Thursday, June 21, 2001
Canseco's lure remains intoxicating
By Ray Ratto Special to ESPN.com
A word of caution for anyone in the Chicago White Sox organization who
thinks the signing of Jose Canseco is a bad idea: Keep your complaints to
yourself.
Jose Canseco has been playing in Newark looking for a chance.
Plainly, this is a man who has the power to cloud the minds of others.
He can alter opinions telepathically. He can make people do his will. He can
mess you up with just a raised eyebrow.
Either that, or he's just irresistible.
Canseco's return to the big stage, albeit with the White Stockings, is an
odd reminder that some folks are just naturally gifted enough to convince
others that their gifts can still be mined. After all, this is the big
galoot's eighth chance, and seventh big-league team; his last stop was with
the Newark Bears of an independent league, and it wasn't as though he was
hitting .452 or anything.
But he is Jose Canseco, just as he was Jose Canseco when he came up with
the A's in 1985, and with the Rangers, Red Sox, A's again, Blue Jays, Devil
Rays and Yankees. All he needs is to get untracked, to find the swing that
launched a lot of pitchers' next careers.
At least that's the theory that the Sox are clinging to, despite the
fact that they play in a park that doesn't reward what Canseco does best --
hit a fly ball. They need a power hitter now that Frank Thomas is done for
the year, and though they are trying their best, the illusion of Jose Canseco
apparently trumps the reality of Paul Konerko and Carlos Lee.
But how, you wonder. Canseco has been a model study of perseverance as
his once-sure Hall of Fame career has turned into a Moebius strip of false
starts and stutter steps. We cannot fault his desire to keep at it until he
either relocates his game or abandons even the last hope.
What is unusual, though, is that there is another general manager (Kenny
Williams) who sees Canseco as he was in Oakland in the late '80s, just as
Brian Cashman (well, George Steinbrenner) did before him, and Chuck LaMar did
before him, and Gord Ash did before him, and Sandy Alderson did before him,
and Dan Duquette before him, and Tom Grieve before him.
General managers aren't normally this forgiving. They usually prefer
some young buck they drafted and nurtured through the low minors to someone
who has toured the big leagues like those civilians who try to see a game in
every park every year in hopes of getting three paragraphs in USA Today under
a headline, "Another Person Blows Summer Vacation."
But Jose Canseco is plainly a different case. He has a personal charm
that is undeniable, but that usually means a broadcasting job. He has an
indomitable will to keep playing, but that usually results in a coaching job,
or at least a minor-league managing job.
Mostly, though, what he has is a four-year stretch during the first Bush
administration in which he was the most feared player in baseball, and guys
like that are hard to come by without a nine-figure contract in hand.
And the White Sox are hoping to see signs of that dominance, even though
it has been dormant for nearly a decade now. This is plainly a case of hope
springing external.
Makes you wonder how many teams will try to coax Cal Ripken out of
retirement this winter, doesn't it?
It should, anyway. Coming back from retirement has become the cheapest
ploy in sports; you almost have to read the obituary page to find men or
women who have truly given up any intention of playing again.
But Canseco has never retired. He's talked about it, thought about and
even threatened to do it, but he's kept plugging at it, through surgeries,
through dismal seasons, through even the gall of being signed (and unused) by
the Yankees in the latter half of 2000.
Not that the Yankees should necessarily have made room for him on
principle, mind you. They won a World Series with him mostly watching, so
it's hard to make the case that he was underused.
But the Yankees bought into the past potential just as the White Sox are
doing now, and that may be Jose Canseco's greatest skill ever -- to hint at
greatness even when that greatness is years behind him.
It is hard not to imagine the possibilities, though. Kenny Williams
couldn't resist, and if it doesn't work out in Chicago, someone else may
decide it can on another team. Jose Canseco is that intoxicating.
All in all, a pretty good life skill to have.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
