 500 homers as a goal with the hopes that all eligible
members of the 500-homer club have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. He
already is one of just nine players with 400 homers and 200 stolen bases
and has hit more home runs than any other player born outside the United
States.

The move was the first player move for new Expos general manager Omar Minaya.

==========
  From the Ottawa Sun:
Canseco joins Expos
By DON BRENNAN

It might be a moonshot, but there is now at least a chance baseballs will
be exploding off the bat -- and bouncing off the head -- of Jose Canseo at
JetForm Park this summer.

The Montreal Expos signed the veteran slugger to a minor-league contract
with an invitation to spring training yesterday.

Canseco, who was last with the Chicago White Sox, has spent 17 seasons in
the majors. The 37-year-old outfielder/DH is joining his eighth team, with
the previous seven being in the American League.

He sits 22nd on the all-time home runs list with 462.

"If he makes the team he'll be in Montreal, but if he doesn't there's a
possibility he'll be playing here," said Barre Campbell, the Ottawa Lynx
director of media/public relations.

"Obviously, with a player of his stature, there could be a clause in his
contract that states if he doesn't stick with the Expos, he's under no
obligation to stay with the organization. But all we know is he has been
signed by Montreal."

Canseco is a six-time all-star who is second on the list of active home-run
leaders behind Barry Bonds. He has been on two World Series winners, in
1999 and 2000, and won the AL rookie of the year award in 1986.

But his most impressive claim to fame was in 1988, when he was named the
AL's MVP for becoming the first player in major-league history to hit 40
homers and steal 40 bases in the same season.

Canseco is expected to join the Expos for the team's first full-squad
workout tomorrow in Jupiter, Fla.

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:
Canseco has some ifs attached
Expos gamble on veteran slugger to play in outfield and beef up their
anemic offence
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Wednesday, February 20, 2002

Former Bash Brother Canseco had 16 homers last season in limited playing
time with the Chicago White Sox.

The Expos added a cup of power and two cups of star power to their lineup
mix yesterday.

And in a season where building for the future is no longer the priority,
Jose Canseco could be the answer to the club's seemingly eternal power
vacuum in left field - if, if, and if.

-If the 37-year-old slugger makes the team - and from the way general
manager Omar Minaya was talking last night, that seems almost a given.

-If he can play defence after only 13 big-league games in the outfield in
three years.

Canseco thinks he can. "I played 40 straight games in the outfield (with
the independent Atlantic League Newark Bears), the last six or seven in
centre field, without an error," he said last night in a conference call.

-If he can stay healthy. Canseco said the back problems which plagued him
for several years are gone; he began taking potassium and magnesium
supplements to supplement a deficiency in his system, and his back has been
spasm-free ever since.

"He brings experience. He brings power," said Minaya, who added that his
former team, the New York Mets, had been considering Canseco for a
potential platoon situation during the winter after seeing him play the
outfield capably in nearby Newark.

"He's a force ... and I think we are a better team today than we were
yesterday."

The Expos will be Canseco's seventh team in the last seven seasons, and his
first National League stop.

Canseco, who signed a minor-league deal, won't get rich if he makes the
team. At most, he could make $700,000 U.S. on an incentive-laden contract.
But it's not about the money; it has never been about the money over the
last two years, when he almost had to beg for a big-league job.

After batting .231 in 39 at-bats with no home runs, and missing 10 straight
games because of lower-back and hamstring injuries and another because of a
twinge in his neck, Canseco was released from training camp by the Anaheim
Angels last March 31.

Canseco held workouts with media and scouts in attendance and said he ran a
4.5-second 40-yard dash. He couldn't buy a job. He played for the Bears to
showcase his talent for general managers perhaps reluctant to take a risk
on a player with his history. He stole 10 bases in 41 games; the Chicago
White Sox signed him in June.

In 76 games and 256 at-bats with the White Sox, Canseco batted .258 with 16
home runs, 49 RBIs and 46 runs.

According to his agent, Alan Nero, the White Sox were very interested in
having Canseco return. But with slugger Frank Thomas coming back to the
designated-hitter role, they couldn't guarantee him much playing time.

Double those numbers. Think 30 homers, 100 RBIs and add 90 to 100 walks. A
major potential impact on an Expos offence that had a lot of trouble
scoring runs last year. The new turf at Olympic Stadium can only help him
stay healthy.

Canseco thinks he can do even better.

"Obviously, last year I only played every two or three days; I wasn't able
to get into the home-run rhythm I wanted to," he said. "I'm looking to play
every day and getting into that power rhythm. I'm definitely capable of
hitting 40 to 50 home runs and stealing 30 to 40 bases again."

Canseco needs 38 homers to reach 500; he needs 123 hits to reach 2,000. He
has plenty of motivation to earn those at-bats.

Minaya even spoke of Canseco spelling Lee Stevens at first base, even
though he has never played the position, other than in a softball game.

Perhaps he can learn by osmosis from twin brother Ozzie, who played first
as Canseco's teammate with the Bears.

"He says (first base is) a lot easier than the outfield," Canseco said.

