Jose Canseco Biography - Cuban-born, Starred On Star Team, Surprise Trade, Career Statistics, Announced Retirement - CONTACT INFORMATION
baseball league home runs
1964-
Cuban baseball player
Sportswriters once chronicled Jose Canseco's exploits both on and off the baseball diamond with a mix of reverence and disbelief. The Oakland Athletics (A's) outfielder hit impressive home runs, helped take his team to three American League pennants and a World Series win, and was the first baseball player in history to achieve the "40-40" record: 40 home runs and 40 bases stolen in a season. Canseco attained a certain notoriety off the field as well, running into trouble with the law over fast cars and guns, and was accused of using steroids. Canseco denied this last charge vehemently, but after his career ended, he made headlines once again by claiming that a large percentage of players, perhaps as high as 85 percent, used the illicit substances to improve their performance.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Address: Jose Canseco, c/o Major League Baseball, 75 Ninth Ave., New York, NY 10011. Fax: (212) 485-3456. Phone: (212) 485-3182.
Additional Topics
Canseco and his fraternal twin Oswaldo were born in Havana, Cuba, on July 2, 1964, to Jose and Barbara Canseco. In December of 1965, the family, which included an older sister, left Cuba and settled in Opa-Locka, Florida. At Coral Park High School, Canseco was a talented, if somewhat slight of frame ball player who did not make the varsity team until his senior year. A scout for the Oakland A�…
The A's won that Series against Toronto, and took the World Series title that year against Bay Area rivals the San Francisco Giants. Canseco ended the season with a.269 average. He was signed to a record-setting five-year, $23.5 million contract, but injuries hampered his 1990 season. Though the A's made it into the next World Series, they lost to the Cincinnati Reds. In 1991, the A&…
Canseco, who had bulked up considerably since his high-school days, was also rumored to be a steroid user. He categorically denied the charges. "No. 1, I take it as a personal attack on me and my race," Canseco fumed about the matter in a 1995 interview with Barry M. Bloom in Sport. Between the 1991 and 1992 seasons, Canseco seemed to lose his edge. At the time, his marriage to Esthe…
On May 13, 2002, Canseco announced his retirement. His agent, Alan Nero, issued a statement that explained Canseco was quitting the Charlotte Knights, a farm team in the Chicago White Sox organization, for personal reasons, including a desire to spend more time with his five-year-old daughter, Josie, from his second marriage in 1996. (The union with Jessica Seikaly, a former waitress at a Hooters …
Within a week of retiring, Canseco was back in the news after declaring in a Fox Sports Net interview that steroid use, contrary to his past assertions, was rampant in major-league baseball. "Steroids completely changed baseball," Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service writer Skip Bayless quoted him as saying. "That's why guys are hitting 50, 60, 75 home runs." When …
On Halloween of 2001, Canseco and his brother Ozzie were involved in a Miami nightclub brawl and were arrested. They later rejected plea agreements on the felony charges and the cases were slated to go to trial in November of 2002. If convicted, Canseco could receive a maximum sentence of 31 years. The charges seemed to further doom his goal of entering the Baseball Hall of Fame. When Canseco reti…
"Analysis: Media Watch - Baseball's steroid scandal has media crying foul on players." PR Week (June 24, 2002): 12. "Back to b(A's)sics." Sports Illustrated 86 (February 10, 1997): 14. "Baseball: No plea agreement for Cansecos." Sports Network (August 23, 2002). Bayless, Skip. "Jose Canseco, simply, may be waxing outrageous." Kn…
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