Hey everyone...

Don't get your hopes up..... BUT, Jose is in the news, and for the first
time in a long time, it has to do with baseball.  Apparently, he contacted
the Dodgers and they told him to feel free to attend an open tryout.  He
won't get any special treatment, and it would definitely be a longshot for
him to be signed, but then again, you never know.  Maybe he'll wow them.

For those of you who would like to meet Jose someday, you might have a
chance soon.  He signed at a sports collectibles's show last weekend in San
Francisco (sorry I didn't get the info out in time), and he will be signing
at at least a couple more shows in the near future.

Chicago, March 20th:
http://www.sportsnewsproductions.net/pages/509219/index.htm

Phoenix, March 12-14th:
http://www.tristarproductions.com/shows/upcomshindex.htm

Baseball just isn't the same any more, is it?

-Mark


=====
  From the AP:
Canseco to attend Dodgers' open workout
February 24, 2004

VERO BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Jose Canseco plans to try out for the Los Angeles
Dodgers, 2 1/2 years after his last appearance in the major leagues.

The six-time All-Star will attend the Los Angeles Dodgers' open tryout on
March 1.

``Canseco's people called us,'' Matt Slater, the Dodgers' director of
professional scouting, said Tuesday. ``He's welcome to come.''

Canseco last played in the majors in 2001, when he hit .258 with 16 homers
for the Chicago White Sox.

He and Mark McGwire teamed in Oakland as the ``Bash Brothers,'' leading the
team to three straight World Series appearances from 1988-90, including the
1989 title. Canseco won the 1988 AL MVP award and has 462 homers, 26th on
the career list.

Canseco admitted in 2002 that he used steroids during his career. He served
jail time for violating terms of his probation for a 2001 fight at a Miami
Beach, Fla., nightclub. His rap sheet includes domestic violence and
aggravated battery charges.


==========
  From www.billy-ball.com:
February 23, 2004

Bottom of the 8th
NEWS ITEM: STEROIDS ADDLES CANSECO'S MIND

Jose Canseco has offered his services to the Los Angeles Dodgers not
surprisingly, the Dodgers declined and expressed no interest in signing
Canseco. Canseco was told he could attend the Dodgers open tryout on March
1 and will get a look from Dodger scouts, but no special treatment. The
last known player to be signed from one of these tryouts was catcher Rick
Wilkins in 1999.

Hey Canseco fans...

I know it's been a long while since you've heard from me, but Jose simply
hasn't been in the news - well, that, or I haven't seen it if he has been.

Sorry the below articles are a little bit dated, but better late than
never.  Some of you will really enjoy the first one, which alludes to
Canseco trying to make another comeback.  Don't get your hopes up
(personally, I doubt any team will give him a chance), but then again, you
never know.  That article also reveals that once again, Jose's tell-all
book has been pushed back indefinitely.

As for the second and older article, yes, Ozzie Canseco was sentenced to a
year in jail for violating his probation.  Ouch.

As always, if I hear anything else, I'll send it out.  Canseco news is
really scarce these days though, so if you happen to find an obscure
article or hear something you think other Canseco fans would like to know
about, please pass it to me.

Thanks,
Mark


==========
  From thestate.com (South Carolina):
Canseco hasn't given up on dream
By BOB SPEAR
Dec. 06, 2003

LESS THAN A MONTH after Major League Baseball announced that players will
be tested for steroids use next season, Jose Canseco passed on the
opportunity to issue an I-told-you-so proclamation.

A day after six-time National League MVP Barry Bonds testified before a
federal grand jury in a case involving possible drug violations by a
laboratory, Canseco rejected the chance to fan the flames on a subject that
baseball officials wish would disappear.

His reticence almost surely can be traced to one fact: He wants to play in
the majors again.

Canseco, a former American League MVP and one of a handful of players to
hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season, did not back away
from his claim that 80 percent of major-league players used steroids. But
he took the high road in sharing his thoughts Friday after arriving in town
for a series of weekend appearances.

He left listeners searching for the slugger who became a poster child for
controversy in his playing days. Where is the bombast? Where are the
inflammatory comments? Where are the claims that officials blackballed him
from the game?

"That's the media" picture of Canseco, he said. "(Reporters) never took the
time to get to know me."

Translation: His desire to reach 500 career home runs overrides all else.

The dream’s still alive. Canseco quit the game almost two years ago,
leaving behind a legacy of 462 homers, 1,407 runs batted in, a .266 batting
average and a colorful reputation in his 17 seasons. Last summer, Doug
Ames, a Columbia-area resident who represents Canseco, began selling the
player's baseball memorabilia.

"He just decided the baseball part of his life is over," Ames said then.

Friday, Canseco, 39, said he believes he can still hit 40-50 home runs a
season "if I get the chance. I'm in great shape; I still weigh the same
thing (245-250 pounds) as two years ago."

Ames said he has talked to several teams about his client's availability
and has meetings scheduled next weekend with the Yankees and Devil Rays.

Ames also said a contract had been signed for a tell-all book on Canseco's
baseball career, then added, "There will be no book until Jose retires for
good." When that book is published, "Everything will be explained," Canseco
said.

"Everything" includes a larger-than-life persona usually associated with a
rock star instead of a baseball player. But, he said, "A lot of things have
been exaggerated."

A new chapter. In their days in Oakland, Tony LaRussa once called Canseco
"the most complete player I ever managed." More recently,
writer-broadcaster Peter Gammons linked him with Dwight Gooden and Darryl
Strawberry as the three greatest wastes of baseball talent between 1980 and
2000.

The truth probably belongs somewhere between those extremes, but Canseco's
legacy always will include steroids.

He denied numerous reports linking him with using the substances during his
playing days.

"I never said that," he insisted Friday, "and nobody who represented me
did, either."

But he stands by his charge that 80 percent of the players used steroids
and challenged the 5-to-7 percent figure released by major-league officials
and the players' union.

"I have heard a lot about how the testing went," he said. "Some players
took the test four or five or 10 times (to bring the percentage down). I
don't think (5-to-7 percent) is accurate."

Ken Caminiti once claimed that at least 50 percent of the players used
steroids, and Curt Schilling supported that statement, saying, "Half the
players have used steroids and the other half have thought about it."

Whether pro-Canseco or anti-Canseco, no one can deny his appeal to fans.
Ames said he has been approached about making movies, and he also has an
offer to put on hitting exhibitions in Japan for a seven-figure guarantee.

First things first, he said, and that means his focus centers on returning
to the major leagues with a goal of reaching one of the game's magic
numbers — 500 home runs.

If he succeeds, that would be a final chapter for his tell-all book

AUTOGRAPH SESSION

Former American League MVP Jose Canseco will sign autographs today from
noon-3 p.m. at Communications Specialists Inc., 829 Gervais Street in the
Vista. Also, some of Canseco’s memorabilia will be on display. Canseco will
make another area appearance Sunday in North Myrtle Beach (Overtime Sports
Cafe, 2-4 p.m.).

==========
  From the AP:
Jose's brother jailed on probation violation
October 17, 2003

MIAMI -- Former major leaguer Ozzie Canseco was sentenced to a year in jail
Friday for violating probation stemming from a 2001 barroom brawl.

The twin brother of former slugger Jose Canseco was credited for 158 days
served while awaiting sentencing. With other accrued time off, he could be
released in about four months. Once released, Ozzie Canseco will serve five
years' probation.

Ozzie Canseco, 39, pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor battery charges
after the Miami Beach brawl. The sentence Friday was for 364 days.

A routine traffic stop for darkly tinted windows in May led to his arrest
on charges of possessing an illegal anabolic steroid, driving with a
revoked license and possession of drug paraphernalia. Those charges, plus
leaving the county without consent, violated his probation.

Ozzie Canseco played briefly with Oakland and St. Louis in the early 1990s.
He had a long minor league career and played in Japan.

Jose Canseco was released from jail in August after being held 73 days on
charges he violated probation by taking steroids. Those charges were
dropped. He also spent 30 days in jail this year on other probation
violation charges.

Hey everyone...

Jose was finally released from jail yesterday, when prosecutors dropped the
charges alleging that he violated his probation by taking steroids.  He
will remain under house arrest until his probation ends in March of 2004 (I
actually thought it was longer than that, but that's what the papers are
saying).

The latest news is below.

-Mark


==========
  From Court TV.com:
Canseco stays jailed while lawyers cram for steroid science
By Harriet Ryan
Tuesday, July 22, 2003

(Court TV) -- Former All-Star slugger Jose Canseco will remain behind bars
while his lawyers take more time to prepare a defense to the charge that he
used steroids while serving house arrest for a  nightclub assault, a Miami
judge ruled Monday.

While the beefy outfielder, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison
jumpsuit and goatee, looked on quietly from the defense table, his lawyers
told Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick they needed more time to
acquaint themselves with the science behind drug tests that detected the
steroid Stanozol last month.

"We have no idea what we're talking about on this side of the table," said
lawyer Jose Quinon, who described his recent crash course in drug
metabolisms as "a nightmare experience."

After allowing brief testimony from a lab pathologist, Glick postponed
further testimony until August 26.

If the judge finds the former league MVP violated the terms of his house
arrest by using a controlled substance, he could be sentenced to up to 15
years in prison.

Canseco pleaded guilty in November to aggravated battery in a one-sided
fight with two conventioneers at a South Beach hotspot. He was originally
sentenced to three years probation, but after missing a court appearance,
Glick ordered him to serve two years under house arrest.

In June, after a urine screening indicated steroid use, the judge threw
Canseco in jail.

Canseco's lawyers have acknowledged he used the performance-enhancing drugs
in the past, but deny he was using them while under house arrest. In court
Monday, they appeared to suggest the test may have detected drug use before
his home confinement.

Dr. James Shipe, the Virginia forensic pathologist who tested Canseco's
urine, testified, however, that steroids injected in muscle tissue linger a
maximum of eight weeks in the body.

Canseco gained notoriety after his 2001 retirement by asserting that 85
percent of pro baseball players relied on performance-enhancing drugs.

Glick denied several requests by Quinon and co-counsel Jayne Weintraub to
have Canseco freed on bail. The judge released Canseco for five days
earlier this month to spend time with his 6-year-old daughter, Josie.

Canseco's ex-wife, Jessica, was on hand Monday in hopes the judge would
allow a similar furlough. Glick refused to do so, prompting Jessica Canseco
to burst into tears.

Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, who was involved in the nightclub fight and
entered a similar plea, also appeared in court Monday. He is likewise
accused of violating the terms of his plea by using steroids. His hearing
was postponed after his new lawyer asked Judge Glick to recuse himself from
the case because of a past conflict.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco leaves jail after probation violation charge is dropped
August 25, 2003

MIAMI (AP) -- Jose Canseco was released from jail Monday after prosecutors
dropped charges alleging the former baseball star violated his probation by
taking steroids.

Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hoague said the state could not determine
when Canseco took the muscle-enhancing drug because of conflicting expert
testimony on how long it would stay in his system.

Canseco had been behind bars since June 20, when probation officials said
he tested positive for steroids. He has denied any drug use while on
probation.

``It was a very painful, stressful situation for my daughter, my family and
myself,'' Canseco said Monday. ``It feels good to be out.''

Canseco, 39, could have faced up to 15 years in state prison.

The 1988 American League MVP has been on probation since November, when he
pleaded guilty to aggravated battery for a 2001 nightclub fight with two
tourists. His probation is scheduled to end in March 2004.

Canseco spent 30 days in jail and was sentenced to house arrest earlier
this year because he took a trip to California without court permission and
didn't meet other probation terms. He says he made the trip because he
wanted to reconcile with his ex-wife and 6-year-old daughter.

Canseco helped lead the Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series
appearances from 1988-90. Oakland won the 1989 series.

He hit 462 home runs in his major league career, the 26th-best in history.
He retired in May 2002 after 1,887 games with seven teams, finishing his
career with a .266 batting average, 1,407 RBIs and 200 stolen bases.

The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Canseco has admitted using steroids during his
baseball career.

Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, who briefly played in the majors, was also
sentenced to probation stemming from the nightclub scuffle in Miami Beach.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco leaves jail

MIAMI (AP) - Jose Canseco left jail Monday after prosecutors dropped
charges that the former baseball star violated his probation by taking
steroids.

Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hoague said the state could not determine
if Canseco took steroids while on probation because of conflicting expert
testimony on when he allegedly took the muscle-enhancing drug.

Canseco, who had denied any drug use while on probation, shook the hand of
his lawyer, Jayne Weintraub, after the state announced its decision.

"It was a very painful, stressful situation for my daughter, my family and
myself," Canseco said. "It feels good to be out."

Canseco, 39, could have faced up to 15 years in state prison. He and his
father, Jose Canseco Sr., criticized prosecutors for keeping him in jail
for more than two months on charges which eventually were dropped.

"That was unfair, unjust. That was uncalled for," Canseco Sr. said.

The 1988 American League MVP has been on probation since November after
pleading guilty to felony aggravated battery for a 2001 Miami Beach
nightclub fight with two tourists. His probation is scheduled to end in
March 2004.

Canseco was arrested June 20 after state officials said he tested positive
for steroids while on house arrest for an earlier probation violation. He
will continue serving the terms of the house arrest and probation.

Canseco spent 30 days in jail and sentenced to house arrest early this year
because he took a trip to California without court permission and failed to
meet other probation terms. He says he made the trip because he wants to
reconcile with his ex-wife and 6-year-old daughter.

"All he wants to do is see his daughter," Weintraub said.

Canseco's attorneys had argued that it was unclear whether he took the
steroids during his probation. Experts presented conflicting testimony on
how long the steroids could stay in Canseco's system.

Canseco helped lead the Oakland Athletics to three straight World Series
appearances from 1988-90. Oakland won the 1989 series.

He hit 462 home runs in his major league career, the 26th-best in history.
He retired in May 2002 after 1,887 games with seven teams, finishing his
career with a .266 batting average, 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases.

