Journalism won’t die if you donate. Support Voice of San Diego today!
Whoa! This just in: 41-year-old Jose Canseco has joined the San Diego SurfDawgs.
We always joke in the office about the number of press releases the SurfDawgs send out, but this one made all the others worth it.
Take a look:
The Golden Baseball League announced today that former American League Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Home Run Champion Jose Canseco has agreed to contract terms with the league and will join the San Diego Surf Dawgs beginning Monday, July 3rd and will play in the game that night at 7:05 PM versus the Chico Outlaws in Chico, CA.
Ha! How classic. In case you’re not familiar with the SurfDawg’s, they’re a professional team but their Golden Baseball League isn’t associated with the traditional minor league system. The league actually owns all the teams in it.
The team plays at San Diego State and you can read just how much David Moye’s son liked going to a game here
The SurfDawgs, of course, have done something like this before. Last year, Rickey Henderson hoped to use the SurfDawgs to gain enough of a profile to get one last opportunity to play in the majors.
Canseco’s another Dawg entirely, though. The grenades he threw with his book on steroids in baseball are still exploding.
Though many of the alleged steroid users about whom he wrote in the book later went on to make complete asses out of themselves when confronted with his accusations, Canseco was unrepentant and downright proud of his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He said they kept him looking and feeling younger.
The SurfDawgs, then, don’t hide from the obvious questions, or do they?
A longtime sports and pop culture icon, Canseco’s notoriety raised to record heights in 2005 with the publication of his autobiographical best seller “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big” that detailed steroid use in professional baseball. Now weighing a sleek 230 pounds, down almost 30 pounds from his playing days, he has agreed to be subjected to the GBL’s tough drug testing policy that immediately expels any players found using steroids or illegal drugs.
Now weighing a sleek 230 lbs? That’s funny but I’m honing in on what the “tough drug-testing policy” is. I’ll call and ask the league about it today.
Finally, the last question I had is answered here:
Canseco will be playing for the league maximum of $2500 per month. He will also be entering into a marketing agreement with the Golden Baseball League which includes a special Jose Canseco apparel line and interactive events with fans and kids at all of the League’s ballparks.
I still need Canseco’s autograph. In 1988 or so, my parents took me to spring training in Arizona. I was a Cubs fan even though I lived in that part of the country where it was tough to tell which major league team was closest to my home: The Kansas City Royals or the Oakland Athletics. There were no Diamondbacks or Rockies then. Of course, I chose the Cubs because they were on television and they had Ryne Sandberg.
Anyway, in Arizona we went to an A’s game. And I got my Jose Canseco card ready. Just before the game started, I saw him and pushed toward him in the mess of similarly awkward 12-year-olds.
Finally I got his autograph and ran back and showed my dad.
But either his signature was way screwy or it said “Ozzie” Canseco.
My dad didn’t have the heart to tell me for a while that I had actually gotten the signature of Jose Canseco’s twin brother, who at that time was trying to win a spot on the A’s. So there I was with a mint Jose Canseco card vandalized with his brother’s autograph.
I’ll have to dig it up and see if he can scratch it out for me.