by
LEIGH MONTVILLE
Originally Posted: September 14, 1992
THE UNIFORM LOOKED SO strange on him, the word TEXAS spelled
across the gray shirt in blue letters. Jose Canseco was a Texas
Ranger? This could not be. Up was down, down was up and the tidy
baseball universe had been altered. McDonald's sells hamburgers near
Lenin's Tomb, fine. A member of the British royal family rubs suntan
lotion on the bald head of an American businessman, O.K. But Jose a
Ranger?
''I haven't even looked at myself in the mirror,'' Canseco said
last Friday in a Yankee Stadium press conference before his first
game in a Texas outfit. ''I feel like I'm playing in an All-Star
Game, where you wear the uniform for a day and go home. Only this
time you don't go home.''
His number still was 33, but now his locker was a few stalls away
from a number 34 named Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan? ''I don't know what
really happened,'' Canseco said in his third news conference in four
days. ''Maybe I'll never know the reason why I was traded.''
There are trades in sports, and there are TRADES in sports, and
this was definitely the latter. Out of the blue, the biggest
celebrity in baseball had been sent flying from the Oakland A's in
exchange for Texas slugger Ruben Sierra and pitchers Bobby Witt and
Jeff Russell. Two hours before the trading deadline of midnight,
eastern time, Aug. 31, Canseco was called back from the on-deck
circle at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, Witt and Russell were pulled
from the bench on the road in Kansas City, and Sierra was informed at
home, where he was recovering from a case of the chicken pox. This
was the kind of deal -- the bolt-of-lightning trade -- that just
wasn't supposed to happen anymore.
The A's, ahead of the pack by 7 1/2 games in the American League
West when they made the deal, were disrupting the workings of a
potential champion. The Rangers, in fourth place, heading nowhere,
low on pitching and defense, were surrendering . . . well, pitching
and maybe defense to bring another large bat into a bloated lineup of
big bats. Nothing made sense in terms of conventional logic. That was
the beauty. Conventional logic did not seem to apply.
''I still can't believe all of this happened,'' Canseco said. ''I
can't believe it happened this way.''
Canseco had spent 10 years, all of his professional baseball life,
in the Oakland organization. He had put together statistics -- as
recently as a year ago, when he hit 44 home runs and drove in 122
runs -- that ranked near the top of anyone's charts. More than that,
he was a bona fide attraction, a pop icon, with his matinee-idol good
looks and his assorted adventures involving fast cars, a loaded gun
and pretty women. Forget the statistics. How can a team replace a man
who crashed his Porsche into his wife's BMW in a domestic dispute, a
man who is captured on film leaving Madonna's Manhattan apartment
house? He was only 28 years old, with three years left on a
five-year, $23.5 million contract. Would the producers of the
Terminator movies trade Schwarzenegger? What was happening?
''To me, it's a shift in power,'' Canseco said. ''Texas is a team
of the future. In my opinion Oakland is definitely going to cut back.
They're just going to field a team next year, not be a serious
contender.''
The deal evolved over a two-week span. With Oakland manager Tony
La Russa worried about his shaky pitching, A's general manager Sandy
Alderson began talking to Ranger general manager Tom Grieve. Slowly,
as no agreement was reached, the deal began to expand. When Canseco's
name was brought up, Grieve became very interested. The Rangers,
after all, will move into a new ballpark in the spring of '94, and a
name like Canseco's can do a lot to help season- ticket sales and
fill the bleacher seats.
But, says Grieve, ''for us, this was totally a baseball deal. A
by-product is Jose's appeal and charisma, but the trade was made to
make us a contender. You don't get a chance to get a player like him
very often. All I know is that whenever he's played at our place, the
fans in leftfield stand up in expectation ((of a home run)).''
The A's position was more complicated. They face a laborious
off-season, with 14 players -- including Mark McGwire, Terry
Steinbach and Dave Stewart -- eligible to become free agents. Sierra
and Russell also will be in the free-agent group. Was this a first
move toward fiscal stability, dumping Canseco's future contract with
no intention of re-signing either Sierra or Russell?
Canseco had clearly fallen into disfavor in Oakland. He has been
hurt this season, troubled by both a bad back and a sore shoulder. He
was hitting .246 with 22 home runs and 72 runs batted in. He said he
has lost 15 pounds and 40% of his power. Did the A's think he was on
an irrevocable slide? Or had they simply tired of his superstar act?
, ''I'm hurt,'' Canseco said. ''I'm not a robot. I was playing
in Oakland every day because the thinking was that 75 percent of Jose
Canseco is better than 100 percent of some rookie. Now I will have a
chance to get my health back. I'll work hard in the off-season. I'll
come back 100 percent.''
Canseco has enough major league service to demand a trade from
Texas after this season, but playing for the Rangers will most likely
be his best option. ''I'm not thinking about any of that right now,''
he said. ''I'm selling a house in California, buying a house in
Texas, and my house in Miami was flooded by the hurricane. I'm
learning a lot about real estate.''
On Friday evening at Yankee Stadium, early-arriving fans stirred
as Canseco stepped in for batting practice. He knocked only two balls
into the seats -- both pulled down the leftfield line -- but the fans
reacted enthusiastically. When a later group took the cage, Texas
outfielder Juan Gonzalez, the American League home run leader, banged
ball after ball over the fence. No reaction. None.
''Jose brings a lot of attention, a lot of media,'' said Ranger
first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, a boyhood friend of Canseco's from
Miami. ''You guys wouldn't be here if he weren't here. Our job is to
make him feel comfortable. To make him happy. We want to show him
that he doesn't have to carry the whole team.''
Palmeiro batted third in the lineup, Canseco fourth. Canseco
instructed Palmeiro in the intricacies of the forearm bash, the
celebratory greeting he and McGwire had used in Oakland to much
notice. Palmeiro agreed to use it. Jose went 0 for 4 in his debut,
striking out twice. The only Ranger highlight in a 6-3 loss was a
solo home run by Palmeiro, who came around the bases, touched home
plate and. . . .
''Jose almost took my head off,'' Palmeiro said. ''I'd forgotten.''
Oakland fans, meanwhile, had not forgotten their departed slugger.
The A's continued a stumble on the West Coast that had begun with the
trade. They lost their fifth straight Canseco-less game, to the Red
Sox, on Saturday, and their lead in the AL West had shrunk to 4 1/2
games. Canseco professed not to feel any satisfaction in their fall.
He was moving ahead.
''Maybe I wore out my welcome in Oakland,'' he said. ''I fell into
a trap. The shoes people put out there for me are very difficult to
fill. And if I fill them, the shoes just get bigger. It's sad, but I
don't think I'll ever be able to fulfill the expectations that people
have for me.''
It was noted that the shoes he was now wearing were blue. Jose in
blue shoes? Next thing you know, the Vice-President of the United
States will be involved in a public debate with a fictional woman
newscaster.