The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Canseco has admitted using steroids during his
baseball career and claimed that 85% of all other major leaguers have taken
the muscle-enhancing drugs. He announced plans to reveal baseball's steroid
secrets in a still-unpublished book.

While confined to his house, Canseco charged people $2,500 each through his
personal Web site to "Spend the Day with Jose." Autographed balls and
posters also were for sale.

Canseco's twin brother Ozzie, who briefly played in the majors, was also
sentenced to probation stemming from the nightclub fight. He faces his own
probation violation charge after he was arrested in May when a Charlotte
County sheriff's deputy allegedly found illegal anabolic steroids in his
vehicle during a traffic stop.

Hey everyone...

I don't know if you have been watching Greta Van Susteren's Canseco
interview on Fox News each night this week, but it's been very
interesting.  Part II was on last night (it was preempted by Saddam's sons
on Tuesday) and it was good to hear Jose tell his side of the story
regarding those "domestic abuse" charges that have been so blown out of
proportion over the years.  They even interviewed Jessica, Jose's second
ex-wife and mother of his daughter, Josie.  She's fully supportive of him
through all of this.  Apparently, before all the latest problems started,
Jose and Jessica had been considering reconciling their marriage...

I believe there are 5 parts to the interview in total, so be sure to tune
in again tonight and tomorrow night.  Fox News, 10:00 ET, "On the Record."

Take it easy...
-Mark


==========
  From esportsmediagroup.com:
MLB : A legend of the wrong kind
By Jim Margalus
Sunday, July 06, 2003

Nobody wanted to see it come to this.

There sat Jose Canseco in a Miami courthouse, in a red jumpsuit with wrist
and ankle shackles. He tested positive for steroids, which violated his
probation he received after getting involved in a nightclub brawl with his
twin brother, Ozzie.

During his playing days, Canseco invited fans to either love him or hate
him; with his brash personality, he offered no in-betweens. His fans
enjoyed the excitement that swirled throughout the ballpark with every
plate appearance. His detractors would wait for another Canseco mishap, on
or off the field, to use as ammunition against him.

To the detractors' delight, there were plenty. Whether it was the homer off
his head, or the pitching experiment that blew out his arm, or his affair
with Madonna, or his carrying of a loaded gun while speeding in his Jaguar,
Canseco was making enough news to provide punch lines for the rest of his
life.

In comparison to Canseco, Sammy Sosa's use of a corked bat looks like an
unpaid parking ticket.

Currently, Canseco is serving a 30-day prison sentence. If he violates
probation once more, he could face up to 15 years.

Even the most die-hard Canseco-haters must be finding it hard to laugh now.

He has slipped from the comical realm to become the classical tragic figure.

In Greek mythology, Icarus used wings his father made out of feathers and
wax to escape imprisonment. But, against his father's warning, he became
arrogant and tried to fly as high as possible. The higher he flew, the more
the wax melted.

He finally reached a point where his wings melted completely, and he
plummeted to his death into the sea below.

Or you can look at the tale of King Midas. Midas wished that everything he
touched turned to gold, and so it did. Nature, family, food -- everything
he touched became gold to the point where he had nothing of use. Unlike
Icarus, Midas saw the error of his ways in time, and the god Dionysus
reversed his wish.

Jose Canseco lies somewhere in between these two figures.

He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1986, and the MVP in 1988. That
season turned out to be Canseco's finest -- a .307 batting average, he led
the league in homers and RBIs, and became the first player in MLB history
to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season.

Even though he may have used steroids at this point in his career, it
certainly did not affect him. He was larger, more muscular, but in
proportion -- he still might have been filling out.

Canseco contained the perfect mixture of power and speed, and many were
already getting the Hall of Fame ballot prepared.

Back injuries shortened the following season, but he nearly returned to
form in 1990 and 1991, hitting 37 and 44 homers, and stealing 19 and 26
bases, respectively.

After Oakland dealt him to the Texas Rangers, he was never quite the same
player. Arlington hosted his most famous on-field mishaps. His days in the
outfield became numbered after the infamous "homer off his domer," in which
a ball bounced off the top of his head over the wall.

He became completely one-dimensional after an ill-fated appearance on the
mound for mop-up work. The results for the knuckeballing Canseco were as
follows -- one inning pitched, a 27.00 ERA, and a permanently-damaged elbow.

The elbow problems didn't come out of nowhere, though. Right before his
Texas days, Canseco became bulkier -- muscular to the point of impractical.
It limited his throwing motions, speed and flexibility, making him more
prone to injury. His elbow probably wasn't able to handle the strain that
the unnatural bulk put on it.

It's a phenomenon that has also happened with Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa.
Once above-average outfielders, they have become mediocre on defense,
sacrificing range and arm for power at the plate. Luckily for Bonds and
Sosa, they have managed to avoid injury for the most part.

Canseco was not so fortunate. Injuries plagued him for the rest of his
career. Only one time did he play more than 120 games since his trade to
Texas -- 1998, for Toronto. He had a career-high of 46 homers that year,
and 29 stolen bases. However, he only hit .237, and was caught stealing 17
times.

At this point in his career, he became a caricature of his former self. His
back-wrenching swing still remained, but it looked much more awkward with
the stiff, massive Canseco. His head grew larger and rectangular, and he
developed a nasty twitch.

Even off the field, his acts became more extreme. He always enjoyed his
fame a little too much, but it had never harmed others until 1992, he
rammed his first wife's car with his own. He hit his second wife in 1997
during an argument for his first charge of aggravated battery.

Canseco's career ended in 2002, where he toiled in the minors for a month
before calling it quits. He claimed that he was "blackballed" out of
baseball by teams conspiring against him.

He also admitted steroid use and made a claim that over half of baseball
players use such substances, and has threatened to "name names" in a book
that has not been written, or even backed by a publisher.

Like Icarus, Canseco got carried away with an artificial enhancer, and it
led to his demise. Like Midas, he got more than he wished for by using
steroids. Unlike Midas, unfortunately, he couldn't have the effects reversed.

He is still using steroids, and he has no use for them. He has become a
monster that nobody can control, and he may spend the rest of his life in
jail for it. People that pick on Canseco today are vultures. The joke is
over. Now it's just plain sad.

Mike Tyson is the only sports figure currently that can relate to Canseco,
but even that is a different case. Tyson relishes in the ridiculous, and it
appears that he knows more than he lets on about what he's doing, no matter
what is coming out of his mouth.

Canseco genuinely believes that he has done no wrong. He believes he is
facing harsher punishment than other people because of his celebrity. He
tried to earn some money with his house arrest, offering people to spend
the day with him for a cost of $2,500.

He didn't comprehend the gravity of his steroid addiction, he didn't
understand the gravity of his lifestyle, and he still doesn't realize the
gravity of his actions.

Jose Canseco went from being a sure-fire Hall of Famer to one of the
biggest "wastes of talent" in baseball history, according to Peter Gammons.

It looks like the downward slide only gets steeper from here.

Tragic, indeed.

Hi everyone...

Last night, Greta Van Susteren interviewed Jose from jail on Fox New's "On
the Record."  Sorry I didn't get a message out in time, but fear not, Part
2 of the interview (recorded last week) airs tonight at 10:00 PM ET....
Last night, they got to Jose's segment around 10:45 or so.

It was weird seeing him in his new uniform.... a red jumpsuit.  While I do
think Jose has made some mistakes, I have to tell you, I felt really badly
for him.  You should have seen the look on his face when he was asked if he
"could do 15 years in prison."  Man....... can you even imagine?  He also
talked briefly about the incident that started all of this, saying he was
innocent, and can't believe that the guy who assaulted his date is walking
the streets while he's in jail, in the company of rapists and murderers, no
less.

If you can, tune in for Part 2 of the interview tonight.  It should be
interesting.

The latest news about what's going on with Jose (plus some Canseco vs. the
Hulk thing from a few weeks ago) is below.

Take it easy,
Mark


==========
  From the Tacoma News:
VERSUS: THE HULK VS. JOSE CANSECO
July 7, 2003:

On one side, you've got The Hulk, a comic book character/TV star/movie
star. On the other you've got Jose Canseco, a former baseball star/convict
who is a cartoon character of his former self. Let's get it on:

HOW HE BECAME WHAT HE IS

The Hulk: Nuclear physicist Bruce Banner was exposed to high-intensity
gamma radiation that causes him to turn into a monster that is the dark
personification of his long repressed rage and fury.

Canseco: A former baseball player with speed and power was exposed to
intense amounts of fame, fortune and illegal substances that have caused
him to turn into an ego-centric jerk.

Edge: The Hulk. Bruce Banner's condition was not self-inflicted like Canseco's.

APPEARANCE

The Hulk: A powerful giant weighing over 1,000 pounds. He has green skin.

Canseco: Once a 245-pound outfielder with bulging biceps, Canseco wears a
prison-issued orange jumpsuit.

Edge: Canseco. Orange is a good color for him.


PERSONALITY ISSUES

The Hulk: Extreme rage.

Canseco: 'Roid rage.

Edge: Tie. I don't think I would want to be around either one when they are
angry.


ATTEMPTS AT REFORM

The Hulk: Certain treatments, including psychotherapy, work for a while but
ultimately fail. Banner tries to control his temper as best as he can
through yoga and meditation.

Canseco: Community service, probation and house arrest had no effect.
Failed to attend court-ordered anger management courses and is now in jail
after failing a steroid test. He's awaiting his next hearing in July.

Edge: The Hulk. Yoga - maybe that will work with Canseco.


AND THE FINAL TALLY ...

The Hulk, 2-1-1: This guy can take out an entire city, and not just tipsy
patrons in bars or his wife's car like Canseco has done in the past.

==========
  From Court TV:
Steroid violation may land Canseco in prison
By Harriet Ryan
July 22, 2003:

Retired baseball slugger Jose Canseco will appear in a Miami court Monday
to plead with a judge not to send him to prison for allegedly violating his
probation with steroid use.

The former Rookie of the Year and onetime American League MVP tested
positive for the performance-enhancing drugs last month while serving a
two-year house-arrest sentence for assaulting a pair of tourists at a
nightclub in 2001.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick, who had already cited Canseco for a
probation violation in March after he missed a court appearance,
immediately ordered the former outfielder into jail and scheduled Monday's
hearing to determine whether a drug violation should nullify the
no-prison-time deal Canseco cut with prosecutors in the assault case.

If Glick determines Canseco violated his probation, he could sentence the
39-year-old ex-major leaguer to up to 15 years in prison.

Lawyers for Canseco are expected to dispute his steroid use and present
witnesses to testify to his good character.

Canseco's most recent legal problems — he was arrested on domestic violence
and battery charges in the past — began at the South Beach nightclub
Halloween night 2001. Canseco, wearing a "biker" costume, and his date,
dressed as an "Indian" in a feathered skirt and bikini, were toasting the
holiday with Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, also a former pro baseball
player, and his fiancee.

At some point that evening, the foursome encountered two male
conventioneers, Christian Pressly and Alan Cheeks. According to court
records, Pressly lifted the feathered skirt of Canseco's date as she walked by.

Witnesses told police that Canseco became enraged and attacked Pressly and
Cheeks, assisted at times by his twin. Pressly broke his nose in the fight
while Cheeks suffered a gash in his mouth that required 20 stitches.

Canseco initially defended his actions, saying he needed to defend his
date, but a year after the fight, he pleaded guilty to one count of felony
aggravated battery with great bodily harm and received three years'
probation and was ordered to take anger management classes.

But in March, after he missed a court appearance while in California
working out a dispute over custody of his 6-year-old daughter, the judge
revoked his probation and sentenced him to two years under house arrest
followed by three years' probation.

Canseco stayed in the spotlight while on house arrest, charging fans $625
to hang out with him in a venture he called "Spend a Day with Jose."

After his 2001 retirement, Canseco frequently spoke out about the use of
performance-enhancing drugs by professional baseball players. The bulky
6-foot-4, 250-pound Canseco has acknowledged using steroids in the past and
estimated at one point that 85 percent of major-leaguers were using the drugs.

Last month, a routine drug test administered as part of his sentence
detected the presence of steroids. In court papers, his lawyers have
admitted Canseco had a steroid problem in the past, but denied he was using
the drugs in June.

==========
  From the AP:
Prosecutor Granoff says it was a 'clear ambush'

MIAMI -- A steroid expert for the prosecution testified Monday that he
didn't know about a long-lasting form of the illegal steroid former
baseball star Jose Canseco is accused of using in violation of probation.

The defense offered evidence of "Winstrol Depot,'' and claimed that no
valid studies exist on its longevity in the human body.

Prosecutor Jonathan Granoff complained to the judge that he was ambushed by
Canseco's attorneys.

"We've just destroyed their only expert witness,'' Canseco attorney Jayne
Weintraub said outside court.

Canseco, the 1988 American League MVP, has been on probation since November
after pleading guilty to felony aggravated battery in connection with a
scuffle with two tourists at a Miami Beach nightclub in 2001. He has been
in jail since June 3, when probation officials said he tested positive for
the muscle-building drug.

The defense concedes past steroid abuse by Canseco, but insists there is no
reliable way to know when Canseco used the steroids that showed up in his
urine.

"The problem is, you don't know,'' Weintraub said. "It's a science that's
not exact.''

Testimony on the admissibility of scientific evidence against Canseco will
resume Aug. 26. If the judge accepts the prosecution evidence, testimony
would follow on the alleged probation violation.

Canseco denies taking any drugs while on probation. He could face up to 15
years in state prison if the judge rules against him.

Dr. James Shipe, a University of Virginia forensic toxicologist called by
prosecutors, testified that the steroid Stanazolol, sold under the name
Winstrol, would last eight weeks at most in the human body.

"Some steroids do last months in 'depot' form, not Stanazolol
specifically,'' Shipe testified for the prosecution.

