Canseco, Jose Jr.
Baseball
b. July 2, 1964, Havana, Cuba
Canseco played high school baseball in Miami and was chosen by the AL's Oakland Athletics in the 1982 free-agent draft. He joined the major league team late in the 1985 season and was named the league's rookie of the year by The Sporting News and the Baseball Writers Association of America in 1986, his first full season, when he batted only .240 but hit 33 home runs and had 117 RBI.
At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, Canseco was tremendously strong and hit some mammoth home runs. An opposing player once said of him, "He'll hit the ball, and you'll say there's no way anybody can hit anything that far. Then he'll hit one farther." Despite his size, he was also very fast.
In 1988, Canseco became the first player to hit 40 or more home runs and steal 40 or more bases in the same season. His 42 home runs and 124 RBI led the league, and he had a career high .307 batting average to win the AL's most valuable player award.
An injury limited him to just 65 games in 1989, but he came back with 37 home runs and 101 RBI in 1990, then led the league in home runs for a second time with 44 in 1991, when he had 122 RBI.
The outspoken Canseco clashed with Oakland management, was frequently kept on the bench, and was finally traded to the Texas Rangers during the 1992 season.
A bizarre injury in 1993 threatened his career. With the Rangers losing badly to the Boston Red Sox on May 29 and the bullpen depleted, Canseco was brought in to pitch the ninth inning. He tore a ligament in his right elbow and, although he played sporadically for a month, he then underwent surgery that ended his season, and some doctors doubted that he could ever return, though Canseco vowed he would.
In fact, he did come back to play 111 games with Texas in 1994, mostly as a designated hitter. He was then traded to Boston, where he was productive when able to play, but his playing time was limited by a variety of injuries.
Canseco started the 1997 season with Oakland but was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in July. Shortly after the trade, recurrent back problems put him on the disabled list and he never even appeared in a game with St. Louis.
The Toronto Bluejays signed Canseco as a free agent in 1998, when he played in more than 150 games for the first time since 1991. Although he hit 46 home runs and had 107 RBI, his batting average was a career low .237. Toronto let him go and he signed with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
He spent time on the disabled list in both 1999 and 2000. Tampa Bay put him on waivers midway through the 2000 season and the New York Yankees picked him up, at least in part to keep him away from other pennant contenders. In New York, he was used almost entirely as the DH against left-handed pitchers.
After being cut by the Angels during spring training of 2001, Canseco played minor league ball before being signed by the Chicago White Sos for their hoped-for pennant drive. Despite hitting 16 home runs in just 76 games, he was cut again after the season and this time nobody picked him up.
Canseco's 2005 book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big, created a furor with its allegations that steroid had been widespread in the major leagues throughout his career. He specifically mentioned five players who, he said, had used steroids: Mark McGwire, Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Jason Giambi, all of whom had been teammates at one time or another.
Canseco subsequently testified before a congressional committee investigating steroid use in professional sports. Congressional pressure soon led to baseball's adopting an anti-steroid policy for the first time.