Results tagged ‘ Jose Canseco ’
Will the BBWAA keep Pudge Rodriguez out of the Hall of Fame? Only God knows.
Any elite player’s retirement brings forth the question: will he make the Hall of Fame? Pudge Rodriguez’s retirement is no different. Of course, the answer to that question is more complicated.
On the merits he’s a no-brainer: He has the most games caught of any catcher, totaled nearly 3,000 hits, won an MVP award, a World Series MVP award and was arguably the best defensive catcher of all time. That’s normally a first-ballot ticket to Cooperstown.
But then there’s the PED problem. As we’ve seen in recent years, players with any PED associations are basically blackballed from Hall of Fame consideration no matter how strong their on-the-field case is. And that goes for those players who were admitted or documented users like Mark McGwire and for those who merely have whisper campaigns waged against them like Jeff Bagwell.
Basically, if a bunch of moralizing writers think you’re dirty, you’re not getting into the Hall of Fame.
So where does Pudge Rodriguez fall on that scale? He was not named in the Mitchell Report. He has not been revealed to be on the famous list of 103 ballplayers who tested positive during baseball’s pilot testing program in 2004. He has not admitted to any PED use and hasn’t otherwise been brought into the greater PED scandal via legal action or the like.
But:
- Jose Canseco wrote in his book that he personally injected Pudge with steroids;
- When asked if he was on the list of 103, Rodriguez responded “Only God knows”;
- He played for the Texas Rangers in the 1990s; and
- His physique varied fairly radically over the years, with it being beefier pre-testing and noticeably smaller once testing was implemented.
- Once he was fingered by Canseco not only did his physique change considerably, but he went from being a guy who hits over .300 with 20+ HRs to one who only sniffed .300 once and averaged around 13 HRs per season at best)
Did he do PEDs? Hell, I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t be shocked if he did, but I don’t know for sure.
But I do know that while, in a court of law, all of those bullet points would represent circumstantial evidence at best, inadmissible hearsay at worst, Hall of Fame voting doesn’t operate at that standard. In the world of baseball, those bullet points — as well as any more or less reasonable suspicions that Pudge did, in fact, take PEDs — are more than enough to get writers to withhold votes.
And unless something happens to change the current pattern of Hall of Fame voting in the next five years — like, say, people electing Barry Bonds because, Jesus, it’s dumb to have a Hall of Fame without Barry Bonds — I think Rodriguez will be on the outside looking in for some time.
11 Baseball Legends Who Were Legendary Assholes
"Raise your hand if you're a dick..."
By: Chris Morgan
Baseball is as synonymous with America as mom, apple pie, and morbid obesity, which probably goes hand in hand with the apple pie. We’ve all heard the names Ruth, DiMaggio, Aaron, these are the legends of the game who inspire us with awe and wonder.
However, with any group there’s sure to be a certain number of assholes, and baseball is no different. Maybe a little worse, in fact.
If, for even a moment, you held on to a shred of possibility it wasn’t all about the money, that was blown out of the water when he decided to write a second book which “had stuff” on the likes of A-Rod and Junior Griffey, two players who have never shown up in any steroids investigation. This means one of two things: Canseco was making shit up because he’s a dick, or he willingly held out the most surprising allegations from his first book in favor of turning his best friends in first, which makes him an even bigger dick.
Both of his wives have cited him for domestic violence, and both later divorced him. His second marriage was the classic American love story; boy meets girl working at Hooters, boy marries girl, boy hits girl, boy is arrested and put on probation, girl divorces boy, girl poses in Playboy using his last name. If those kids couldn’t make it work, what chance do the rest of us have?
There’s more to the story, like when he tried to blackmail Magglio Ordonez into giving him money to keep his name out of his second book. We emailed Bob Woodward to see if he ever tried blackmailing Gerald Ford, but he didn’t get back to us. The Canseco saga does have a happy ending though. Jose recently lost a “celebrity” boxing match to former NFL player Vai Sikahema in which Canseco was knocked out in the first round. Now if there was only some way we could make that happen seven or eight hundred more times we’d be good.
Cheap. Ass. Bastid.
#10 – Charles Comiskey:
Comiskey is best known for being the former owner of the Chicago White Sox, and for their field which was named after him, before it was changed to U.S. Cellular Field in honor of Ulysses Stanton Cellular.
However, back in the day, he was best known for being a miserably cheap bastard. It stands to reason that if you own a professional sports team, you have a shitload of money, and if you spend that money to buy a sports team, something that is utterly frivolous, it stands to reason that to cheap out on running that team makes you quite the douchebag. It’s just logic.
Charlie Comiskey was one such douchebag, paying his players substandard wages in a time before free agency, when they had no choice but to accept them. He promised one of his pitchers a $10,000 dollar bonus if he won thirty games in a season, but benched him right before he could reach that mark, preferring to save the money at the risk of losing some games. Also he wouldn’t pay for his player’s laundry. To reiterate, he bought a professional sports team, built them a stadium, then decided he’d rather they look like hobos than pay for laundry.