==========
  From ESPN:
Canseco signs on

Will the sole remaining active bash brother draw fans in Montreal?

The Expos have signed Jose Canseco to a minor-league free agent contract
with an invitation to spring training, Vice-President and General Manager
Omar Minaya announced today. Canseco played for the White Sox last year,
signing as a free agent in June. In 76 games, he hit .258 with 16 HR and 49
RBI, scoring 46 runs. Canseco is a six-time All-Star and sits 22nd all-time
for career home runs (462), trailing Dave Winfield by three, while placing
second among active players, behind Barry Bonds (567).

==========
  From the Chicago Tribune:

Canseco update: Manuel was happy to hear former Sox DH Jose Canseco signed
a minor-league contract with Montreal. Canseco pleaded with Manuel last
summer to let him play in the outfield, but Manuel only let him do it for a
couple of games in Milwaukee during interleague play. Now Canseco will get
a chance to prove he still can play the outfield without any major mishaps.

"I want you guys to go to Montreal, so you can ask, `Jose, what happened on
that fly ball?'" Manuel said.

==========
  From the San Francisco Gate:
By Scott Ostler

Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco are back for one last hurrah, even if
they have to hurrah themselves. Rickey and Jose both want to break some
important all-time baseball records, though they've forgotten which ones.

Canseco says he wants to play the outfield, but he's a team guy, so he'll
also be available for spot relief.

"If I get into the lineup every day," Canseco said, "there's no reason I
can't hit 40 or 50 home runs, drive in 120 runs or steal 40 bases."

So apparently the self-hypnosis thing is working out well.

If Jose gets into the lineup every day for even the first week of the
season, he'll make the cover of the Journal of the American Medical
Association. The Las Vegas over-unders on Canseco's injuries this season is 15.

==========
  From the Chicago Sun Times:

BEST WISHES: Manuel was glad to see Jose Canseco hook up with the Montreal
Expos this week.

Canseco was signed by the Sox last June to help pick up the slack for the
injured Thomas. Used primarily as a designated hitter, he batted .258 with
16 home runs and 49 RBI in 76 games with the Sox.

''Jose was a complete professional when he was here,'' Manuel said. ''I
anticipated him to be different, but he was really a professional.''

Canseco is 38 home runs shy of 500 in his career.

''I hope he does well,'' Manuel said. ''I hope he hits many home runs to
get to the [500] mark. He really helped us out a lot last year, and I
appreciated his professionalism.''

==========
  From the South Florida Sun Sentinel:
Lukewarm on Jose

Sources said the the Marlins had slight interest in Jose Canseco before he
signed with Montreal. The Marlins probably would have waited for other
options to dry up before offering a low salary-plus-incentives deal to
Canseco. They signed outfielders Tim Raines and Mark Smith this week. ...

==========
  From the Montreal Gazette:
The new Bash Brothers
Canseco, Guerrero swinging for fences
By STEPHANIE MYLES
Thursday, February 21, 2002

Jose Canseco, the 17-year veteran, went at it systematically. A dozen or so
backhand swings of the bat with his left arm. A dozen forehands with his
right arm. Then he put the two together and got to work.

Vladimir Guerrero, who once again arrived in camp looking bigger and
stronger than the previous year, wasted no such effort. Taking turns with
Dominican teammates Tomas De La Rosa, Henry Mateo and Wilson Valdez, he
swung out of his batting helmet from the first pitch on.

De La Rosa, who was feeding Guerrero baseballs, would lob the ball, close
his eyes, turn his back and duck for cover behind the screen after every pitch.

'He Swings Hard'

"Hello? I watch the ball come back and think I'm going to kill myself," De
La Rosa said. "He swings hard."

The Expos' potential Bash Brothers were in adjoining stalls in the batting
cages yesterday. And their arrival energized the camp, which really kicks
off today with the first full-squad workout.

"You have a whole new appreciation for the human form when a guy like
(Canseco) walks in," third-baseman Geoff Blum said.

"It was one thing having the Demon (former manager Jeff Torborg's wrestler
son Dale) in the weight room, but he couldn't go out on the field and do
the things this guy can do. ... It's just fun to watch a guy who has that
much bat speed also, outside of the fact that he's huge."

On the last day of the 2001 season, second-baseman Jose Vidro said the team
needed a left-fielder with pop. They've got him, although the questions
will understandably start coming the first time the 6-foot-4, 250-pound
Canseco hits the trainer's room.

"We'll put him through the paces tomorrow and see what he can do for us,"
manager Frank Robinson said. "If he can give us what we feel like he can
give us, that would certainly give a big boost to our ball club."

Skills Diminished

Robinson said he thought Canseco, who showed off a strong arm on the
practice field yesterday, can get his outfield skills back.

"When (you don't play much), your skills have a tendency to diminish," the
manager said. "Just like anything else, if you go out and work on it a
little bit, it's not that hard to catch on again. (Outfielders coach) Jerry
Morales will be working with him every day. We'll see what the bat has, but
over-all we have to see if he can play defence for us."