On cross-examination, he said his opinion would change if Stanazolol came
in depot form. Weintraub then offered a blowup illustration of Winstrol Depot.

"Quite frankly, judge, this is a clear ambush,'' Granoff said. "It's just
an ambush, clear ambush.''

The judge ordered the two sides to exchange scientific information and
delayed the hearing until a defense witness is available.

Canseco's twin brother Ozzie, also a former major leaguer, faced a
probation violation hearing before Judge Leonard Glick as well for a
steroid possession arrest in May.

Ozzie Canseco wants to bring on a defense attorney who cannot practice
before Glick due to a past conflict, and a different judge was assigned to
decide whether the new attorney can join his case.

Jose Canseco helped lead the Oakland Athletics to three straight World
Series appearances from 1988-90. Oakland won the 1989 series.

He hit 462 home runs in his 17-year major league career, the 26th-best in
history. He retired in May 2002 after 1,887 games with seven teams,
finishing with a .266 batting average, 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases.

Canseco, who pleaded guilty to felony aggravated battery in the 2001 case,
spent 30 days in jail for violating probation early this year by traveling
to California without court permission.

Hey everyone...

Jose turned 39 years old yesterday.  I'm sure the best birthday present he
got was being released from jail for 5 days, so he can visit with his
daughter Josie, who is in town from California, where she lives with her
mother.  The details of that story are below, and so is a story about the
$2500 "Day with Jose" packages you've heard about.  Not only that, but our
own Joey Santer (the member of this list who was the first to visit Jose)
wrote in to share his story with all of us.

Some of it is a bit hard for me to believe (Jose being offered $10 million
movie deals, a reality tv show, etc), but who knows?  Hopefully it's all
true.  That would be cool.

Anyway, enjoy the story, email Joey if you want, and if any one else out
there has been down to visit Jose, please send me an email and tell us all
about your experience.

Take it easy,
Mark


==========
  From CNNSI:
Big Man in the Big House

Posted: Wednesday June 25, 2003 9:51 AM


When Jose Canseco welcomed me into his South Florida home one day in
mid-June, the only 'roids he had to fear were hemorrhoids. He was rooted to
his sofa, under house arrest, in a kind of extravagant prison: Sing Sing
with bling-bling.

Not long ago the first question Canseco might have asked, when sentenced to
house arrest, was, "Which house?" He had five of them, including a
22,000-square-foot estate in Weston, Fla., patrolled by $25,000 turtles.
"It had four acres, a 5,500-square-foot gym, a waterfall, lagoon, pool,
caves, Jacuzzi, koi ponds all over the place," said Canseco. "And I was
alone there. The most miserable time I've ever had -- the most depressed
I've ever been -- was in that house."

So Canseco sold the place, and the one in Miami Lakes, and the one in
Brentwood, Calif. He pared his fleet of Benzes to three, Navigators to two
and Rollses to one. The ex-Athletic turned ascetic. And it's a good thing,
for last Friday police came to take what remained of Canseco's freedom,
removing him from his current house after a drug test -- mandated by the
court as part of his sentence -- turned up positive for steroids.

"I was a nerd, a little dweeb, when I was a kid," Canseco said four days
before the arrest. "In high school I was skinny and little. I am the
perfect example of Before and After."

Today, at 38, Canseco is a Carrara marble sculpture. "I run into people all
the time who knew me in high school, and a lot of them don't recognize me
as the same guy," he said. "They're always like, 'You have changed so much.
You've turned into a different human being.'"

He is a bigger, wealthier, vastly more renowned human being. Just not a
happier one. "How many millionaires commit suicide?" he asked me. And when
I replied that surely he has never been that despondent, the former MVP of
the American League smiled weakly and said, "Not lately."

How much of his depression may owe to steroid use Canseco would not say,
though the tentative title of his tell-all memoir, which he still plans to
self-publish in October, may provide a hint: The Ball Was Never Juiced.
What was juiced, then? "I think we're all aware of that," he said when I
asked him if steroid use was rampant in baseball. "I can't believe
society's that ignorant.

"I brought something to the game that restructured and changed the game,"
he said. "How that can be explained so that anyone can understand it will
be in my book."

Canseco was in the third month of a two-year house arrest for violating the
probation he was given following a felony aggravated-battery conviction
resulting from a brawl at a Miami club on Halloween night in 2001. On the
date he was required to be in Florida, he was in Los Angeles, visiting his
six-year-old daughter, Josie (who lives with Canseco's second wife,
Jessica), and offering his services to movie studios. "One thing Hollywood
has never had," Canseco said, "is a Latin action hero."

And so he was placed under house arrest. For this latest violation he was
facing up to 15 years in real prison, though his current house, to hear him
tell it, is already more San Quentin than San Simeon. For instance, he
cannot bear to look at his baseball memorabilia. "Those are hurtful
memories," he said. "It's like you were married for 15 years, and suddenly
you break up. You're not gonna keep pictures of your ex-wife all over the
house."

On his website, josecanseco.com, he is auctioning off all his baseball
souvenirs, most of which were scattered across his dining-room table last
week: his MVP plaque, two World Series rings, a photograph with Queen
Elizabeth. Said his agent, Doug Ames, "He told me, 'If it's from baseball,
get it outta here.'"

And yet, in the next room, on a TV screen just smaller than a queen-sized
mattress, a 25-year-old Canseco was circling the bases at Memorial Stadium
in Baltimore. Watching the highlight video were Joe Santer, 22, and his
21-year-old girlfriend, Genie Ficks. Santer, responding to a solicitation
on Canseco's website, had paid $2,500 to Spend a Day with Jose. "My
friends," Santer said, "think I'm crazy."

Santer works the third shift at a window factory in Selins Grove, Pa. A
"33" medallion (Canseco's old number) dangled from his neck. How long had
he labored to spend a single afternoon with his hero? "Every night," he
said, "for the past month and a half."

Before Friday's arrest Canseco had sold 30 future visits to his home, some
of them on the installment plan. "We have an Oakland cop who made two
payments," said Ames.

When I left, Santer and Ficks were in the pool with Canseco, chatting about
baseball. Not all of his memories are bad. "I remember once up in Boston,
during the playoffs, the fans were chanting "STAIR-oids! STAIR-oids!" said
Canseco. "So I flexed my arm at them like that." He flexed like the guy on
the Arm & Hammer box.

"And they went crazy," he continued. "It was funny because I won the crowd
over by acknowledging them. A lot of times the fans just want to be
acknowledged. So if you say, 'Hi,' or just have fun with them, they say,
'Hey, he's just like us. He's a nice guy.'"

==========
  From Joey Santer:
santer36@...

         Okay where do I start....first of all the entire day was great.  I
wasn't picked up by a limo at the airport because I made a vacation out of
the trip and went down on the Friday before.  So I met up with a friend of
Jose's at a gas station about 3 min from his house.  My girlfriend and I
were taken there in one of his navigators.  When I got there we just walked
right in and there were reporters everywhere.  Jose's good friend Doug
talked to me for a few min and told me to just walk around the house and
look at the memorabilia and things like that.  It felt weird being in his
house and walking around without even actually meeting him yet.  I saw him
because he was sitting on his couch giving an interview to Tampa bay news 9
at the time.  After about ten minuets Jose came over and greeted us.  We
talked for a few min and put on a little show of me knocking on his door
and him answering it for the news station.   (But it was all set up)

         Then he offered us a drink and brought me into his living room
where he had about 12 tapes setting out on the coffee table of all of his
homeruns.  His father had collaborated every one of his homers on to
separate tapes listed by year and team.  We sat there and watched about
40-50 of them but the time went quick.  All of the reporters wanted me to
put on his championship rings and pose for them.  NO PROBLEM!!!  Only about
6 million dollars on my fingers!!!!!  Then we went out in the yard to play
with his two dogs.  (Weimrieners) Zeus and Zena.  The TV. Reporters and
newspapers were still there at this point asking us questions and taking a
lot of pics.  After awhile we went and got our bathing suits on and got
into his pool.  We played with Zeus in there for awhile while sports
illustrated took some more pictures.  And then for about 2 hours we stat
there in the 95 degree weather and talked.  It was very interesting.  After
that we got out and Genie (my girlfriend) and I had a few beers while Doug
cooked us some chicken and hamburgers.  We had fresh fruit and corn
also.  just a simple little bar-b-que.  We still sat there and talked for
awhile and then the phone rang.  It was my mother and my friend who also
came along on the trip with us.  Just not to his house.  Jose said to let
them through the gate and they got to meet him too.  My mom wouldn't just
let me go on this special trip alone.  She had to meet Jose and thank him
and tell him how big of a fan I was.  Things like that.  It's cool though
my mom is a great person.
The 5 of us took some pics together and we exchanged email addresses, phone
numbers and said our goodbyes.

         The day seemed really short but that's just because I gave you a
quick rundown of what all we did.  I was actually there for about 6 1/2 hours.

         Some interesting things I learned.....first the house we were in is
just an investment house of Jose's.  He had two days to furnish it when he
was released from jail.  And since California doesn't have a house arrest
"program" he was forced to stay in Florida.  He sold all of his other homes
in Florida and only had this one and three in California.  So really he
doesn't have anything there with him.  I don't mean to rip on the whole
idea of spending the day with his because for me it was wonderful.  But for
some other people who are expecting to throw baseball with him like I
was.  Or take batting practice, lift weights, learn martial arts and all
the other things the site says you can do with him they might be
disappointed.  Jose didn't even have a baseball glove there with him!  That
was the only thing I was let down by.  I just wanted to be able to say I
threw baseball with him ya know? On and this just came to mind.  If you
have seen his 40/40 ring. Jose actually designed it has 47 diamonds and is
the only one in the world.
When the company made the ring they sent him the mold and Jose broke it so
it would never be a replica.  That one alone is 2 million!
         At his old house in Fl. he used to have 4, 25,000 dollar tortoises,
a 7 ft. iguana, dogs, and lots of fish.  Jose loves animals.  And if you
don't like dogs he won't like you.

        I know I am really going to jump around here so bare with me.  Let's
see.  The money I spent to see him went to the boys club and also paid for
some of the cost to have me there.  I don't know I guess the chicken,
hamburgers, and beer.  Jose is or was anyway allowed to leave him house for
an hour a week to get groceries and get his hair cut.  He was also allowed
to go to the gym 3 times a week and he spent alot of time at the boys club.
That's where he does most of his community service.

       Other fun facts.  Madonna actually asked Jose to marry her.  There
was also a story he told about when she lived across the lake from him she
had called him and asked him to come over and take her out to dinner so he
jumped in his boat and sped 105 mph over to her house with a helicopter
hovering over him with cameras so they could get the low down on the whole
madonna/jose story.  He had to call her and tell her about the helicopter
and that he wouldn't be over.  I don't know if you guys know this or not
but Jose never threw any punches in the bar fight 2 years ago.  He
explained the whole story to me.  He even mapped out the entire bar so I
could picture everything taking place.  I guess Ozzie threw three punches
and broke the two guy's faces with an open palm.  The reason for the whole
thing was Jose and Ozzie both had dates with them and ozzies date brought a
girlfriend of hers along.  The girls needed to use the bathroom so the
three of them walked towards it and Jose and ozzie stood and watched.  They
saw some guy lift up Jose's girlfriends skirt and grab her ass.  Jose
explained to me he and ozzie looked at each other and said "I know I didn't
just see that, there's no way he just did that in front of us" then the
whole thing started.  The other interesting thing about the ordeal is the
courts had Jose take a lie detector test.  Jose passed clearly but they
don't use a polygraph test for the good of someone, BUT if he would have
failed it would have been used against him!!!  Also the guys that were
involved and the bouncers at the club refused to take the damn test!!!!  So
Jose throws no punches, passes the test and the other money hungry assholes
(sorry) refuse.  But Jose is sentenced to 30 days in jail and then two
years of house arrest.  Whatever!

          We talked about the book which will be released during the
playoffs and World Series this year.  We also talked about the reality show
he has in the works.  Actually when I was there his manager took the call
that it was approved.  I can't say which station it will be on.  But then
again he's in jail so who knows what will happen with that.  Genie and I
were invited to be on the show; Jose even said he would fly us down to be
on it!  Basically all its going to be is like the Anna Nicole show where
you see what a day is like in her life.  Only you will see a day in Jose's
life.  And trust me you won't want to miss it!  Lots of women, let me tell ya!

          Jose told us stories of his cars, his fights with his ex wife's,
getting pulled over doing 180 mph and getting off cause the officer just
wanted to see inside his car.  Jose told him he can drive the damn thing
for all he cared!!

         And as a big surprise to me his fav. Team to play for was Tampa.
I'm sure you guys all know that now but before he never came out about it.
I would have thought it was Oakland.  That reminds me.  Jose isn't to happy
with big mac, Jose talked to mark McGuire's agent a few weeks ago and asked
why mark retired and Jose was told because mark was sick of baseball and
getting bored with it.  That's just not something you're supposed to say.
His fav. Teammate of all time was Walt Weis.

         Of course we talked about steroids.  He admits it as you all know.
He explained that there's a right way and a wrong way to take them.  He
basically does them for stamina to make it through a whole year.  He also
told me that once this book is released he will be writing a book on "how
to take steroids".  And if you guys don't know he had 4 movies to star in
each paying him 10 million.  Obviously he wasn't going to do all 4 but he
did like two of the scripts.  One of the scripts was on his counter.  And
I'm sorry but I forget what the damn name of it was.  Something about a
wife in the title though, I know that.