Of course, his stinginess ended up leading to the Black Sox Scandal, in which his team threw the World Series for cash. Cash, that one can presume went toward not smelling like shit.
Jose & Ozzie Canseco: The Brother's Dim
Wait. You want me to do what?
Sometimes life just gives you little gifts. Jose Canseco is one of those presents life presented us with a long, long time ago and over the last 20 years or so the man has proven to be a gift that keeps on giving.
Adding to his list of less-than-normal activities, Jose Canseco reportedly didn’t feel like participating in a Celebrity Boxing match this past weekend.
However, rather than completely bailing on the event, he stole an idea from the annals of bad television. He opted for the ol’ “twin switcharoo”, went all “Parent Trap” on our asses and sent his twin brother in his place.
I’m pretty sure this is one of those stories that couldn’t be made up. Won’t guarantee it. But am pretty damn sure.
The mouth-breather failed to show up for the fight against Billy Padden in front of almost 500 paying customers Saturday at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Florida and instead sent his twin brother Ozzie Canseco, according to “Celebrity Boxing” promoter Damon Feldman.
Feldman says he already paid the bad boy of baseball and “Celebrity Apprentice” cast-mate $5,000 for the fight and that Ozzie Canseco pretended to be Jose and demanded the remainder of his purse, $5,000 in cash, refusing the contractually agreed to payment via check. “Jose” aka Ozzie refused to fight without the money.
Feldman says Ozzie, who enjoyed a brief MLB career himself, was only outed after a photographer noticed that he was missing a tattoo on his arm that Jose has.
So the Brother’s Dim didn’t think anyone would notice the missing body ink on the guy stepping into the ring for this event? I can A. see a whole lot of thought went into this one and B. immediately wondered if Jose had tried to send poor Ozzie in to get his ass beat on his behalf in his MMA debut versus the 7’2″ Hong Man Choi last year.
I know that Ozzie, who has long been overshadowed by his brothers baseball career and zany antics, probably hasn’t been doin’ much more than crashing on Jose’s couch whilst pulling his best Kato Kaelin ever since he washed out of baseball in the 80′s but c’mon…this has to be a new low, even for a Canseco.
I should have made Ozzie come to this thing =(
Once the attempted Scooby Doo-like switch was discovered Canseco refused to return the money and wouldn’t return phone calls seeking comment.
However, he did post a bunch of stuff “related” to the event on Twitter:
Be very careful with Damon feldman who runs celebrity boxing he will not pay you if you fight for him
Damon feldman will not fulfil his part of the bargain
let’s see who is smart enough to figure out what happened at the boxing match
is anyone out there smart enough to figure it out or are you all a bunch of hateful morons
the truth is always hidden from the public to create villains and heroes which 1 are you truly
seek the truth before reacting
just remember the media is write 20 percent of 50 percent of the time
how can you haters being so ignorant it’s amazing
I am still waiting for an intelligent scenario
First of all, to misspell “right” as “write” in a criticism of the media is either a brilliant example of misdirection or the dumbest thing of all time. Based on this douchebag’s career arc I think we all know it’s the latter.
Living the surreal life Jose?
Beyond that, his daring people to “figure out what happened at the boxing match” and later writing “I am still waiting for an intelligent scenario” makes me think Canseco is just hoping someone suggests a scenario so good that he can actually use it as an excuse.
This whole thing reads like a super depressing, down on your luck version of all the kids movies where identical twins switch places with each other at school one day and the teachers never notice a thing as hilarity ensues.
In this version one twin is being paid $10,000 to get beat up in front of 500 people and the other twin is willing to get beat up in his place for what is presumably less than the full $10,000. The whole thing falls apart over tattoos, which is maybe the most fitting aspect of the entire story.
Talk about your cracked out after-school special!
The brothers Canseco have done this type of switch before for autograph sessions and things of that nature, but one has to wonder if this is the first time these jackasses have pulled these kind of shenanigans (including Major League Baseball games perhaps?).
“I’ve worked with him before,” Feldman said. “Except now I’ve got to look back at the pictures at the time and look if I ever really met Jose Canseco.”
Prophet or pariah?
All things aside in this great big mess I have to say that, honestly, if you’re paying to watch Jose Canseco box…you pretty much deserve to get stuck with Ozzie. Seriously, why would you want to go watch the tainted former MVP perform in the ring?
Perhaps the saddest part of this whole freak show that is Jose’s life is the fact that this is the guy that cleaned up baseball.
Bud Selig and his merry band of nitwits tried their best to discredit him. Former players like Curt Schilling took to their blogs and lambasted him. Players like Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire his behind their representatives.
But in the end, Canseco was right. And they were all so very, very wrong.
There is something incredibly pathetic in that fact.