Vidro said Canseco's defence won't be a concern.

"I think he'll be OK in the outfield," Vidro said. "All we need is his bat,
the way he can hit. The thing is that we have to put it together. We're not
going to win only with hitting - look at Texas last year. We have to put it
all together."

Canseco said he hoped he still commanded the kind of presence at the plate
that would give Guerrero better pitches to hit ahead of him.

"As a power hitter, I would tell him not to lose his aggressiveness in the
strike zone, because once you start losing that, you're going to lose your
power completely," Canseco said. "He just needs to swing at strikes, just
like I need to stay in a certain zone and be aggressive.

"I wouldn't tell him to change anything. He's one of the great young
hitters in the game."

Robinson hopes Canseco's relative patience rubs off.

"He's not just a wild swinger, although he swings hard, and he has a good
eye at the plate," Robinson said. "He will take the walk if you're not
going to throw the ball over the plate."

"He can show (the young players) that if you're patient at the plate and
take your walks and the next guy does his job getting a base hit, you can
still score runs that way," Robinson said.

Canseco, who admitted he was "really nervous," was pleased to find out the
roof at Olympic Stadium was permanent and that new artificial turf was
being installed.

"That's beautiful," he said. "It's going to be a definite plus. For myself
playing the outfield, I'm not going to have to deal with those swirling
winds, rain, any type of sun hitting me in the face.

"Then again, I can't make any excuses. It's going to be fun."

NOTES - By winning their arbitration case against shortstop Orlando Cabrera
on Tuesday, the Expos saved enough money to pay Canseco's potential salary
for 2002. Cabrera, who batted .276 with 14 home runs and 96 RBIs in 2001
and won the National League Gold Glove at his position, had been asking for
$3.1 million U.S. The Expos countered with, and will pay, $2.4 million this
year.

Montreal Expos!

This just in: Jose signed a contract with the Expos today and will probably
play left field for them this season.  I'll send more details and reactions
later, but I wanted to share the big news with everyone right away.

-Mark

P.S. Thanks to Billy Ball (www.billy-ball.com) for being the first to let
me know...

==========
  From the Sporting News:
Spring Training Dish: Expos give Canseco a chance
By Ken Rosenthal
February 19, 2002

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- We've finally heard of a concept more bizarre than
contraction: Jose Canseco in the National League, playing outfield for the
Expos. Canseco, 37, reached agreement Tuesday with the Expos, and will play
in the NL for the first time in his 18-year career if he makes the club.
The Expos likely will use Canseco in left field -- they're otherwise
looking at a Brad Wilkerson/Geoff Blum platoon -- and as a righthanded
hitter off the bench. Canseco last played the outfield regularly with the
Blue Jays in 1998. The Expos will be his eighth team, and seventh different
club in the last seven seasons. He is 38 homers short of 500.

Hey Canseco fans...

Sorry it's been so long since my last update.  A lot of you have been
emailing me, asking where Jose is going to be playing this year, but
unfortunately, I really haven't heard anything.  Don't worry - I promise to
email the list as soon as I learn anything significant.

The only news I have found is about Jose's upcoming trial (which can't be
helping his chances of landing a MLB contract).  As you remember, he was
involved in a bar fight a few months ago and is being charged with two
felony counts and one misdemeanor.

One more thing - Let's make sure people know the big guys is still in
demand.  Take a couple of seconds and go vote for Jose here:
http://www.forums.mlb.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=ml-athletics&msg=3627.1

Here's hoping to see Jose in the big leagues sometime soon... He's only 38
homers away from 500, you know.

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco weighs options, says he expects to find job
Saturday, February 2, 2002

Caracas, Venezuela - Jose Canseco is confident he'll find a job in the
major leagues this season.

Canseco became a free agent after hitting .268 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs
for the Chicago White Sox last season. Canseco said the White Sox are among
several clubs he's speaking to - even though he can't play for them until
May 1.

==========
  From the AP:
Battery trial set May 13 for Canseco, brother


MIAMI (AP) - Former AL MVP Jose Canseco and his twin brother will
stand  trial on May 13 on battery charges over a Halloween scuffle at a
Miami Beach  nightclub.

Prosecutor Joshua Granoff said he was ready for trial now at a hearing
in  the case Thursday, but defense attorneys said prosecutors had just
turned over the investigative material and they needed time to pursue it.

Canseco, a free agent after playing last season with the Chicago
White  Sox, and his brother Ozzie sat in the gallery for the brief hearing
and had no comment as they left.

Jose Canseco faces two felony counts and one misdemeanor, and his brother
faces two misdemeanors and one felony.

Police said Jose Canseco grabbed a club patron by the neck, punched him and
broke his nose. A second man needed 20 stitches in his lip.

Canseco, who lives in Miami, said one of the men groped one of the women he
was with. He admitted pushing the man but denied hitting him.

He was prosecuted twice for domestic violence in 1992 and 1998.

