ESPN.com - Former slugger Canseco will pitch his own book

ESPN.com: Sports Business

Wednesday, September 4, 2002
Updated: September 10, 10:33 PM ET
Former slugger Canseco will pitch his own book

By Darren Rovell
ESPN.com

Shortly after retiring in mid-May, Jose Canseco sent shockwaves through the sports world, vowing he would write a tell-all book that would name some of the "85 percent" of Major League Baseball players he claims use steroids.


	Jose Canseco will have to do more than tip his own hat in retirement. He'll have to publish his own book.

Three and a half months later, it is uncertain whether Canseco's book will ever be published. Late last week, Canseco's representatives told his book agent, Ron Laitsch, that he would not sign with the major publisher that supposedly had offered him a mid six-figure advance. Instead, he has decided to publish the book himself.

"With the scope of what he wanted to do, many of the publishers we pitched it to were concerned that all the profits they could potentially make would be eaten up by a lawsuit," Laitsch said. "A tell-all book works fine, but there was a feeling that the expose could really cut into people's income by hurting a major athlete's marketability."

In meetings with publishers, Canseco shared the names of players he said would be included in the book. The publishers were sworn to confidentiality, but a source familiar with the negotiations said Canseco admitted he had used steroids at times throughout a 17-year career in which he hit 446 home runs.

By self-publishing, Laitsch said it would allow Canseco to make more off the sale of each book, but the 1988 American League MVP also would be more vulnerable to legal action.

"If you self-publish, any lawsuit is going to go directly against you, the writer and the printer," Laitsch said. "If you have a large publisher, they have the insurance to cover that sort of thing and an athlete is more willing to take on a group of individuals over a big corporation."

Author Bill Chastain, who has already interviewed Canseco many times, said the book is about halfway done, but "there are still some hurdles to leap over" before it will be ready to be published. Canseco and his lawyer Louis Hillman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Canseco has a Nov. 4 court date on two felony counts of aggravated battery and one misdemeanor battery count for allegedly injuring a man in a Miami Beach night club last Halloween.

Laitsch said promotional plans for the book with the major publishing house, which he would not name, included tours to every big league city.

Would-be owner says he's still a player
Alabama lawyer-turned-businessman Donald Watkins says, despite baseball's recent labor troubles, he is still very interested in acquiring a baseball team.


	Donald Watkins, right, once had an interest in buying the Minnesota Twins.

"From time to time, I do ask myself if I am crazy," Watkins said. "I look to my left, I look to my right and I see nobody on this landscape but me."

In April, Watkins reportedly offered Disney around $200 million for the Anaheim Angels, a transaction Watkins said has been delayed because of the potential work stoppage. Last spring, Watkins inquired about purchasing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Since then, he has expressed interest in moving the Montreal Expos to Washington D.C., and keeping the Twins in Minnesota.

His attempts to buy the Twins were thwarted in May, after team president Jerry Bell wrote a letter to the state legislature indicating that Watkins "did not demonstrate his ability to secure $150 million in funds."

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Watkins, who would become Major League Baseball's first African-American owner of a team, said team officials never told him they had a problem with his financial capacity, which he says is very substantial but is tough to determine because his net worth is tied up in privately held investments. Although Watkins has been focused on the Angels, he hasn't ruled out looking at other teams, especially if some owners file for bankruptcy and he can get a bargain-basement price.

"I'm not unmindful of how the commissioner got his team," said Watkins, who claimed he has spent $2 million over the past five months on accountants, law firms, investment bankers and an appraiser. Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig bought the bankrupt Seattle Pilots in 1970 for $10.8 million.

Angels spokesman Tim Mead said the team, as of now, plans to be under Disney ownership through the 2003 season.


	Kim Adler struck an endorsement deal on the Internet.

Bowling for dollars
Women's bowler Kim Adler sold a skirt patch sponsorship for $14,389.89 on eBay on Saturday. The 35-year-old, who has earned $748,322 throughout her 13-year career and is currently ranked No. 4 on the Women's Professional Bowlers Association Tour, is believed to have been the first athlete or team to have successfully sold on a sponsorship on the auction site.

"I'm not surprised about the final price, considering what other athletes get," Adler said.

Last year, the B.C. Open tried to sell its title sponsorship on the site to no avail. The winning bidder, New York-based Pacific Pools, will have its logo displayed on Adler's skirt when the new season starts up on Sept. 15.

"Where else can you get this exposure at this price?" asked Bill Wiley, marketing director of Pacific Pools, which sells 8,000 to 10,000 swimming pools a year. "We don't sell swimming pools to movie stars, we sell them to middle America and there isn't any sport that everyday Americans get involved with as much as bowling."

Adler said she became the first bowler on the women's tour to have a non-bowling sponsor. She had previously been sponsored by Kiwi computers and Clabber Girl baking powder. Adler said she's allowed to have one more sponsor and says she'll probably sell that sponsorship to one of the bidders that didn't win the eBay auction. Coupon producer Valpak, an orange juice company, Web hosting services and sports memorabilia companies all bid for the patch, Adler said.

Each time she appears on TV, her skirt patch can be seen for a total of 20 minutes, she said.