        You guys have to know I didn't do this to go get "the scoop" on Jose
I did this just to hang out with him and have some memories.  I have loved
him since I was 7 years old and never cared what people thought or said
about him.  I'm not very gullible and I do believe everything he told
me.  I know some of you are going to think I'm nuts for saying that but I
really do think he and I hit it off well.  I know not everyone that goes to
meet him is going to be invited back down or given his phone
number.  Everyone will have a great time and I do recommend doing it but
not everyone is going to have the same experiences I did.  esp. being the
first one.  All the media attention it got was nuts!!!!!!!! When I got home
from Fla.  I had 11 msges on my answering machine from radio stations
wanting interviews with me.
Espn, fox sports, sporting news radio, Wsv in South Carolina, sports talk
15 in Baltimore md.  Those are just to name a few.  Hell there was an
article in the newspaper in my home town before I even got home and no one
from my town had talked to me about it yet.  then when I did get home I had
more pics taken and more articles written.  I was in the Miami herald, the
Tampa tribune, and the daily item in pa.  Tampa bay news 9 had two part
news broadcast on Tuesday and wed. The 17th and 18th.  Tuesday night was
all about Jose and wed. Night was all about me.  It's just my 15 min of
fame.  I guess I am in the sports illustrated this week actually if you
subscribe you should have it if not it comes out in stores on Friday the 27th.

        That's about all guys.  If you have any questions I don't mind at
all emails asking me.  Just be patient for the reply.  If I'm not busy when
I read it I'll reply right away.  one more thing......There is a guy out
there who bid 10,000 to spend the day with him and have a candle lite
dinner and watch a movie.  if you belong to this list PLEASE email me I
want to talk to you!!!!!  thanks guys I hope you enjoyed the story.

==========
  From the AP:
Judge releases Canseco for five days to be with daughter

July 2, 2003
MIAMI (AP) -- A judge ordered former baseball player Jose Canseco to be
released from jail Wednesday for a five-day visit with his 6-year-old
daughter.

Canseco, the American League MVP in 1988, has been in jail since last month
after allegedly violating probation a second time for a nightclub scuffle.
Canseco was ordered held until a court hearing July 21 on whether he
violated his probation by testing positive for steroids.

Canseco's daughter is visiting from California, where his ex-wife lives.

Canseco, who retired from baseball last year, was charged with his twin
brother, Ozzie, for the 2001 brawl in Miami Beach. He was sentenced to
probation after pleading guilty last year.

Jose Canseco already violated his probation by leaving Florida for several
weeks and failing to start community service and anger management classes.
He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years of house arrest. He was
warned that further violations could result in a 15-year prison sentence.

I forgot to mention in Part I that Jose's official web site is
www.josecanseco.com - tell them I sent you.

As for the latest news, Jose in back in jail until at least July 21st, when
he will be having another hearing, and faces up to *gasp* 15 years in
prison for violating his probation.  Yikes.

What's my opinion on the matter?  Well, I guess I have mixed feelings.  I
mean, I feel really badly for Jose.  Another month in jail, at least - and
possible a lot more time after that - it's like it's a nightmare.  All
stemming from some stupid bar fight over a year and a half ago.  I hate to
say it, but if Jose wasn't Jose and was just some guy off the street, you
have to wonder if all of this (or any of this) would be happening.

But on the other hand, COME ON JOSE!  I mean, when you are being watched
like he is - when you are on probation - you have to start making the right
decisions.  You have to play by the rules and be squeaky clean.  And, from
what they are saying, Jose has not been.  I thought the first month in jail
would be a wake up call for him, and it sounded like it was, but now this.

I guess I'm disappointed in him, but more than that, I just feel sorry for him.

I've gotten some interesting emails lately.  Some very negative ones
ripping Jose apart, and others supporting him and telling me to send him
their best wishes (even one from a former teammate).  Unfortunately, I
don't know Jose personally, believe it or not, so I can't do that.

As for me, I'm going to remember Jose for the talented slugger he was on
the baseball field - my childhood hero - and not for all of this.  I barely
even follow the sport any more.  It's just not the same without him.  But
all these garbage from the past couple of years............ ugh.

-Mark


==========
  From the St. Louis Sports Dispatch:
Jeff Gordon's June 5 Edition
By Jeff Gordon Post-Dispatch Online Sports Columnist

Our daily look at who's in and who's out in the world of sports:

NO WAY, JOSE

Former big-league slugger and career knucklehead Jose Canseco claims the
media is giving Sammy Sosa a rough ride because he is from the Dominican
Republic.

"The way they are portraying him because he's a Latin, black athlete is
completely wrong," Canseco told ESPN's "Outside the Lines Nightly" show. "I
guarantee you if this were Mark McGwire or Cal Ripken Jr., a so-called
'protected athlete,' an "all-American' name, this would have never happened
because I've seen things some players have done, and they were white
players and they're completely covered up . . . if he were a white
superstar player, this would never, never happen."

Right. If a white slugger's bat explodes during a game, spraying cork
everywhere, he's busted. There is no cover-up.

As for the notion that McGwire was protected by the media, Tipsheet wonders
how Jose could forget the whole andro debate triggered by reporters
snooping around Big Mac.

But then again, Canseco is a knucklehead.

==========
  From Knight Ridder Newspapers:
Meeting Canseco isn't priceless

By Greg Cote

MIAMI - You can rent Jose Canseco for $625 an hour. He graciously will open
his South Florida home to you and be at your disposal for a barbecue,  for
a batting lesson, for relaxing quality time in the pool and for no added
charge you will enjoy the company of Jose's exceptionally friendly German
Weimaraner hunting dogs, Zeus and Zena.

It will be just you, your controversial, ex-communicated baseball hero, his
sniffing, bobblehead dogs and the unobtrusive friend/witness who will
quietly be in the house at all times to make sure you don't punch yourself
in the face, get all bloody, hysterically claim Jose did it, and then
speed-dial your attorney.

``I'm the poster child for lawsuits,'' explains the prudent host.

And so the bizarre latest chapter of the Jose Canseco story-in-progress
unfolded Monday inside the gated community of Long Lake Estates in Davie.

If you are expected there, like history-making fan Joe Santer was
Monday,  you glide past the uniformed guard, hang a fast right and soon
find yourself anxiously walking up a circular driveway and past a
decorative fountain toward God-knows-what.

Santer, 22, of Selins Grove, Pa., works in a factory assembling windows for
Philips Industries and might be mistaken for a perfectly normal young
fellow had he not been first in line to spend $2,500 for four hours almost
alone with Canseco. Joe brought along (at additional cost) his girlfriend,
Genie Ficks, 21, a dietitian's aide at a hospital.

Canseco always has been the athlete Santer most admired. ``I've been a huge
fan for 13 years,'' he said. ``Jose spoke his mind.''

But what would Canseco be like in person?

Santer, more than most, knew the stories that made up the dubious Canseco
legend, all the off-field tumult counterbalancing the 462 career home runs.
The tickets for speeding 140 mph. The ugly divorce. The liaison with
Madonna. The steroid assumptions. The claims he was blackballed from
baseball. The supposed tell-all book in the works.

Did we mention the fact Canseco is presently under house arrest - in jail
in his own 1-acre compound - and will be for the next two years? Yes, the
arrest connected with a Miami nightclub brawl, then a probation violation .
. . all of these things pinballed through Santer's mind as he walked past
the For Sale sign and pressed the doorbell.

``I had no clue what to expect. I was nervous and shaking,'' he said. ``I
was afraid he'd be a hothead, or not really caring I was there.''

At www.josecanseco.com you can bid on just about any type of Jose
memorabilia, including the man himself. Supposedly about 30 other folks
have so far bid $2,500 to luxuriate in Canseco's company, to (as the
Website says) ``Spend a Day with Jose.'' A fan from Orange County is on
deck today, followed by a businessman from Boston, then an Oakland policemen.

The lucrative fan visits will be incorporated into a pending (and sadly
inevitable) network ``reality TV'' show, according to Canseco, declining to
provide details.

Will it be better than the Anna Nicole Smith Show?

``God, I hope so!'' crowed Canseco, affable and muscularly ripped. ``Who
wants to watch a fat lady all day!''

The ex-player's friend and Monday witness, Doug Ames, said the
days-with-Jose are not about money (although he mentions credit cards are
now being accepted), but rather about rectifying Canseco's reputation, one
fan at a time.

``He's been so misunderstood,'' said Ames. `` `Steroids.' `Arrogant.' We're
doing this for the fans to get to see who Jose really is.''

One imagines a burgeoning cottage-industry for faded former stars who are
either retired against their will or striving to hang onto their retreating
celebrity.

What are we bid for brunch with Hal Greer?

How about grocery shopping with Jim Kiick?

You know what, though?

While we make fun, the fans forking out the big dough think they got a
bargain. It is the power of hero worship.

And it is this, too: We have come to expect our sports stars to be such
jerks in their dealing with fans, we are amazed when they are not. Even
when we pay $2,500 for Jose Canseco to be nice to us, somehow we are still
impressed when he is.

``A pleasure to be around,'' Genie Ficks, the girlfriend, described
Canseco. ``A joy. I didn't know if he would even talk to us!''

The Jose-days are part of a fairly orchestrated, arguably desperate effort
to maintain a lucrative enterprise of being Jose Canseco, the Miami-raised
slugger who will fall short of both 500 career home runs and the Hall of
Fame due largely to his own self-generated controversies.

Canseco and his friends/business associates speak grandiosely, but with few
details. They claim the reality TV show. The $10 million for movie rights.
That tell-all book. The idea that his former team, the Tampa Bay Devil
Rays, might soon re-sign the soon-to-be 39-year-old slugger.

Meantime, Joe Santer goes home a happy man, a thrilled fan.

And Canseco keeps his hero's crown a little while longer, even under house
arrest.

As for that reality TV show?

Well, don't say we didn't warn you.

==========
  From the AP:
6/21/03
Canseco arrested on probation violation


DAVIE, Fla. (AP) … Jose Canseco was arrested at his home Friday after
testing positive for steroids, a violation of his probation stemming from a
nightclub brawl.

The former American League MVP, who had been under house arrest for earlier
violating probation, was being held at Broward County Jail without bond
pending a court appearance. He'll probably face a hearing Monday or
Tuesday, officials said.

Canseco, who retired from baseball last year, was charged with his twin
brother, Ozzie, for the 2001 brawl in Miami Beach. He was sentenced to
probation after pleading guilty last year.

Canseco already violated his probation by leaving Florida for several weeks
and failing to start community service and anger management classes. He was
sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years of house arrest, and he was
warned him that further violations could result in a 15-year prison sentence.

Manny Hillman, a lawyer for Canseco, declined to comment. Another lawyer,
Gustavo Lage did not return a message seeking comment.

Jose Canseco hit 462 home runs in his major league career. He retired in
May 2002 after 1,887 games with seven teams, finishing his career with a
.266 batting average, 1,407 RBIs and 200 stolen bases.

The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Canseco has admitted using steroids during his
baseball career.

==========
  From the AP:
Former AL MVP in lockup until July 21 hearing

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco was ordered to jail Monday to await a hearing on
whether he violated probation by testing positive for steroids.

The former American League MVP was being held without bond until a July 21
hearing. He had been under house arrest for earlier violating his probation
stemming from a nightclub brawl and was arrested Friday on the results of a
June 3 drug test.

State prison spokesman Sterling Ivey has said Canseco recently tested
positive for steroids. Canseco, who retired from baseball last year, was
charged with his twin brother, Ozzie, for the 2001 brawl in Miami Beach. He
was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty last year.

Canseco appeared before the judge in jail-issue red jumpsuit and wrist and
ankle shackles and did not speak during the hearing.

"Jose's only statement to me was, 'But I do take this seriously. I can't
believe how this is spinning,'" Canseco attorney Jayne Weintraub said. She
argued to the judge that the only reason he faced jail was because of his
celebrity status.

Weintraub described Canseco as being "very disappointed and sad" and denied
the violation saying there is "always misunderstandings."

Jose Canseco already violated his probation by leaving Florida for several
weeks and failing to start community service and anger-management classes.
He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and two years of house arrest. He was
warned that further violations could result in a 15-year prison sentence.

While confined to his house, Canseco has charged people $2,500 each through
his personal Web site to "Spend the Day with Jose."

Autographed balls and posters also are for sale.

Canseco hit 462 home runs in his major-league career in which he has
admitted using steroids. He played for seven teams, hitting .266 with 1,407
RBIs and 200 stolen bases.


==========
  From the AP:
Around the Horn: Canseco jailed until July hearing

Jose Canseco was ordered to jail Monday to await a hearing on whether he
violated probation by testing positive for steroids.

The former American League MVP was being held without bond until a July 21
hearing. He had been under house arrest for earlier violating his probation
stemming from a nightclub brawl and was arrested Friday on the results of a
June 3 drug test.

State prison spokesman Sterling Ivey has said Canseco recently tested
positive for steroids.

Canseco, who retired from baseball last year, was charged with his twin
brother, Ozzie, for the 2001 brawl in Miami Beach. He was sentenced to
probation after pleading guilty last year.

==========
  From the Miami Bureau:
Canseco sent back to jail for a month
By Diana Marrero
Posted June 24 2003

Miami · Former baseball star Jose Canseco will spend the next month in jail
while he awaits another court hearing on charges that he violated his
probation by using steroids, a judge ruled Monday.

Saying Canseco has not heeded several wake-up calls, Miami-Dade Circuit
Judge Leonard E. Glick denied the famed slugger bond.

This wasn't the first time Glick has thrown Canseco in jail for violating
his probation. Canseco spent 30 days in jail earlier this year after Glick
found he left the state without permission and failed to begin
court-ordered anger management classes.

"Here we go again," Glick said. "He's in a red jumpsuit."

Canseco, 38, and his twin brother, Ozzie, were arrested after a 2001 fight
at a Miami Beach nightclub with a man they said assaulted Jose Canseco's
female companion. The brothers pleaded guilty to various battery charges
and were placed on probation.

The slugger has been under house arrest since March when Glick amended
Canseco's sentence to two years of house arrest followed by three years'
probation. Glick warned Canseco he would face up to 15 years in prison if
he violated the terms.