==========
Bash puts Canseco brothers on trial
Feb. 7, 2002. 02:05 PM

MIAMI (AP) - Former AL MVP Jose Canseco and his twin brother will stand
trial on May 13 on battery charges over a Halloween scuffle at a Miami
Beach nightclub.

Prosecutor Joshua Granoff said he was ready for trial now at a hearing in
the case Thursday, but defence attorneys said prosecutors had just turned
over the investigative material and they needed time to pursue it.

Canseco, a free agent after playing last season with the Chicago White Sox,
and his brother Ozzie sat in the gallery for the brief hearing and had no
comment as they left.

Jose Canseco faces two felony counts and one misdemeanour, and his brother
faces two misdemeanours and one felony.

Police said Jose Canseco grabbed a club patron by the neck, punched him and
broke his nose. A second man needed 20 stitches in his lip.

Canseco, who lives in Miami, said one of the men groped one of the women he
was with. He admitted pushing the man but denied hitting him.

He was prosecuted twice for domestic violence in 1992 and 1998.

Hey everyone,

Jose has organized a Golf Tournament that will take place at the Doral
Resort in Miami, Florida on January 11-13, 2002.  The tournament is to
benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.  Participant and Sponsor
packages of all sizes are available, with prices of anywhere from $125 to
$50,000.  For more information, please visit Canseconet.com.  At the top of
the page, you will find links to documents that fully describe the event,
and how you can participate.  If any of you are able to participate, I
encourage you to do so, and I expect you to email me with all the details
afterwards!  Have fun!!!

The latest news on Jose (there's not much)  is below...

Happy Holidays!
Mark

==========
  From the Sports Network:
Canseco pleads innocent

Miami Beach, FL (Sports Network) - An attorney for Jose Canseco entered an
innocent plea for his client on Friday involving a Halloween night scuffle
at a Miami Beach nightclub.

Circuit Judge Stanford Blake set trial on February 19 on two felony counts
of aggravated battery, but that could be pushed back if both sides are not
ready.

Canseco and his twin brother, Ozzie, were both released from Miami-Dade
County jail a day after being charged with the fight on Halloween night.

Canseco posted bail of $15,000 and Ozzie Canseco posted bail of $7,500.

Police said the 1988 American League Most Valuable Player, grabbed a club
patron by the neck, punched him and broke his nose, while another man was
hit and forced to have his lip stitched. According to police, both men were
tourists from California.

However, Jose Canseco, who was accompanied by three women and his brother,
said a man started grabbing his date inappropriately before becoming
aggressive towards her. Jose Canseco said another man approached his
brother, who pushed him back.

This is not the first time that Jose Canseco has had problems with the law.
In 1997, he was arrested on charges where he smacked his second wife and in
1992 he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his vehicle into a
new car driven by his first wife.

Last season, Jose Canseco hit .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBI for the
Chicago White Sox.

==========
  From the AP:

...In other Japanese baseball news:

--The Dragons are having a tough time acquiring a major league slugger. On
Friday, Mitsuo Kodama, the team's chief public relations officer said the
club had given up on trying to sign former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark
McGwire and was nowhere near signing free agent first baseman Andres
Galarraga or Chicago White Sox outfielder Jose Canseco....

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I've emailed you any news.  Sorry about that.  I
thought I had sent most of this stuff out a couple of weeks ago, but I
guess I forgot.  Oops.  All the latest post-bar incident news is below
(Jose passed a lie detector test), plus some talk about Jose's investment
company, his chances of making the Hall of Fame, and a paper written by a
member of this list.

The Hall of Fame article includes a surprising Canseco/McGwire
comparison.  Check this out:

Player  G  AB  R  H  HR  RBI  TB  XBH  AVG
McGwire:
   1874  6187  1167  1626  583  1414  3639  841  .263
Canseco:
   1887  7057  1186  1877  462  1407  3631  816  .266

Other than the 121 HR difference, their offensive production is nearly
identical.  Surprising, isn't it?  Read the entire article for the full
breakdown.

-Mark

==========
This is an except from an email someone sent me, regarding the bar incident

-----
I was at the bar that night and know the two guys that Jose and Ozzie beat
the crap out of. They did NOTHING to Jose or his "girlfriend".  From what I
can tell, both the Canseco brothers think that the rules of society don't
apply to them and they can drink to excess and then express their
"feelings" however they wish. According to the Miami police, there are
about a dozen witnesses, none of whom support the "We were the victims" story.
-----

I wrote back asking for more information, but received no response.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco plans to take lie-detector test to prove his innocence
By KEN THOMAS

MIAMI - Former American League MVP Jose Canseco plans to hook himself up to
a polygraph machine next week in front of reporters to prove his innocence
in a Halloween night scuffle at a local night club.

Canseco, a free agent after playing last season with the Chicago White Sox,
said Wednesday he never punched anyone during a night club fracas on Oct.
31 and accused two California men of trying to use the incident to extort
money from him.

"There are a lot of lies being said here and I want everyone to be patient
and understand that all of the truth will be brought out," Canseco said.

