Stockholm Syndrome Case Studies: Jose Canseco
Remember when Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in January 1974 and eventually helped the terrorist organization rob the Hibernia Bank several months later? Or when Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero avoided doing jail time by aggressively and enthusiastically informing the FBI of the activities of the Soprano organization? Clinton pardoned one and Paulie Walnuts helped whack the other.
Jose Canseco falls somewhere in the middle.
Undeniably, one of baseball’s least sympathetic characters is trying to become an ambassador of baseball’s Steroid Era. In an ESPN Philadelphia radio interview from Thursday, Canseco was summoned from whatever madcap reality in which he normally operates to discuss the newest bulletpoints added to the growing list of steroid issues. Like saying “Beetlejuice!” three times, Canseco heard 1. “Steroids” 2. “David Ortiz” and 3. “Manny Ramirez” and appeared unsolicitedly.
So what is it this time?
As a guest on the Mike Missanelli show, Canseco discussed, among other things, the necessity for Major League Baseball to have sought out his council on how to deal with the players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Here’s a snippet:
What baseball should have done in the past is consulted with me. I would have resolved this issue from a long time ago, but [the league is] very stubborn. They blackballed me to get me out of the game. They don’t want to talk to me, they don’t want to listen to me. They’re extremely stubborn. In the past they’ve gotten away with everything. My doors are open to speak with Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association on how to get this subject matter put behind us and move forward. I think a lot of players are getting really bad advice from their attorneys, from their consultants and … it’s just, really, really bad.
“Put behind us?” He says all of this as if the league and the Player’s Association are somehow disallowing Canseco from doing his job of moderating the acceptance of steroids in baseball. He’s like a pastry chef wondering why all his customers are so fat. But there he is, desperate to help the league that, by his own admission, blackballed him, threw him out and locked the door.
The best thing that happened to Canseco after his 2001 retirement was realizing that he was willing to publically discuss things MLB was not. Like it or not, Canseco is the most reliable source on steroid use available to the public. And like a child who finds something that entertains his parents, he’s beaten it into the ground until it becomes truly annoying.
We knew we were supposed to ignore the crazy guy on the bus babbling nosensensically, but we thought he said something interesting, so we engaged him for just a second. He didn’t say anything interesting and now we’re stuck in a conversation with him for another 11 stops. Major League Baseball was smart enough to never make eye contact with Canseco. All these years since his retirement, MLB just keeps working on the sudoku puzzle, hoping Canseco will exit the bus at the next stop.
He hasn’t really helped them, which is why they’ll never seek his council. He’s burned them twice. First by being the poster boy for cheating, then by telling the world how obvious it at was. The league will never let him burn it again by asking for help that it’s too late for him to give.
Canseco poo-pooing the attorneys and consultants of players under indictment is both humorous and sad, like a drunk who danced so much he wet his pants, because Canseco suggests that his advice would have worked out better.
Because lord knows when one thinks of Jose Canseco one thinks of rationality and reliability.
Just like Patty and Puss,’ Canseco has been bent and reshaped enough that he assumes he is someone other than who he is: an incredible slimeball. He wants to create situations in which steroids are looked upon passively, like Ty Cobb‘s anger and racism, as if it were a cute affectation from a bygone era. Because if he is successfully able to do that, then he’s got a chance at the Hall of Fame (don’t worry, he has no chance at the Hall of Fame). He’d perhaps have a cherished baseball post-career. And for that to happen, he believes he needs to insinuate himself back into the central point of one of baseball’s ugliest eras by railing against it.
But he was one of the largest players involved in creating it in the first place. Accepting anything from No-Way Jose would be igniting another fire that the league would be unable to extinguish.
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