NFL jersey sales
Rank	Player	Pos.	Team
1.	Brian Urlacher	LB	Bears
2.	Tom Brady	QB	Patriots
3.	Eddie George	RB	Titans
4.	Emmitt Smith	RB	Cowboys
5.	Jeff Garcia	QB	49ers
6.	Keyshawn Johnson	WR	Buccaneers
7.	Jerome Bettis	RB	Steelers
8.	Ricky Williams	RB	Dolphins
9.	Daunte Culpepper	QB	Vikings
10.	Donovan McNabb	QB	Eagles
11.	Brett Favre	QB	Packers
12.	Michael Vick	QB	Falcons
13.	Jevon Kearse	DE	Titans
14.	Joey Galloway	WR	Cowboys
15.	Champ Bailey	CB	Redskins
16.	Jerry Rice	WR	Raiders
17.	Terrell Owens	WR	49ers
18.	Curtis Martin	RB	Jets
19.	David Carr	QB	Texans
20.	Charles Woodson	CB	Raiders
Jersey sales April 1, 2002-July 31,2002 Source: NFL

SI now a tabloid?
Sports Illustrated tennis writer Jon Wertheim found out just how many people don't pay attention to the latest movies, look at photo credits or read the last line of long magazine articles.

This past week, Wertheim wrote about Simonya Popova, a beautiful 17-year-old player from Uzbekistan that no one knew about. Although the article had comments from tennis insiders, including tennis coach Nick Bollettieri and sports agent Max Eisenbud, the article also had the clues: Simonya was a take-off on the virtual actress created in the new movie "S1m0ne," the photo credit said it was an illustration and the last line of the story reads, "if she only existed."

For some, that was not enough.

Guy Christman, a 40-year-old man from Pennsylvania, said he didn't finish the article before spending $45 on registering simonyapopova.com, simonyapopova.org and simonyapopova.net last week.

"I read most of it, saw the picture and said to myself, 'this girl is going to be a household name,' " Christman said. "The description as well as the picture had me sold and probably sold every man in America."

Colleagues at Christman's workplace realized that he had bought into the hoax and had someone call pretending to be Simonya's father, demanding that he give back the Web site or be threatened with legal action.

"My girlfriend thought I was going to jail," Christman said. "I was reading all these Web sites that said that the least I would owe for infringing on a recognized name would be $1,000 and it could be as much as $100,000 per site."

Wertheim told The Associated Press that the article "was meant in good fun, playful and hopefully creative."

Luck of the Irish important for NBC
Notre Dame's 22-0 victory over Maryland on Saturday night might have signaled the return of a winning era in South Bend. Certainly, NBC executives hope that's the case.

The Irish reportedly earn $8 million in television revenue from the network, but ratings dropped sharply by some 500,000 households in 2001, when the Irish finished 5-6. In 2000, when the Irish finished 9-3 and lost in the Fiesta Bowl to Oregon State, NBC broadcasts of Notre Dame football drew about three million households.

NBC, which will broadcast five Irish games this year including the next two games against Purdue and Michigan, first signed a contract with Notre Dame in 1991. That contract has been renewed twice and runs through the 2005 season. According to a recent ESPN Sports Poll, Notre Dame is the most popular college football team in the nation, as 5.7 percent of Americans claimed to be Irish fans.

With the win, Notre Dame is now ranked No. 24 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll. "It is better to be ranked than not ranked and at this stage of the game it doesn't mean anything," Notre Dame head coach Tyrone Willingham said Tuesday.

For those keeping score at home
Surprise, surprise. The boys from Louisville weren't using Louisville Sluggers to propel themselves to the Little League Championship over Sendai, Japan. Wilson, in a recent news release, boasted that six of the nine players in Louisville's starting lineup, including game-winning home-run hitter Aaron Alvey, used their bats.

Wilson, which is also the manufacturer of the official baseball used during the Little League World Series, did not pay either the team or players to use their products, said John Heitkemper, a spokesman for Wilson Team Sports. Lance Van Auken, director of media relations for Little League Baseball Inc., said manufacturers are allowed publicize the connection between the winning team and their product.

Coming to a retailer near you


	Separated at birth? It's Oregon coach Mike Bellotti as a Celebriduck.

The Celebriduck, the successor to the bobblehead as the sports promotion of choice, will hit retail outlets soon. Rubber ducky-like collectibles that bare the likenesses of 17 NBA players, including Houston Rockets center Yao Ming and Chicago Bulls point guard Jay Williams, will be sold at stores later this month.

Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants will be among 21 Major League Baseball ducks also being sold at stores this month, with a suggested retail price of $12. Thirteen NHL ducks will be on shelves in October, while, later in the fall, four NASCAR drivers from Roush Racing -- Mark Martin (Viagra logo included), Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth -- will be featured on Celebriducks.

The company also will introduce 25 mascots from colleges and universities, including Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State and Tennessee, which will be out before the end of the college football season.

"It's very busy around here," said Celebriducks founder Craig Wolfe. "We did 22 ducks over four years and now we have 100 ducks to finish just for the fall."

Not-so-perfect ending for Larsen
Don Larsen's perfect game collection, including the last ball from his 1956 World Series perfect game, sold for $120,750 in a recent Mastronet auction. Other highlights from the auction, which closed on Aug. 23 and generated $6.5 million in revenue, included a 1927 New York Yankees signed baseball ($85,904), a 1951 Mickey Mantle Bowman rookie card ($65,777) and Ernie Davis' Syracuse jersey from his 1961 Heisman Trophy year ($33,225).

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espnpub.com