There's a
story in the Times today about Jose Canseco's alleged extortion of Magglio Ordonez. The Times is quoting several sources as saying the Canseco, or his friends, told Ordonez that Jose would leave him out of his upcoming book, "Vindicated," if Ordonez invested in a movie that he's been trying to make for a couple of years now.
The league apparently contacted the FBI, but Ordonez wouldn't press charges.
This story bothers me on so many different levels. First of all, I'm not a jury so I'm going to go ahead and say I believe the story. It just sounds like something Canseco would do, and I don't see why Ordonez would leak it. It kind of implies that he has something to hide.
Here's another reason to believe it. Canseco's second book is in a shambles. First, his ghostwriter, Don Yaeger, quit reportedly because Canseco had nothing of substance to say about the players he was prepared to sling mud at. Yaeger was a former associate editor at Sports Illustrated. I have no idea how low on the totem pole an associate editor for SI is, but at least SI is a real publication. Canseco's new ghostwriter is a former National Enquirer writer who's hit list includes the O.J. Simpson bio, "IF I Did It," which was the beginning of the end for Judith Regan at HarperCollins. "Vindicated" has already been dropped by one publisher, and picked up by a second. It's scheduled to be released on March 31st.
Oh, if you were wondering, Jose Canseco was one of George Mitchell's "sources" for his infamous report. This is the level of credibility we're dealing with. A guy who's basically blackmailing people into investing in his stupid movie idea for fear of being outed as a P.E.D. user and two trainers who were forced to testify or face jail time. That gets you a congressional hearing these days.
- In a related note, Where's Chucky?
- If you're dying for some Yankee-related news, check out the Q&A Phil Hughes did on his blog (an immediate must-read for Yankee fans everywhere, by the way). It turns out his killer curve is actually a knuckle-curve. Who knew? IPK throws one too.
Good stuff Brian. I am sick of this clown and his bogus theatrics.
To think this a-hole was someone I idolized as a kid. The bash brothers, they were IT in the eighties. Now they're both a joke. Mcguire doesn't even leave his house it seems like.
Is anybody else here just want all these b/s investigations and finger pointing to stop. I mean enouigh is enough already. Who Cares. What are all these hearings gonna prove? That the MlB can "pass the buck" by putting the blame solely on the shoulders of the players.
Many parties are to blame here, that's apparent. Let's all just move on with our lives. Here's an original idea- Let's focus our energy on ways to prevent mistakes like these from ever happening again.
The game has suffered enough.
rant over........... jus jonesin' for some ball. :(
It's funny, I think Mitchell did a horrible job with this report, it was horribly executed and it really didn't prove a thing. Mitchell realized this, and I'd bet that he would've preferred to keep the report under wraps. He came out and said that the important thing to take away from the report was a sound policy going forward to prevent PED use in MLB.
The naming of names has made this 100% about those guys. The debate isn't how to prevent this going forward, it's about now finding more guys to point the finger at.
I can't wait for Spring Training to start.