Canseco and his twin brother Ozzie were released early Wednesday after
being charged with aggravated battery. Police said Canseco grabbed a club
patron by the neck, punched him and broke his nose. A second man needed 20
stitches in his lip.

Jose Canseco, 37, a Miami native, was charged with two counts of aggravated
battery, a second-degree felony. He was released from the Miami-Dade County
Jail after posting a $15,000 bond.

Ozzie Canseco, who had a brief major league career and played the last two
seasons with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears, was charged with one
count of aggravated battery. The Miami Beach resident was released after
posting a $7,500 bond. The Cansecos are scheduled to be arraigned before
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Kevin Emas on Dec. 4.

Jose Canseco said he would publicly take a lie-detector test next week in
Miami to clear his name.

"This is a typical scam to extort money from an athlete," Canseco said.

Canseco, who was wearing black leather vest and black leather pants, and
his brother were at Opium, a Miami Beach night club, with three women. He
said one of the men violently groped one of the women, so he pushed one of
the men with his left hand but never hit him.

Canseco said his brother began pushing the other man and a scuffle broke out.

"Obviously, I'm the guy with the name here, I'm the one with the money and
I'm the one who's being blamed," he said.

Miami Beach Police detective Bobby Hernandez said the Canseco brothers
"basically beat these guys up, putting them in the hospital." He called the
fight "an anger control problem" and said the former All-Star should have
alerted security instead of fighting.

Police said Alex Pressley, 38, of Laguna Beach, Calif., sustained a broken
nose in the fight and his friend, Alan Cheeks, 33, of Redondo Beach,
Calif., received stitches for a cut lip.

Cheeks referred calls to his lawyer and Pressley did not return a phone
message.

Hernandez said police have spoken to Pressley and Cheeks and 10 witnesses
at the club. The Canseco brothers spoke to police for about two hours
before their arrest.

Jose Canseco has been in trouble with the law before.

In 1998, he pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge for hitting
his wife, Jessica. He was sentenced to one-year probation as part of a deal
with prosecutors.

In 1992, he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his vehicle
into a new car driven by his first wife, Esther. He agreed to community
service and counseling.

Canseco is a free agent after hitting .258 with 16 home runs and 49 RBI for
the White Sox last season.

Canseco won the American League MVP with the Oakland Athletics in 1988 and
ranks 22nd on the career homer list with 462.

==========
  From the AP:
Look for 2007 to be a Hall of a year
Four first-ballot players could be enshrined
November 14, 2001

You might want to start booking rooms in Cooperstown, N.Y. for the summer
of 2007 right about now. The National Baseball Hall of Fame induction
ceremonies that year will include Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn and Mark
McGwire. A fourth first-ballot Hall of Famer, Rickey Henderson, might be
joining them, too, though he will be back in uniform next season if
somebody offers him a job. And is there room for Jose Canseco as well?
(Memo to Jose: The nightclub business in Cooperstown is a rather sedate
one.) Would that be the greatest Hall of Fame class ever?...

...Ripken, Gwynn, McGwire and Henderson are no-brainers as first-ballot
candidates, just as Ozzie Smith is this year and Eddie Murray is next year.
What about Canseco? He has been outspoken about sticking around long enough
to hit 500 home runs -- he needs 38 more. He may be running out of chances.
Canseco needed to play independent ball last season before a big league
club, the White Sox, gave him an opportunity. Showing up on police blotters
doesn't help the case for a 37-year-old DH who struck out once every 3.4
at-bats last year (75 of 256).

Still, even if Canseco never plays another major league game he's had the
kind of career that will test how the modern BBWAA voter (including yours
truly) weighs offensive numbers in this age of unprecedented slugging.

I admit I was surprised to see how close Canseco's career numbers in many
categories are to McGwire's. All these years since the Bash Brothers came
together in 1986 (Canseco actually debuted one year earlier), McGwire and
Canseco are separated by only seven games, seven RBIs, eight total bases,
21 runs and .003 points on their batting averages. Take a look at their
brotherly similarity:

Bash Brothers
Player  G  AB  R  H  HR  RBI  TB  XBH  AVG
McGwire:
   1874  6187  1167  1626  583  1414  3639  841  .263
Canseco:
   1887  7057  1186  1877  462  1407  3631  816  .266

Does this mean that Canseco is every bit the first-ballot Hall of Famer
that is McGwire? Of course not. It reminds me of the Kirby Puckett - Don
Mattingly argument. Mattingly's final numbers were eerily close to
Puckett's, but Puckett had more Hall of Fame-quality seasons than did
Mattingly. A players' final career numbers are but a guideline. How those
numbers are amassed is more telling.

For instance, McGwire finished in the top 10 in MVP voting five times;
Canseco twice. McGwire won four slugging titles; Canseco one. McGwire made
12 All-Star teams; Canseco six. McGwire won four home run titles (not
including the season when he hit 58 while switching leagues); Canseco two.
The comparison starts to fall apart.

Remember, too, that Canseco last played more games in the field than as a
DH when he was 28 years old, back in 1993. He's used a fielding glove in
only 128 games in the eight seasons since. He's essentially been a
part-time player for as long as he's been a full-time player.

