ESPN.com - Paranoid? No way, Jose!

ESPN.com: Page 2

Monday, May 20, 2002
Paranoid? No way, Jose!

By Jim Caple
Page 2 columnist

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 was all smiles ... until Jose brought up "Shanghai Surprise."

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?


	Ozzie Canseco conspired to keep his brother out of Cooperstown -- before they were even born.

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@hotmail.com.