At the time, the former American League MVP pleaded for mercy and said he
understood he had to start being more responsible.

Since then, Canseco has completed his anger management course, performed
120 hours of community service at the Boys Club of Miami and is currently
paying $50 a month for supervision, his attorney, Jayne Weintraub, told the
judge Monday.

Glick was unfazed, saying Canseco needs to realize his probation is not a
joke. He said he was using his discretion to keep Canseco in jail until his
next hearing July 21.

Until last month, Ozzie Canseco seemed to be sticking to the terms of his
probation. Then, the less famous twin was arrested in Punta Gorda and
charged with possessing an illegal anabolic steroid, driving with a revoked
license and possession of drug paraphernalia.

He is being jailed without bond on probation violation charges and will
appear before Glick July 21 along with his brother.

"We told him this was serious business," Glick said. "Now his brother is
here again. He's here again."

Canseco's latest troubles stem from a drug test, which showed that he had
steroids in his system, according to his arrest report.

The 6-foot-4 , 245-pound slugger, who hit 462 home runs before retiring
last year, was arrested Friday at his Davie home.

Canseco, who caused a stir last year when he claimed most major league
players use steroids, has said he plans to publish a book exposing many of
baseball's dirty secrets.

Weintraub told the judge Monday that she planned to prove Canseco no longer
uses the muscle-enhancing drug. She entered a plea of not guilty for her
client, saying his arrest was the result of a misunderstanding she plans to
clear up next month.

She told the judge Canseco has been going through a custody battle that had
been taking his mind off his legal situation, but that he is on track again.

Weintraub said Canseco's young daughter was supposed to come from
California to visit him. She asked the judge to consider allowing him to
post bond so that the girl would not have to visit her father in jail.

Diana Marrero can be reached at dmarrero@... or 305-810-5005.

[-----
Note: I typed this up about a month ago, but apparently didn't send it.  I
moved a few weeks ago, and things have been crazy.  I guess this got lost
in the shuffle.  Anyway, this is somewhat old news now, but I'm going to
send it anyway.  If you haven't heard, Jose has been in the news
recently.... he's back in jail.  Long story short - he failed a steroid
test, which is a violation of his probation.  Ugh.  I'll send out a full
update in the next couple of days.  In the mean time, here's the older
stuff..... -Mark
-----]

Hi everyone...

Sorry it's been so long since you've heard from me.  I've really been
slacking, I know.  Things have been crazy around here.....

The last you heard from me, Jose had been released from prison and given
two years house arrest.  He hasn't been in the news much since, but a quick
update is that Jose now an official web site, and he's been auctioning off
all of his personal baseball memorabilia.  He's really bitter towards the
game right now, so he's getting rid of everything that reminds him of the
game.  Or so he says.

He's even selling "A Day With Jose" packages.  For $2500, a car will meet
you at the local airport and take you to Jose's house, where you can spend
an afternoon with Jose.  The price includes a second guest age 17 and under.

Originally, the Day With Jose was being auctioned off, but now it looks
like anyone can pay for one.  Anyway, Jose Santer - a member of this list -
won the first auction.  He's going to be Jose's first guest, and he'd like
your input for questions to ask Jose.  After his trip, he'll report back to
me and I'll forward on his story to the whole list.  So, if you have any
ideas for Joey, you can email him at santer36@....  He's going to
visit during the second week in June, so there's plenty of time for you to
think of some good questions.

In other Canseco news, Jose's twin bother Ozzie is now in jail for
violating the terms of his probation.  The story is below.

I guess that's it from me.  For the rest of the news, check out the
articles below...

Take care,
Mark

==========
Here is a link to a Jose interview from a few months ago (before the jail
stuff).  Jose talks about the book, which it sounds like he is still
planning on writing, amongst other things.  You can really hear his disgust
for Major League Baseball in his voice:
http://216.220.44.41/cftr/assets/general/JOSE.mp3

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Canseco holds auction for a day with Jose
April 15, 2003

A former major league star needs money. You might be looking for a way to
spend your tax refund and burn a vacation day -- or at least half a day --
all in the same 24-hour period.

Jose Canseco would like to hear from you. So let the bidding continue.

His auction house believes a day with Jose should cost no less than $2,500.

JoseCanseco.com has put up for auction the chance to spend the afternoon
with Canseco himself at his home in south Florida.

Among ideas for activities listed on the site: private power hitting
instruction, private martial arts instruction, a workout with Canseco, and
cookout by the pool.

The minimum bid is $2,500 and includes one guest 17 or younger at no extra
cost. Round-trip limousine service from the local airport is included but
not transportation to and from south Florida or accomodations is not included.

The bidding opened April 9 and ends Saturday. The site did not list any
posted bids.

Canseco, 38, was released from prison March 17 and resentenced to two years
of house arrest for his part in a 2001 nightclub brawl. He also received
three years' probation. If Canseco completes his first year of house arrest
without problems, he could be freed with the second year converted into an
additional year of probation.

Prior to his release, Canseco had spent the last 30 days in jail for
violating his probation when he pleaded guilty to battery charges stemming
from the Oct. 31, 2001, fight. He was released on the probation violation
charge, but Judge Leonard Glick warned him that any future violation would
result in a 15-year prison sentence.

The judge ruled that Canseco will be allowed to leave his home for certain
events but may ask the court for permission to travel under special
circumstances. Further conditions of his house arrest will be determined
following interviews with the officers who will monitor his sentence.

Canseco was a six-time All-Star who hit 462 home runs, 26th on the all-time
list. He retired last May after 1,887 games with seven teams, finishing his
career with a .266 average, 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases.

The 1988 American League MVP, Canseco and helped lead the Oakland Athletics
to three straight World Series appearances from 1988-90. Oakland won the
championship in 1989.

==========
  From the AP:
Ozzie Canseco charged with possession of drug paraphernalia
5/2/03

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (AP) -- Jose Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, was charged
with possession of drug paraphernalia after police found an illegal anabolic
steroid in his car during a traffic stop.

Ozzie Canseco was also charged with driving with a revoked license after he
was stopped Thursday because the windows of his car were illegally tinted,
Charlotte County sheriff's spokesman Bob Carpenter said.

Canseco consented to a search during which the steroid Nandrolone and a
syringe were found, Carpenter said.

Jose Canseco, under house arrest for his part in the nightclub brawl in
2001, admitted last year that he used steroids during his baseball career.

Ozzie Canseco, released from jail after posting a $25,000 bond Friday, is
on probation for his role in the 2001 nightclub brawl.

The Miami-Dade prosecutor's office did not immediately return a call Friday
to detail how Thursday's arrest would affect Ozzie Canseco's probation.

Ozzie Canseco played briefly for the Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals in
the early 1990s, hitting .200 with no homers in 24 games over three
seasons. He had a lengthy minor league career and played in Japan.

==========
  From the AP:
A-Rod denies making remark to Canseco
May 7, 2003

ARLINGTON, Texas --Former AL MVP Jose Canseco claims he was told three
years ago by several players, including Alex Rodriguez, that he was being
"blackballed" by baseball.

In an interview with Fox Sports Net that was broadcast Wednesday night,
Canseco said he was never given a chance to go back into baseball after
playing for the Chicago White Sox in 2001 even though he had 462 career
homers and still wanted to play.

"Three years ago, I had a few players come up to me and say that I was
being blackballed," Canseco said. "One of the players to tell me that I was
being blackballed, to me, is the greatest player in the world, Alex
Rodriguez. All the athletes know why I am out of the game, it's an internal
thing, it's kept in the family."

Rodriguez, the All-Star shortstop now with the Texas Rangers, was the only
player specifically identified by Canseco.

After reading a partial transcript of the interview Wednesday, Rodriguez
said he didn't recall such a conversation with Canseco.

"I don't remember that. I really don't. I don't recall that. I just wish
him the best," Rodriguez said before the Rangers' game against Toronto.

When asked if Canseco was blackballed by baseball, Rodriguez responded, "I
have no idea. I haven't really thought about it."

Canseco is serving a two-year house arrest following a 30-day jail sentence
for violating terms of his probation for a 2001 fight in a Miami Beach
nightclub.

Rodriguez said he couldn't explain why Canseco hasn't played since 2001.

"Look, when you have someone with great talent, you often wonder why
someone's not playing if he has the desire to play. But that's something
that I can't explain," Rodriguez said.

The 38-year-old Canseco was a six-time All-Star who played 17 seasons for
seven teams.

During the interview with Fox, Canseco also talked about his experience in
prison, steroids, Mark McGwire and his tell-all book that he hopes will
"come out around the playoffs or World Series."

Canseco wasn't specific in the interview about what major league players
used steroids, or if he used steroids.

"The whole world will have everything there is to know about it," Canseco
said. "That's for the book to tell. Who used them, what was involved and how."

On his use of steroids, he said, "You know, I've never said I have and I've
never said I haven't."

When asked about him selling much of his baseball memorabilia on his Web
site, Canseco said it was not because of the need of money.

"The reason I'm doing that is because what baseball in general has done to
me in the last two or three years has left a real bad taste in my mouth and
I really don't want any memories of it," he said.

==========
Fro the Miami Herald:
Ex-ballplayer Ozzie Canseco jailed for violating his probation
May 19, 2003

Former Major League ballplayer Ozzie Canseco was led off to jail Tuesday
after a Miami-Dade County judge agreed he had violated the condition of his
probation during a traffic stop.

Canseco, the twin brother of former slugger Jose Canseco, choked back tears
after the judge ordered him held until a June 30 hearing. He could then be
released or sent back to jail. The judge denied a request for bond. He was
led away from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Ozzie Canseco was arrested May 2 in Punta Gorda, FL, and charged with
possessing an illegal anabolic steroid, driving with a revoked license and
possession of drug paraphernalia.

Those charges, plus leaving Broward County, where he lives, without
permission, violated his probation.

Ozzie Canseco is on probation stemming from a 2001 nightclub fight on Miami
Beach that also resulted in charges against his brother. Ozzie Canseco
pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor battery.

Hi Canseco fans...

You, you read right... after spending a month in jail (ouch), Jose was
sentenced to two years of house arrest.  It sounds like he will be able to
leave the house for "certain events" (whatever that means) and will be
allowed to travel if he gets permission ahead of time.  Should he violate
his house arrest, he will be sentenced to 15 years in jail.  Ouch.

Personally, I think this really sucks for Jose.  At least he's out of jail,
but he's still going to have to give up a lot of his freedom... something
we probably all take for granted until it's taken from us.  Hopefully he
will be able to handle it for the first year, at which time they might
convert the second year back to regular probation.

Remember as a kid when you played stickball and could call a
"do-over?"  I'll bet Jose wishes he could have one of those right now.  Let
this be a lesson to all of us...

All the latest news is below, including an editorial by Jim DeFede that
will probably annoy most of you.  But you know me, I sent everything out -
the good and the bad.  It's just a shame most of it's been bad for the past
couple of years...

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco leaves jail, will serve 2 years' house arrest

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco was released from jail Monday and resentenced to two
years of house arrest for his part in a 2001 nightclub brawl.

The former major league star, wearing a jail-issue red jumpsuit, apologized
to the court for failing to complete all his probation terms. His twin
brother, Ozzie, was in the courtroom, as was his father and a priest.

"This has been embarrassing to my family and to my friends. ... I now
understand the seriousness of probation and I'm truly sorry,'' Canseco told
the judge.

Canseco -- who was the 1988 American League MVP and helped lead the Oakland
Athletics to three straight World Series appearances from 1988-90 -- also
received three years' probation. If he completes his first year of house
arrest without problems, Canseco could be freed with the second year
converted into an additional year of probation.

Prosecutors said they believed Canseco was genuinely contrite, saying he
was teary during a private conference.

"I saw it in his face,'' prosecutor Jonathan Granoff said. "Jail was a
wake-up call and it served its purpose.''

Canseco had spent the last 30 days in jail for violating his probation when
he pleaded guilty to battery charges stemming from the Oct. 31, 2001, fight.

The 38-year-old Canseco was released on the probation violation charge, but
Judge Leonard Glick warned him that any future violation would result in a
15-year prison sentence.

Canseco originally was sentenced to probation in November after pleading
guilty to felony aggravated battery and two counts of misdemeanor battery
related to the Halloween night fight inside a Miami Beach nightclub.

Glick ordered that the house arrest be served in Florida. He denied a
motion by defense attorney Gustavo Lage that Canseco be allowed to serve
the house arrest in California where he could continue pursuing custody of
his 6-year-old daughter.

Glick had issued a warrant for Canseco's arrest on Feb. 14, after a
probation officer reported that the six-time All-Star had violated several
terms of his probation. Canseco had failed to attend anger management
classes, had not worked his community service, had been outside of Florida
for longer than 30 days and still owed a small fine -- all probation
violations.

Canseco appeared before Glick on Feb. 18 and said he had been in Los
Angeles because of a custody battle for his young daughter. The judge
denied Canseco bond and ordered him held until Monday's sentencing hearing.

Canseco said last month that he unsuccessfully tried to arrange the anger
management classes, misunderstood the timeframe during which his community
service was supposed to begin, and spent several weeks in Los Angeles.

Canseco and his twin fought with two men at the nightclub. Ozzie Canseco
also pleaded guilty to battery charges and received probation. He has
complied with his sentence.

One of the men allegedly involved in that fight, Christian Presley, filed a
lawsuit in January seeking at least $1 million in damages.

Canseco hit 462 home runs, the 26th-best total in baseball history. He
retired in May after 1,887 games with seven teams, finishing his career
with a .266 average, 1,407 RBI and 200 stolen bases.

==========
  From the Miami Herald:
Judge sentences apologetic Canseco to 2 years on house arrest
BY LISA ARTHUR
larthur@...

After spending a month in jail, a contrite Jose Canseco apologized to a
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge and prosecutors on Monday for treating the justice
system with a cavalier attitude and violating probation on assault charges.