Further, let's look at their on-base and slugging percentages:

    OBP  SLG
McGwire:  .394  .588
Canseco:  .353  .515

Now the separation between the Bash Brothers has become obvious. McGwire
(.982) ranks 10th all-time in on-base plus slugging percentage. Canseco
(.867) ranks 94th, just ahead of Zeke Bonura.

(A disclaimer: Walks and homers are such a big part of today's game that 13
of the top 25 OPS marks belong to active players. I'm not quite ready to
accept, for instance, that Jim Thome is a better player than was Hank Aaron.)

Dave Kingman holds the record for most home runs hit by a player never to
be elected to the Hall of Fame (442) among those eligible. He also holds
the record for most home runs in his last season (35), a record McGwire
approached this year (29). Canseco is more likely to challenge Kingman than
he is to join Cooperstown's elite Class of '07.

==========
  From the Miami Herald
Attorney: Canseco passes lie-detector test to prove innocence

MIAMI -- (AP) -- Former American League MVP Jose Canseco passed a polygraph
test he took to prove his innocence in a Halloween night scuffle at a local
night club, his attorney said Wednesday.

Canseco, a free agent after playing last season with the Chicago White Sox,
answered questions Monday regarding the fracas. Police said the baseball
player grabbed a club patron by the neck, punched him and broke his nose. A
second man needed 20 stitches in his lip.

``The results show that I'm telling the absolute truth and the so-called
victims and witnesses are liars,'' Canseco said. ``There's definitely a
conspiracy going on here.''

Among the questions administered by George Slattery, a forensic examiner
hired by Canseco, were if the baseball player punched either of the men or
if he grabbed one of them by the neck. Canseco responded ``no,'' according
to a transcript of the exam.

Slattery also asked Canseco if he pushed one of the men in the chest
because he feared for his safety. Canseco said ``yes.''

After the incident, Canseco was charged with two counts of aggravated
battery, a second-degree felony.

Canseco said he was at a Miami Beach night club, with his brother and three
women. He said one of the men violently groped one of the women, so he
pushed one of the men but never hit him.

``This is incredible that these people can assault sexually the date I was
with and turn around and try to make us look like the actual criminals,''
said Canseco. ``This is what every celebrity fears most.''

Canseco said his twin brother began pushing the other man and a scuffle
broke out.

Osvaldo ``Ozzie'' Canseco, who had a brief major league career and played
the last two seasons with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears, was charged
with one count of aggravated battery. He is a Miami Beach resident.

Jose Canseco, 37, of Miami, has been accused of domestic violence twice. He
pleaded no contest in 1998 to a domestic violence charge for hitting his
wife, Jessica. In 1992, he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming
his vehicle into a new car driven by his first wife, Esther. He agreed to
community service and counseling.

Jose Canseco is scheduled to be arraigned before Miami-Dade County Circuit
Judge Stanford Blake on Dec. 7.

==========
  From the Baltimore Sun:

JOSE CANSECO: Looking to expand his investment company while he continues
his major-league playing career, the veteran slugger has changed agents.
Canseco, who needs 38 home runs to reach 500 for his career, switched from
the Beverly Hills Sports Council to Chicago-based Alan Nero. He said his
decision was based largely upon a desire to market his company's services
to Nero's players.

While Canseco, 37, works at his investment business, he also plans to
continue his pursuit of 500 homers, a milestone that would improve his
chances of making the Hall of Fame.

Although Canseco hit 16 homers in 256 at-bats for the Chicago White Sox
last season, he's a long shot to return in 2002.

==========
Lastly, a paper written by Johnny Vines:
big_johnny_v@...
In or Out?
Is there room enough in Cooperstown for Jose Canseco?

He ranks 22nd on the all-time homerun list with 461, and he has sworn to
get to 500 before his career is over.  But will Jose Canseco have to hit
that elusive mark of 500 to secure himself a place in Cooperstown?  Most
would say yes, but I don't know that "most" have actually sat down to put
Canseco's career into perspective.

There are currently sixteen members in the 400-homerun club, but how many
of these members would consider their feat a disappointment?  One
immediately comes to my mind, and his name is, in fact, Jose Canseco.  Yes,
Canseco has put 461 balls over the fence (not including the one off his
head), but he has also lost over four years of his career to
injuries.  Give Canseco those four years back, and he would almost surely
be a member of the 600-homerun club, not to mention that he would be
chasing 700 homers, not 500.  However, Canseco's accomplishments during his
sixteen-year stay in the big leagues are certainly not limited to his
number of homeruns, or as it pertains to him, the lack thereof.