Despite his remorse, Canseco, a former Major League Baseball most valuable
player, will spend two years on house arrest and three years on probation
after that. He also has to take an anger management class and perform 250
hours of community service.

Any missteps would bring even more serious consequences, Miami-Dade Circuit
Judge Leonard Glick warned.

''I would not hesitate for one minute to send you to state prison,'' Glick
told Canseco, as the former slugger stood with his head bowed and hands
cuffed in front of him. He wore a bright orange jail jumpsuit. He has been
in a county jail since Feb. 19.

Canseco, 38, who grew up in Miami and attended Miami Coral Park High, had
angered the judge several times during the case, which stemmed from a brawl
at a Miami Beach night club in 2001. Once, he failed to show up for a
hearing, sending a note from his doctor instead saying he was recovering
from elective surgery.

Canseco and his twin brother, Osvaldo ''Ozzie'' Canseco, pleaded guilty to
felony assault charges last year. Jose Canseco could have faced up to 15
years in prison if convicted.

In exchange for the guilty pleas, both brothers were placed on probation.
Ozzie Canseco has been meeting the requirements, according to court officials.

Jose Canseco failed to meet any of the requirements. He told Glick Monday
that he had learned his lesson and called spending a month in jail ``my
worst nightmare come true.''

''I'm sincerely sorry,'' Canseco said. ``I never meant to hurt anyone or
disrespect anyone. I embarrassed my family and friends...Now I know the
seriousness of probation.''

Glick told Canseco he owed prosecutors an apology.

''All these folks were asking you to do was the basics,'' Glick said. ``It
was the deal of the century.''

Glick and prosecutors Jon Granoff and Joshua Gradinger said they believed
Canseco's time in jail had served as a wake-up call, and they believed his
remorse was sincere.

Glick refused to transfer Canseco's house arrest to California, where his
daughter lives. Canseco, the American League MVP in 1988, will have to
request permission from court officials to travel. He won't be required to
wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, but will have to report weekly to
probation officers, according to his attorney Gustavo Lage.

''And they can go to his house to check on him at any time, with no
notice,'' said Lage.

The Canseco twins, 38, grudgingly pleaded guilty in November to aggravated
battery for breaking the nose of an Opium Garden patron and splitting the
lip of another during a 2001 brawl.

The brothers maintained they were protecting Jose's date, who they said was
harassed by two men from California in town for a business convention.

Lage said the brothers were accepting the plea deals to get the case over
with and protect their families, not because they were guilty.

In exchange for the plea, Glick placed Jose Canseco on probation for three
years and ordered him to perform 250 hours of community service and take an
anger management course. He also ordered Canseco to pay court costs.

==========
  From Miami Herald:
Reality no show for Canseco
Jim DeFede/Commentary

Forget about MTV's Real World and The Osbournes.

Say goodbye to Anna Nicole Smith and The Bachelor.

I have the next big idea for a celebrity-driven reality TV show: This Old
Ballplayer, starring Jose Canseco.

On Monday, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick ordered Canseco to spend
the next two years confined to his house. The former all-star, who pleaded
guilty to battery charges last year for a fight at a Miami Beach nightclub,
violated the terms of his probation by failing to attend anger management
classes or participate in community service.

Canseco apologized Monday, saying he had no idea that people on probation
actually had to do what they had been ordered to do. He just saw them as
suggestions.

Canseco has been in jail for the past month, but will now do his time at
home, which, in my mind, offers the perfect recipe for a hit TV show.

We set up about 200 cameras in every room of Canseco's house, turn him
loose inside, and then sit back and watch his every move.

Just picture him: He gets up for breakfast, tosses a couple of Pop Tarts
into the toaster -- which the producers will rig to burn the slugger's
breakfast pastries -- and WHAMMO! The next thing you know, Canseco will be
cursing, ''This damn toaster!'' and beating it into submission with a
baseball bat that later could be auctioned off on eBay.

Or maybe one night, Canseco is watching a little baseball on his satellite
TV. It's the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded, there are two outs,
the game is on the line and just as the pitcher goes into his windup, the
producers flip a switch and kill the transmission. The next thing you know,
Canseco has put his foot right through the TV screen and is spewing a
string of profanities so obscene that by the time network censors bleep it
all out it will sound like the Emergency Broadcast Signal.

I'm telling you this has real potential. Especially as we are about to go
to war. The country needs a little mindless fun. And if anyone epitomizes
mindless fun, it's Jose Canseco.

You could even cross-pollinate with other shows. For instance, as one of
the stunts on NBC's Fear Factor, you have to run into Canseco's house,
throw a bucket of cold water on him while he's sleeping and try to make it
out of the house before he kills you.

Every week, Judge Glick could drop by for a surprise visit. There could be
other regular guests, such as Lorenzo Lamas, from ABC's Are You Hot?, who
could bring his red laser pen and point out telltale signs of possible
steroid abuse on Canseco's body.

The gang from CBS' CSI: Miami could come over for barbecues and then later
process the house for fingerprints, fibers and suspicious-looking stains.

Miami natives Trista from The Bachelorette and Colleen from Survivor could
spend an afternoon lounging around the pool in Canseco's backyard while he
watches excitedly from the window and debates whether he should break the
terms of his house arrest for a chance to join the bikini-clad beauties.
Meanwhile, John Walsh from America's Most Wanted would be waiting just out
of view, ready to pounce if he goes outside.

Maybe we get Canseco a few roommates like they do on MTV's Real World or
that awful WB show, The Surreal Life. What is Todd Bridges doing these
days? Is James Brown still alive? Better yet, how about Robert Blake? He's
out on bail. He could bring the cockatoo from his old show.

My God! Let's not forget O.J.

The Juice, Baretta and Canseco all in one house -- tell me that wouldn't
kill in the ratings. It would be the celebrity version of Oz, only without
all the prison rape scenes. Then again, if we can sell it on cable and
package it tastefully, who knows?

If we are lucky, the show could run for years.

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to send you guys the latest news on Jose, including his first
interview from jail.  I'll keep you posted as the news unfolds.

Hang in there, Jose...

-Mark

==========
  From the Miami Herald:
Canseco is jailed for violating probation
Slugger's plea for mercy dismissed
BY LISA ARTHUR
larthur@...

Jose Canseco Jr., a former Major League Baseball most valuable player,
could spend the next month in a Miami-Dade County jail after admitting to a
judge Tuesday that he's guilty of violating probation on assault charges.

When he finally gets back to court for a sentencing hearing on March 17, he
could face up to 15 years in prison.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick dismissed Canseco's pleas for mercy
and freedom on bond while awaiting sentencing.

''No bond,'' Glick said. He then instructed corrections officers to take
Canseco into custody.

Jailing probation violators is standard procedure. Because of his celebrity
status, Canseco will be held in an isolation cell for his own protection,
jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall said.

The former slugger, wearing a double-breasted dark suit, looked stunned as
he sat in the jury box with his hands cuffed in front of him.

His father, Jose Sr., and twin brother, Osvaldo ''Ozzie'' Canseco, looked
on in disbelief from the gallery.

''This is where faith comes in,'' said Ozzie Canseco, as one of his
brother's attorneys removed a chunky silver chain from around Jose's neck.

His father said Jose had been treated unfairly.

''The United States should be proud to have such a man as Jose Canseco in
this country,'' Jose Canseco Sr. said. ``This is very, very unfair.''

Lead attorney Gustavo Lage said after the hearing that an appeal or motion
to ask Glick for bond wasn't likely.

''I think the judge has already ruled on that,'' he said. ``Under the
circumstances I don't think that's an option.''

The Canseco twins, 38, grudgingly pleaded guilty in November to aggravated
battery and battery for allegedly breaking the nose of an Opium Garden
patron and splitting the lip of another during a 2001 brawl. Jose was also
charged with battery on a bouncer at the Miami Beach nightclub.

The brothers maintained they were protecting Jose's date, who they said was
harassed by two men from California, Christian Presley and Alan Cheeks, who
were in town for a business convention.

Lage said the brothers were accepting the plea deals to get the case over
with and protect their families, not because they were guilty.

Glick placed Jose Canseco on probation for three years and ordered him to
perform 250 hours of community service and take an anger management course.

He also ordered Canseco to pay court costs.

According to an arrest warrant issued Friday, Jose Canseco failed to make
monthly reports to his probation officer, failed to begin the community
service hours and failed to take the anger management course.

Another term of the probation prohibited him from leaving South Florida for
longer than 30 days at a time. He violated that, too, according to the
warrant. He's also behind on court costs and supervision costs. He owes
$247.91.

Lage said Canseco tried to contact his probation officer by phone and had
been in California involved in a child-custody battle.

He told Glick that his client was accepting responsibility by admitting his
guilt, but hoped to explain his actions to the judge.

Glick cut him off.

''Today was an opportunity for him to surrender to the court and he's going
to be taken into custody,'' Glick said. ``We'll set a hearing.''

Ozzie Canseco was sentenced to 18 months of probation, 200 hours of
community service and the anger management course. He has complied with his
probation.

Jose Canseco was the American League MVP in 1988

==========
  From the Toronto Sun:
Canseco doesn't get it
By STEVE BUFFERY

The FAN's Bob McCown did us a big favour last week when he interviewed
baseball slugger-turned-lunk head Jose Canseco on Prime Time Sports.

Canseco has one of those tell-all books coming out, probably next fall if
he can get out of jail in time to finish it, exposing Major League Baseball
for the dastardly organization it is.

In a telephone interview with the FAN, big bad Jose whined about the strife
and hardship MLB put him through during his long career, and how the
experience left him a bitter man.

DISGUSTED

"Because I am so disgusted with Major League Baseball, with what they've
done to me and others, I am getting rid of every single thing that I've had
involved with baseball," Canseco said.


"Everything will be auctioned off. Everything is gone. I don't want to see it."

The weird part is, Canseco never once mentioned the untold millions he made
from the game or any of the bonehead moves he made to embarrass the league
and the game itself.

He never mentioned the time he was busted for carrying a gun in his car, or
when he drove his wife's car off the road or his being charged with spousal
abuse of another wife or his role in the nightclub brawl that landed him in
jail this week.

Professional sport, unfortunately, has turned a lot of guys into spoiled
brats who believe because they are stars, society should cater to their
every whim and desire.

In a perfect world, we would boycott Canseco's book.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco did it for his daughter

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco, in his first interview since being jailed earlier
this week, said the pending custody battle for his six-year-old daughter is
more important than a possible return to baseball.

Speaking to ESPN Radio yesterday from Miami-Dade County Jail, the six-time
all-star outfielder said his first few days in jail have been uneventful
but embarrassing following his probation violation and sentencing Tuesday.

"I've only been here two-to-three days," Canseco said. "Everything's been
all right so far. I've never been in prison or in jail before, so I don't
know what to expect."

Canseco has been jailed, albeit briefly, in Miami at least twice
previously, first in 1992 on a battery charge and again in 1997 after a
domestic violence charge.

Canseco said he will meet with his lawyers in the next few days to see
where he stands legally. The former Toronto Blue Jay could remain in jail
until a March 17 sentencing hearing for violating terms of his probation
for a 2001 fight at a Miami Beach nightclub.

The arrest stemmed from a probation officer's report that he was not taking
his sentence seriously and had failed to begin anger control classes and
community service, and that he had left Florida for longer than 30 days,
all violations of the terms of his sentence.

Canseco said he was aware of the terms of his probation, but his custody
battle over his daughter had taken up his time and had led to the violations.

"I was aware, but I got caught up with a lot of things in L.A. with the
child-custody issue with my daughter and that just consumed me completely,"
Canseco said. "It's just ironic where I'm trying to spend time with my
daughter ... and I end up in jail for 30 days which keeps me away from my
daughter for 30 days. It's extremely difficult to handle.

"I had to come in every month and check in with my probation officer," he
added. "I meant no disrespect to anyone. ... I just was thinking about my
daughter, getting that solved and spending time with her, and look what
happened."

Jose's really outdone himself this time.

Don't get me wrong, you know I love the guy, but what was he
thinking?  Apparently, he's broken several of the conditions of his
probation.  As you remember, Jose plead guilty to his part of a Halloween
(2001) bar fight just before his trial was set to start last November.  He
was given three years probation, which included being required to complete
250 hours of community service, completing anger management classes, and
not leaving south Florida for more than 30 days.  It seems he hasn't
started his community service, hasn't enrolled in the anger management
classes, and to top it off, he's been living in L.A. for the past two months.

*sigh*

Hopefully this will be a wake up call for Jose.  I'm sure he has valid
reasons for violating his parole - he says he's been busy with a custody
battle in California - but he needs to get his priorities straight.  I
mean, with him in jail now (likely for the next month, at least), what are
the chances he's going to get custody of his daughter?  I hope he's
released soon, but even more than that, I hope he starts playing by the
rules when he gets out.  Jose is a good guy, and he's too smart to act like
this.

Anyway, that's my two cents.  I'll send more news as the story progresses.

-Mark

P.S. Wanna see a pic of Jose in cuffs?  Cruise over to Canseconet.com...


==========
  From the AP:
Canseco violates probation from nightclub brawl

MIAMI -- An arrest warrant was issued for former baseball star Jose Canseco
on Friday for violating his probation stemming from a nightclub brawl.

Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick issued the warrant after being told Canseco
has failed to begin community service, take anger control classes and not
leave Florida for longer than 30 days. Those were among the conditions of
his probation, as well as the payment of court costs and sending monthly
reports.

"The subject does not appear to take probation seriously,'' probation
officer Ileana Ortiz told Glick in a report. Ortiz said Canseco has been in
Los Angeles since Dec. 20.

Canseco's attorney, Angel Ruiz, said his client will appear before Glick at
an arraignment Tuesday. He declined further comment.