Canseco burst onto the Major League Baseball scene in 1985 for twenty-nine
games.  It didn't take long for fans to see that this man could hit the
ball farther and get around the bases faster than just about anyone in the
game.  Standing 6'4" and weighing somewhere in the mid-200s, Canseco
possessed the body of a Greek god and was, in fact, the next generation of
baseball player ten years before the rest of the "next generation" showed
up.  In 1986, his true rookie season, Canseco clubbed 33 homeruns, swiped
15 bases, and drove in 117 runs to become the American League Rookie of the
Year.  Two years later he was named the unanimous AL MVP as he became
baseball's first "40-40 Man", hitting 42 homeruns and stealing 40
bases.  Canseco was baseball's homerun king in 1988 and again in 1991 when
he went deep 44 times.  For those who say that Canseco's career was over in
the early nineties, they must be oblivious to the fact that in 2001, he
became only the ninth player in history to hit 400 homeruns and steal 200
bases.  On top of all this, Canseco has been selected to six All-Star
games, the most recent being the 1999 season.

Some may argue that Jose Canseco's chances for the Hall of Fame have been
tarnished by his life off the field, which includes a somewhat extensive
criminal record.  Using this as criteria for immortalizing the names of
players who have, in their time, dominated the game of baseball is a crime
in itself, as is made obvious by the ludicrous fact that baseball's all
time hits leader is absent from Cooperstown, but that's a story for another
day.  There is no question that Jose Canseco has made an impact on the game
of baseball.  The only question that remains is:  Will he make it to the
Hall of Fame?  I honestly believe that anyone who can accurately read and
analyze a statistics sheet will tell you that not only is he one of the
great players to ever circle the bases, but Jose Canseco should indeed be
in line to get his one-way ticket to immortality.

Hey Canseco fans,

Here's the latest on that bar fight I was telling you about the other day
(three slightly different versions of the same article)...

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco arrested for nightclub scuffle


MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Jose Canseco was arrested Tuesday on charges he
and his brother got into a nightclub fight that left one man with a broken
nose and another needing 20 stitches in his lip.

The baseball star was charged with two counts of aggravated battery in the
Halloween night scuffle. His twin brother, Ozzie, was charged with one count.

Canseco said he was at the club with his brother and three women when a man
grabbed the player's date inappropriately and became aggressive. Canseco
said another man approached his brother, who pushed him back, touching off
the fight.

The brothers were taken to Miami-Dade County Jail on Tuesday night and were
expected to post bond.

One man's nose was broken and the other needed 20 stitches to his lip,
Miami Beach Police Detective Bobby Hernandez said.

Jose Canseco has been in trouble with the law before.

In 1997, police arrested him on charges he smacked his second wife in the
head. He was ordered to undergo battery counseling.

In 1992, he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his vehicle
into a new car driven by his first wife. He agreed to community service and
counseling.

Canseco, 37, is a free agent after hitting .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs
for the Chicago White Sox last season. The 1988 AL MVP is 22nd on the
career homer list with 462.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco Arrested in Nightclub Fight
Published November 13, 2001

Jose Canseco was arrested Tuesday on charges he and his brother got into a
nightclub fight that left one man with a broken nose and another needing 20
stitches in his lip.

The baseball star was charged with two counts of aggravated battery in the
Halloween night scuffle. His twin brother, Ozzie, was charged with one count.

Canseco said he was at the club with his brother and three women when a man
grabbed the player's date inappropriately and became aggressive. Canseco
said another man approached his brother, who pushed him back, touching off
the fight.

"I know that my brother and myself were definitely victims and the girl I
was with got sexually assaulted," Jose Canseco said. "We got attacked. We
are the victims here. We just defended ourselves."

The brothers were taken to Miami-Dade County Jail on Tuesday night and were
expected to post bond.

"Jose and Osvaldo are both looking forward to defending this matter
vigorously in court," lawyer Angel Ruiz said. "They both feel these
allegations are false and are the source of people with financial motives."

One man's nose was broken and the other needed 20 stitches to his lip,
Miami Beach Police Detective Bobby Hernandez said.

"This started as a verbal altercation. And then the two Canseco brothers
basically beat these guys up, putting them in the hospital," Hernandez
said. "Obviously this was an anger control problem."

Jose Canseco has been in trouble with the law before.

In 1997, police arrested him on charges he smacked his second wife in the
head. He was ordered to undergo battery counseling.

In 1992, he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his vehicle
into a new car driven by his first wife. He agreed to community service and
counseling.

Canseco, 37, is a free agent after hitting .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs
for the Chicago White Sox last season. The 1988 AL MVP is 22nd on the
career homer list with 462.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco brothers released from jail
By KEN THOMAS
November 14, 2001

MIAMI (AP) -- Jose Canseco was released from jail early Wednesday after
being charged in a nightclub fight that left one man with a broken nose and
another needing 20 stitches in his lip.

The baseball star was charged with two counts of aggravated battery in the
Halloween night scuffle. His twin brother, Ozzie, was charged with one
count and also was released from Miami-Dade County Jail.

Jose Canseco posted bail of $15,000 and Ozzie Canseco of $7,500. They face
arraignment Dec. 4.

Jose Canseco, a 37-year-old former All-Star, said he was at the club with
his brother and three women when a man grabbed the player's date
inappropriately and became aggressive. Canseco said another man approached
his brother, who pushed him back.