Canseco, 38, and his twin brother, Ozzie, fought two California men at the
Opium Gardens nightclub in Miami Beach on Oct. 31, 2001.

Canseco agreed to the probation terms when he pleaded guilty Nov. 5 to
felony aggravated battery and two counts of misdemeanor battery. His
brother, who played briefly in the majors, pleaded guilty to felony battery
and misdemeanor battery and also agreed to probation.

One of the men involved in the fight, Christian Presley, sued last month
for at least $1 million in a civil lawsuit.

A six-time All-Star, Jose Canseco ranks 26th on the all-time career home
run list with 446. He retired in May, finishing as a .266 hitter 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 Chicago White Sox.

In 1988, he was AL MVP with Oakland, teaming with Mark McGwire to become
the "Bash Brothers.''

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco could be jailed until March 17 hearing

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco was sent to jail Tuesday after violating his
probation for a 2001 nightclub brawl.

Jose Canseco is escorted out of a Miami courtroom after being ordered to jail.

The former major league slugger could be held until a scheduled March 17
hearing, Judge Leonard E. Glick ruled.

"I understand that I have to take responsibility,'' Canseco said. "I ask
for the mercy and understanding of the court.''

Shortly after, Glick ordered Canseco into custody.

"No bond,'' Glick said.

Wearing a dark double-breasted suit, the 38-year-old Canseco handed his
wallet and a thick silver necklace to his lawyer before being led out of
the courtroom, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Glick issued a warrant for Canseco's arrest Friday after being told the
six-time All-Star had failed to begin anger control classes and community
service, and that he had left Florida for longer than 30 days.

Those were among the conditions of his three-year probation, as well as the
payment of court costs and sending monthly reports.

Canseco ranks 26th in baseball history with 446 career homers. He retired
in May, finishing with .266 batting average, 1,407 RBIs and 200 stolen
bases in 1,887 games with seven clubs, including the Oakland Athletics,
Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

He and Mark McGwire teamed in Oakland as the "Bash Brothers,'' leading the
team to three straight World Series appearances from 1988-90 and the 1989
title. Canseco won the 1988 AL MVP award.

"The subject does not appear to take probation seriously,'' probation
officer Ileana Ortiz told Glick in a report filed last week and prompting
the arrest warrant. Ortiz said Canseco had been in Los Angeles since Dec. 20.

Canseco's attorney, Gustavo Lage, said his client was involved in a custody
battle in California and wasn't able to arrange the anger control classes.
Lage also said Canseco misunderstood the conditions of his community
service, believing those hours could be served at any time during the
three-year probation period.

"He knew he was running the risk that he would give up early termination of
his probation,'' Lage said.

Canseco and his twin brother, Ozzie, fought with two men at a nightclub in
Miami Beach on Oct. 31, 2001. Jose Canseco pleaded the next month.

Ozzie Canseco, in court with his brother Tuesday, has complied with the
terms of his probation.

Jose Canseco pleaded guilty to felony aggravated battery and two counts of
misdemeanor battery. His brother, who played briefly in the majors, pleaded
guilty to felony battery and misdemeanor battery.

Prosecutor Jonathan Granoff said sending a probation violator to jail was
"standard procedure.'' In a case heard just before Canseco's hearing began
Tuesday, Glick sent a probation violator to jail for 366 days.

Jose Canseco Sr. said his son has been mistreated by the court system.

"He's been treated very badly,'' Canseco Sr. said. "He's a nice guy. He's
done very good things in this country.''

Lage asked Glick to not send Jose Canseco to jail, saying the six-time
baseball All-Star is a highly visible public figure.

"He's not going anywhere,'' Lage argued, to no avail.

Canseco admitted last year that he used steroids during his baseball
career. He claimed that up to 85 percent of all major leaguers took
muscle-enhancing drugs during the years he played, and said he planned to
tell all about the alleged steroid abuse in baseball in a still-unpublished
book.

Canseco was born in Cuba and raised in Miami, the city he still calls home.

==========
Miami Herald:
Judge throws former ballplayer Canseco in jail
BY LISA ARTHUR
larthur@...

Jose Canseco Jr., a former Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player,
could spend the next month in a Miami-Dade County Jail after admitting to a
judge he's guilty of violating probation on assault charges.

When he finally gets back to court, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Leonard Glick dismissed Canseco's attorney's pleas
for mercy and freedom on bond for his client while awaiting a sentencing
hearing on March 17.

''No,'' Glick said. He then instructed corrections officers to take Canseco
into custody.

The former slugger, wearing a double-breasted dark suit, looked stunned as
he sat in the jury box with his hands cuffed in front of him as his
attorneys and the judge discussed scheduling. His father, Jose Sr., and
twin brother Osvaldo ''Ozzie'' Canseco looked on in disbelief.

The Canseco twins, 38, grudgingly pleaded guilty in November to aggravated
battery and battery for allegedly breaking the nose of one Opium Garden
patron and splitting the lip of another. Jose was also charged with battery
on a bouncer at the Miami Beach nightclub.

The brothers maintained they were protecting Jose's date, Amber Glick, who
they said was harassed by two men, Christian Presley and Alan Cheeks, here
from California for a business convention.

Glick place Jose on probation for three years, and ordered he perform 250
hours of community service and take an anger management course. He also
ordered Jose pay court costs.

According to an arrest warrant issued Friday, Jose Canseco failed to make
monthly reports to his probation officer, failed to begin the community
service hours or the anger management course and stayed out of South
Florida for a longer consecutive period of time than allowed.

He's also behind on court costs and supervision costs. He owes $247.91.

His attorney, Gustavo Lage, said Jose had tried to contact his probation
officer by phone and had been in California involved in a child custody battle.

Ozzie was sentenced to 18 months of probation, 200 hours of community
service and the anger management course. He has been meeting his obligations.

Hey everyone,

Sorry this is a little late.  I've been out of town and haven't had a
chance to get caught up until now.

-Mark

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Oh (Me and My) Brother!
Friday, January 3

Jose, Ozzie being sued for at least $1 million
Associated Press

MIAMI -- Former American League MVP Jose Canseco and his twin brother are
being sued for at least $1 million for beating a California man during a
Miami Beach barroom brawl.

Christian Presley of Laguna Beach, Calif., sued Canseco and his brother
Ozzie for battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and
conspiracy to commit battery. He filed suit Tuesday in Miami's Circuit Court.

Presley is one of two California men who fought the Canseco brothers at the
Opium Gardens nightclub on Oct. 31, 2001. The Cansecos pleaded guilty to
felony charges last year to avoid jail sentences.

Presley "suffered a fractured nose and lacerations to his mouth, disgrace,
humiliation and shame'' when beaten by the brothers, the suit says.

Angel Ruiz, the lawyer who represented Jose Canseco in the criminal case,
said "Mr. Canseco will defend himself and his brother will defend himself
in the lawsuit.''

He said another Miami attorney, Gustavo Lage, will represent the Cansecos
in this case. Lage did not immediately return a call Friday seeking comment.

Canseco pleaded guilty Nov. 5 to felony aggravated battery and two counts
of misdemeanor battery, agreeing to three years probation, 250 hours of
community service and to take anger control classes.

His brother pleaded guilty to felony battery and misdemeanor battery. Ozzie
Canseco must complete 18 months probation, 200 hours of community service
and the anger management classes.

Had they been convicted at trial, Jose Canseco could have gotten 31 years
in prison and his brother 17 years.

A six-time All-Star, Jose Canseco ranks 26th on the career homer list with
446. He retired in May, finishing as a .266 hitter 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 Chicago White Sox.

In 1988, he was voted AL MVP with Oakland, teaming with Mark McGwire to
become the "Bash Brothers.''

Ozzie Canseco had a brief major league career. He also played for two
seasons with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco, twin brother sued over bar brawl
Jan. 4, 2003

California man seeking $1 million `Suffered disgrace, shame' in beating

Former American League MVP Jose Canseco and his twin brother are being sued
for at least $1 million (U.S.) for beating a California man during a
Miami Beach barroom brawl.

Christian Presley of Laguna Beach, Calif., sued Canseco and his brother
Ozzie for battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and
conspiracy to commit battery. He filed suit Tuesday in Miami's Circuit Court.

Presley is one of two California men who fought the Canseco brothers at the
Opium Gardens nightclub on Oct. 31, 2001. The Cansecos pleaded guilty to
felony charges last year to avoid jail.

Presley "suffered a fractured nose and lacerations to his mouth, disgrace,
humiliation and shame" when beaten by the brothers, the suit says.

Hi everyone,

Looks like Jose is making the news again.  See for yourself below.

Happy 2003!
-Mark

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Canseco likes the villain role
By Dan Patrick

Jose Canseco called in to the radio show recently to say "Happy New Year."
And -- oh, by the way -- he still plans to publish his tell-all book.

Canseco said the book should come out sometime during spring training --
even if he signs with a team. But I find it highly unlikely that he would
drop names and remain in the game, playing against some of the players he
may have named.

It sounds as if he is using the book as a hammer over the head of Major
League Baseball. If he isn't allowed back in the game and doesn't get a
chance to hit 500 home runs, he will publish the book and air all the dirty
laundry. No team has contacted him yet, but -- whether he realizes it or
not -- his prospective book may be scaring off teams.

While he hasn't heard back directly from any ballplayers, Canseco said he
learned through the Beverly Hills Sports Council, the firm that used to
represent him, that some players have inquired to find out if they were
included in the book. But Canseco won't tell. He said the reason the book
has taken so long to complete is that he wants to tie up any loose ends and
make sure it is a strong book.

Yes, Canseco is quite the penman.

In the meantime, he is also talking about being an actor. Canseco wouldn't
be the first athlete to cross over from sports into acting. For instance,
Chuck Connors became "The Rifleman" after a 67-game major-league stint with
the Dodgers and the Cubs. Canseco recently got a nose job and wants to play
a villain, a character befitting his bad-guy image.

Baseball already has enough problems, from Pete Rose's potential
reinstatement to Ken Caminiti's steroid revelations to last season's
averted strike. But six weeks away from the pitchers and catchers reporting
to spring training, Canseco is still there -- batting cleanup.

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Ugliest moments of 2002

10. Jose Canseco tells all
His comments during Steroids Week and his threat to write a tell-all showed
the ugly side of this erratic superstar, who was given plenty of second
chances in baseball.

Hi everyone,

A lot of you have sent me email asking about Jose's book and when it's
going to be published.  Well, I finally have an answer for you.  See below.

Happy Holidays!
-Mark

==========
  From a Peter Gammons article on ESPN.com:

...Jose Canseco has hired his former agent and longtime friend Dennis
Gilbert to help him get into movies. Canseco is having cosmetic surgery on
his nose, then wants to get into films as an action hero. Maybe he can
write a book about how some of the action heroes get their
size.  Seriously, Gilbert and friends have convinced Canseco to put his
infamous book on hold...

Hey Canseco fans...

Jose has been in the news for the past couple of days.  Remember that bar
scuffle he and Ozzie were in last Halloween (2001)?  Well, here we are a
little over a year later and it's finally time for the criminal trial.  The
Canseco brothers insist they are innocent, but decided to plead guilty
anyway.  With the guilty plea, they will each receive probation and
community service.  Had they gone to trial and lost, they could have faced
up to 31 (Jose) and 17 (Ozzie) years in prison, so if you ask me, they did
the right thing.  It's just not worth the risk.

Anyway, all the details are below.  If there is a civil trial, and I
suspect there will be, things will get interesting.  I'm sure the guys that
were allegedly beat up by the Cansecos will be out for huge money, and they
will likely get a hefty settlement.  At least that's my guess.

I have no new news on Jose's book.  If I hear anything, I will let you know.

In other news, rumor has it Jose will be signing autographs on November
16th in Secacus, NJ.  Prices are $35 - $60, depending on what you are
having signed.  You can get more information here:
http://www.signingshotline.com/signings/results.asp?Player=Jose%20Canseco&Big10=\
1

Lastly, I want to make sure you guys all know something - I do not know
Jose personally, nor do I have any type of regular contact with him.  So
please, do not send me things (via email or regular mail) to pass on to
Jose.  Thanks for understanding!

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
Cansecos' trial opens; two rejected plea deal in August
Monday, November 4

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco buried his face in his hands, trying not to laugh as
one of the potential jurors told what she knew about his career.

''Does he play football or baseball?'' she said. ''He's not that big of an
issue for me.''

Canseco's baseball career wasn't an issue for many of the 25 people
interviewed Monday as jury selection began in the former AL MVP's trial on
felony battery charges.

While the majority of them knew snippets about the slugger, including
partial details of his October 2001 arrest, few potential jurors could name
Canseco's most recent team or any of his career numbers.

''He's a baseball player, but I don't even know which team,'' one man said.
''I'm not really a baseball fan to speak of.''

Welcome to Miami, where baseball isn't exactly the national pastime.

''I used to do track and field in high school and all the guys would talk
about him,'' the woman said. ''At that time, he was the thing. He made it
to the majors or the Super Bowl or whatever. That's how I got to know his
name.''

Canseco and his twin brother, Ozzie, are accused of aggravated battery for
fighting with two California men at a Miami Beach nightclub on Oct. 31,
2001. Each of them could spend up to 31 years in prison if convicted and
given the maximum sentence.

Jose Canseco told police that one of the men groped a woman who was a
companion of the brothers. Police said Jose Canseco grabbed one man by the
neck, punched him and broke his nose. Jose Canseco admitted pushing the
first man but denied hitting him. He said his brother pushed the other man.
Police said the man needed 20 stitches in his lip.

The judge urged the brothers and their attorneys not to speak with
reporters until after the trial.

The brothers turned down a plea agreement in August that would have given
them probation and community service -- a risky decision that led to
Monday's trial, which Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick expects to last into
next week.

''We couldn't do that. It didn't make any sense,'' Ozzie Canseco said.

The brothers have told the judge they passed lie-detector tests proving
their innocence. Now they have to convince a six-person jury.

''I'm not a sports person,'' another potential juror said.

Jose Canseco was a six-time All-Star and ranks 26th on the all-time career
home run list with 446. Cut by Montreal in spring training, he retired in
May as a Triple-A player for the Chicago White Sox.

Canseco finished his career as a .266 hitter 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. He also was the 1988 AL MVP with
Oakland, teaming with Mark McGwire to become the ''Bash Brothers.''

He grew up in Miami, was a high school standout there and even has a street
named after him. Ozzie Canseco, meanwhile, had a brief major league career
and played for two seasons with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears.

''I know they're famous baseball players,'' one potential juror said. ''One
of them is a future Hall of Famer, but I'm not a big baseball fan.''

Another man said Jose Canseco was one of his favorite baseball players.

''I pretty much have all his baseball cards,'' he said, then was stumped
when asked to name some of Canseco's former teams.

Then there was this from a Yankees fan: ''I liked him more than I liked the
Dodgers. The power he had to swing the bat, the speed he had on the bases.
He was good, then he was not so good.''

Jury selection will continue Tuesday.

==========
  From the AP:

Jose Canseco agrees to three years' probation

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco and his twin brother pleaded guilty Tuesday to
charges they beat up two men in a nightclub fight, agreeing to probation
and community service but avoiding prison time.

The Cansecos made the deal while their trial was in jury selection.

Jose Canseco, 26th on the career home run list, and his brother, former big
leaguer Ozzie, also will have to attend anger management classes.

Before the deal was approved, Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick questioned
Jose Canseco.

"If you want to go to trial, you'll get a fair trial. But you'll be
gambling with your life and other things," Glick said. "But if you want,
let's get this thing behind us. Do you want to accept the plea?"

Canseco replied: "I do."

Jose Canseco agreed to three years' probation, 250 hours of community
service and the anger control classes. Ozzie Canseco must complete 18
months' probation, 200 hours of community service and the anger classes.

The brothers were involved in a fight in Miami Beach on Halloween 2001.
Jose Canseco had faced up to 31 years in prison, and his brother faced up
to 17 years.

Jose Canseco told police that one of the men groped a woman who was a
companion of the brothers. Police said Jose Canseco grabbed one man by the
neck, punched him and broke his nose. Canseco admitted pushing the first
man but denied hitting him. Police said the man needed 20 stitches in his lip.

Jose Canseco pleaded guilty to one count of felony aggravated battery and
two counts of misdemeanor battery. His brother pleaded to one count of
felony battery and one misdemeanor battery count.

"It was very, very difficult for them to accept making a guilty plea," said
attorney Angel Ruiz, who represented Jose Canseco. "They did it because of
the possible dark consequences to their family and children."

Ruiz said that while no civil suit has been filed by three victims, they
expect litigation.

"This will all be about money," Ruiz said.

The state dropped one felony aggravated battery count for Jose Canseco and
one misdemeanor battery charge for his brother.

Prosecutors said it was a fair result.

"We treated them like any other citizen of Dade County in a similar
situation," state attorney Jonathan Granoff said. "But if it went to trial,
we could have proved our case. We had multiple independent witnesses."

Glick withheld judgment in the case pending completion of the sentence.
They would have no police record from this case if they do so.

The brothers turned down a plea agreement in August that would have given
them longer probation periods.

Jose Canseco hit 446 home runs, was a six-time All-Star and was the 1988 AL
MVP. He retired in May, finishing his career as a .266 hitter 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 Chicago White Sox.

Hey everyone...

Long time no Canseco updates, huh?  There hasn't been any news out
there.  Many of you have written in asking what the latest is regarding
Jose's book, and I haven't really had anything to tell you.  Below is a
recent article from Dan Patrick, who interviewed Jose last week.  It
focuses on the book, and it sounds like Jose is planning on going forward
with it.

Baseball just hasn't been the same this year without Jose, huh?  Oh
well.... all things come to an end eventually, I guess.

Take it easy,
Mark

==========
  From ESPN.com:
Canseco not going gently
By Dan Patrick
9/20/02

They say time heals all wounds. But four months removed from a bitter,
unwanted retirement, Jose Canseco is still angry. A recent radio guest of
mine, Canseco seems to be more adamant than he was back in May that his
tell-all book be published. Time has not softened his stance. If anything,
Canseco is digging in at the plate and continuing to take swings at those
he feels wronged him.

When we last checked in with Canseco, he had begrudgingly announced his
retirement from baseball just 38 home runs shy of the majestic 500 mark.

At the time, Canseco was toiling in the minor and independent leagues. But
no major-league team was willing to take a chance on the then-37-year-old
slugger, for reasons he claims are clearly unjust.

An agitated Canseco also claimed he was being blackballed by Major League
Baseball. And, like a lover scorned, Canseco lashed back at those he felt
turned on him.

He threatened to write a spicy tell-all book about the game and its
players, citing steroid use, infidelities and various indiscretions he
witnessed during his playing days.

At the time, as a member of the media, I was criticized for publicly
advising Canseco against writing the book. I stand by that advice. Often a
source of amusement for me and radio co-host Rob Dibble, baseball's
unwritten rules and code of ethics would make this book a nuclear can of
worms for its author. I also have definite opinions regarding selling out
your friends -- former or otherwise. It has been my experience that nothing
good comes from tattling.

The road to the bookstore has been a rough one for Canseco, who has come
across various obstacles in reaching his goal (none of which is his
conscience). One major red flag should be that Canseco can't find a
publisher to back his book -- or, rather, his potential lawsuit waiting to
happen. Surprisingly, that hasn't deterred Canseco from his goal. He plans
to absorb the repercussions and legal ramifications on his own.

A risky move, despite the fact that Canseco is protected by the First
Amendment. He's within his rights to make claims as he knows them to be
true. It will be up to the individuals named to prove their innocence. In
essence, they're guilty until proven innocent. It might not seem fair, but
it isn't up to Canseco to prove they did, it's up to them to prove they
didn't.

What's incredibly sad to me is that this book is not about protecting the
innocent or ridding baseball of its impurities. It's a book about one man's
quest to reach baseball immortality. It's about one man, lashing out
because he's 38 home runs shy of 500. True, he was denied that opportunity,
but by writing this book, I'm not sure he's lashing out at the right
people. And was he truly an innocent victim in all of this?

Sources close to me and close to the Expos organization didn't feel Canseco
was blackballed from the game. I'm told he had his chance at a starting job
but he wasn't taking the responsibility seriously enough. It was his job to
lose and he lost it.

Regardless, Canseco wants the world to know his life story. In this book
we'll learn all about the injustices and discriminations he has faced. And
we'll read the "indisputable proof" that he was being blackballed. In doing
so, perhaps we'll gain some insight as to why Canseco feels so hurt and
betrayed, why he can't let this go.

Canseco will also reveal whether he used performance-enhancing drugs during
his major-league career plus various other aspects of his life in the fast
lane. Unfortunately, what will be of real interest is what Canseco plans to
reveal about other players. No one should reap the benefits of that --
financially or otherwise.

At the conclusion of our interview, Canseco sensed our concern and said not
to cry for him. But in writing this book, Canseco has become his own worst
enemy. If this is how he'd like to be remembered, as a player and as a
human being, that's his prerogative. As Dibble pointed out, we're not the
ones who'll have to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a long time since you've heard from me, but there really
hasn't been much Canseco news out there.  Here are a few articles from the
past couple of weeks regarding the Canseco brothers court
appearances.  Apparently, the brothers turned down a plea agreement that
would have given them 5 years of probation, and will now stand trial.  In
Jose's words, "I would rather spend 31 years in prison than to lie and
compromise myself."

That's a pretty bold statement.  Personally, I'm thinking after a few days
in the slammer, I'd be willing to lie and compromise myself, but maybe
that's just me.

Anyway, all the details are below.  As always, if and when I hear anything
else, I will let you know...

-Mark

==========
  From the AP:
8/12/02:
Cansecos consider deal to avoid trial

MIAMI -- Former American League MVP Jose Canseco and his twin brother
considered a plea deal Monday to avoid trial over a Halloween scuffle at a
local nightclub.

Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's office,
said Monday the deal would require the brothers to plead guilty, but the
charges would not go on their criminal records.

Jose Canseco would receive five years' probation without a chance of early
termination, Griffith said. His brother, Ozzie, would face three years'
probation.

Both would also have to perform community service, stay away from the
victims and reimburse legal and medical bills of about $2,000, Griffith
said. They would also have to take anger control classes and undergo an
alcohol abuse evaluation, he added.

Prosecutors offered the former baseball players a plea on Friday. Defense
attorneys Angel Ruiz Jr. and Gustavo Lage said their clients needed time to
mull the proposed deal.

The brothers were scheduled to enter their plea at a 9 a.m. hearing
Tuesday. If they reject the offer, Griffith said a trial date would be set
within two weeks.

Jose Canseco faces two felony counts and one misdemeanor, and his brother
faces two misdemeanors and one felony.

The charges stem from fight at a Miami Beach nightclub where the brothers
were accompanied by three women on Halloween. Jose Canseco, who lives in
Miami, said another patron groped one of the women.

Police said Jose Canseco grabbed one man by the neck, punched him and broke
his nose. A second man needed 20 stitches in his lip. Both were California
tourists.

Jose Canseco admitted pushing the man but denied hitting him.

He was prosecuted twice for domestic violence in 1992 and 1998 and was
ordered to undergo counseling both times.

The slugger ranks 26th on the career home run list with 446. The 1988 AL
MVP was picked for six All-Star teams. He retired in May.

Ozzie Canseco had a brief major league career and played for two seasons
with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears. He is a Miami Beach resident.

==========
  From the AP:
Canseco's lawyer warned by judge
8/13/02

MIAMI -- Former American League MVP Jose Canseco skipped a court hearing
Tuesday where he and his twin brother were supposed to enter pleas on
charges stemming from a nightclub scuffle on Halloween.

Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick angrily told Canseco's attorney that his
client faces arrest if he does not attend the next hearing, which he set
for Aug. 23.

Attorney Angel Ruiz said doctors told the former slugger he could not
travel from California while he recovers from voluntary surgery he had last
week. Ruiz did not say what type of surgery Canseco had.

Ozzie Canseco arrived about 20 minutes late at Tuesday's hearing, saying
"someone had stolen my car keys.''

Glick was not satisfied with the excuse.

"Sometimes we feel like the Rodney Dangerfields of the judicial system. We
don't get no respect,'' he said. "We told these defendants that they had to
be here on time.''

The charges stem from a fight that the Canseco brothers got into with two
California tourists at a Miami Beach nightclub on Halloween.

Jose Canseco told police that one of the tourists groped a woman the
brothers were with. Police said Jose Canseco grabbed one man by the neck,
punched him and broke his nose. Jose Canseco admitted pushing the first man
but denied hitting him.

Jose Canseco said his twin pushed the other man. Police said the man needed
20 stitches in his lip.

Jose Canseco faces two felony counts of aggravated battery with bodily harm
and one misdemeanor battery count. Ozzie Canseco was charged with one
felony count of aggravated battery and two misdemeanors.

Prosecutors offered the brothers a plea deal last week. Under the offer,
they had to plead guilty to the original charges, but the charges would not
go on their criminal records.

Among the terms of the plea deal, Jose Canseco would receive five years'
probation without a chance of early termination. Ozzie Canseco would face
three years' probation.

Glick said Tuesday that if the brothers did not attend the Aug. 23 hearing,
prosecutors would withdraw the plea offer and arrest warrants would be
issued for both brothers. A trial date would then be set for the following
week, he added.

Ruiz and Ozzie Canseco's attorney, Gustavo Lage, said their clients were
seriously considering the plea offer.

Ozzie Canseco declined comment as he left the hearing.

Jose Canseco was prosecuted twice for domestic violence in 1992 and 1998
and was ordered to undergo counseling both times.

The slugger ranks 26th on the career home run list with 446. The 1988 AL
MVP was picked for six All-Star teams. He retired in May.

Ozzie Canseco had a brief major league career and played for two seasons
with the minor league Newark (N.J.) Bears. He lives in suburban Fort
Lauderdale.

==========
  From the AP:
8/23/02
Canseco brothers turn down probation offer

MIAMI -- Jose Canseco and his twin brother turned down a plea agreement
Friday and will stand trial on felony charges related to a bar fight last year.

The former AL MVP and his brother Ozzie each are accused of aggravated
battery for fighting with two California men at a Miami Beach nightclub on
Oct. 31.

Jose Canseco reacted defiantly when told in court Friday that he could
spend up to 31 years in prison if convicted and given the maximum sentence.

"I would rather spend 31 years in prison than to lie and compromise
myself,'' he told Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Leonard E. Glick. The
judge scheduled the trial for Nov. 4.

Under the plea agreement offered by prosecutors, Canseco would have
received five years' probation, and his brother three years. They told the
judge they had passed lie-detector tests proving their innocence.

"This is the worst nightmare a celebrity athlete can go through,'' Canseco
told reporters outside the courtroom.

Jose Canseco told police at the scene that one of the California men groped
a woman the brothers were with. Police said Jose Canseco grabbed one man by
the neck, punched him and broke his nose. Jose Canseco admitted pushing the
first man but denied hitting him.

Jose Canseco said his brother pushed the other man. Police said the man
needed 20 stitches in his lip.

Jose Canseco was the 1988 AL MVP with Oakland. He was a six-time All-Star
and ranks 26th on the all-time career home run list with 446. He retired in
May.

Canseco was prosecuted twice for domestic violence-related charges, in 1992
and 1998. He was ordered to get counseling both times.

Ozzie Canseco played in 24 major-league games over three years during the
early 1990s, with Oakland and St. Louis. He faces slightly lesser charges
than his brother and could be sentenced to a maximum of 17 years if convicted.

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.