``I know that my brother and myself were definitely victims and the girl I
was with got sexually assaulted,'' Jose Canseco said. ``We got attacked. We
are the victims here. We just defended ourselves.''

Police said Jose Canseco grabbed a club patron by the neck, punched him and
broke his nose. Police said a second man was struck and needed to have his
lip stitched.

Miami Beach Police detective Bobby Hernandez said the two men involved in
the fight were tourists from California.

``This started as a verbal altercation. And then the two Canseco brothers
basically beat these guys up, putting them in the hospital,'' Hernandez
said. ``Obviously this was an anger control problem.''

Jose Canseco has been in trouble with the law before.

In 1997, police arrested him on charges he smacked his second wife in the
head. He was ordered to undergo battery counseling.

In 1992, he was charged with aggravated assault for ramming his vehicle
into a new car driven by his first wife. He agreed to community service and
counseling.

Canseco is a free agent after hitting .258 with 16 homers and 49 RBIs for
the Chicago White Sox last season. The 1988 AL MVP is 22nd on the career
homer list with 462.

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all enjoying the offseason.  I know it started off nicely
for me - the minute the Stankees lost the World Series.  hehe...

Anyway, here's the latest news on Jose.  It sounds like he was in a bit of
a bar fight, defending a woman who was in his group.  As you read the
story, keep in mind these things tend to get blown way out of proportion...
especially when they involve celebrities.

There's also a story that say the Sox are considering bringing Jose back
next year - especially if he can prove he's able to play the outfield
during winter ball, which starts next month.

Take it easy...
Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco slugs it out with Miami bar patron, reports say

Miami police are investigating reports that former Oakland A's bash brother
Jose Canseco went a little overboard after coming to the aid of a female
acquaintance in a Miami Beach nightclub last week.

The New York Daily News reports that Canseco and his entourage were hanging
out in a spot called the Opium Garden after taking in a World Series game
on television when a bar patron squeezed a woman in Canseco's crowd in such
a way that, as tradition has it, almost always invites immediate trouble.
Witnesses told the News that Jose, who played last season for the Chicago
White Sox, and his brother, Ozzie, came eagerly to the woman's defense.

"I saw Jose Canseco punch this guy's face -- not once, not two, but three
times," a nightclub employee told the News. "The guy's nose was gushing
with blood, and there was blood all over his shirt."

Police showed up and booted Canseco and crowd from the bar, reports say,
although the gang was allowed to return later with a police escort. No
charges were filed, but police officials told the News that the alleged
encounter remains under investigation. There was no comment Monday from
Canseco and no word on the status of the other patron.

==========
  From the Chicago Daily Southtown:
Sox's Manuel leaves a door open for Canseco
But Wells is pitching for a return to the Yankees
Friday, November 9, 2001
By Joe Cowley

The White Sox apparently are willing to talk with free-agent slugger Jose
Canseco about returning to the South Side next season. Pitcher David Wells,
on the other hand, is distancing himself from the organization.

The Sox announced Monday that they would not pick up the left-hander's $10
million option for 2002, a decision that made Wells a free agent. He has
since made it known the feeling regarding his potential return is mutual.

Wells, who was acquired by the Sox in a trade with Toronto last offseason,
has been in New York this week to promote a Hooters calendar, the proceeds
of which will be used to benefit the families of victims of the Sept. 11
tragedy. In speaking with the New York media, Wells has made it quite
obvious where he wants to play next season.

"Do I want to play for the Yankees? Who wouldn't?" Wells said. "I'd love to
retire with the Yankees. Get the petition going."

Last season, the 38-year-old made just 16 appearances with the Sox before
two herniated discs in his back forced him to have season-ending surgery.
He was just 5-7 with a 4.47 ERA.

Wells doesn't hold any grudges against the Sox for not picking up his
option, but he wants to return to the Yankees. Wells had some of his best
days while wearing pinstripes, pitching a perfect game in 1998 and helping
the Yankees win the World Series the same year.

"I loved Chicago, but things just didn't work out," Wells said. "My back
couldn't handle it anymore."

In Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees have three
quality starters set to return for 2002. But New York is expected to lose
Orlando Hernandez and Sterling Hitchcock via free agency this offseason, so
the Yankees could be in the market for another veteran starter, not to
mention a southpaw.

Meanwhile, Sox manager Jerry Manuel is confident Frank Thomas will return
to form after being limited to 20 games in 2001 because of a torn right
triceps. Thomas is primarily a designated hitter, but Manuel would still
like Canseco's presence in the lineup.

Canseco was signed by the Sox on June 20 and ended up hitting .258 with 16
homers and 49 RBI.

Asked Thursday whether the Sox might sign Canseco, Manuel said, "There's a
possibility. I like the man. I was impressed with the man. I can't say that
there's a position, but I like him."

Canseco hopes to change the Sox's opinion on his defensive abilities by
playing outfield and first base in winter ball beginning next month.

"We have scouts, or we may go down there and see him ourselves," Manuel
said. "If we're impressed ... he's definitely a guy that we have to consider."