A-Rod and Canseco Sitting in a Tree....

When Jose Canseco came out with his groundbreaking book that started the beginning of the end for the steroid era, I was all for it. Bret Boone? The man clearly juiced, thank you Jose, your motives seem very noble and you seem to want to repent your cheating sins by exposing what you started. Back in the day, I had some respect for the man, especially because he had the ability to bounce home run balls off his head.

Canseco cashed in quite handsomely and deservingly so, but like the Mitchell Report, like Congress and Clemens, and like Canseco's second book, this all has to stop. The WWF knew when to split and change its name, the XFL was short-lived and Spike TV is no Lifetime channel. Quite simply, male soap operas with little to no substance get old quickly.

This whole Canseco-tell all-gossip fest is no exception. In case you missed it, here is the excerpt from the novel (because it is fiction), that includes Alex Rodriguez. Hopefully you caught earlier in the day when the full text was posted online. Here are the important notes to take out of this:

• Jose Canseco hates Alex Rodriguez. No, seriously, he hates A-Rod. And in case you missed it, he is not a fan of Alex Rodriguez. Like, he really hates him. In fact, he said so eight or nine thousand times.
• If you just ignored point number one than you will see how Canseco took a completely unbiased approach in name-dropping A-Rod. Mind you, he didn't mention him in the first book because he "hates his guts" too much, he didn't name him in any of his political hearings because he hates him too much, but he felt no problem naming him now, in his second book. I'm sure there is no connection between his first book dropping a steroid bombshell and his second book coming up short on true superstars, so A-Rod's name conveniently was mentioned.
• Here's the part that confuses me from a baseball standpoint. Canseco admits that when A-Rod started working out with him very early in his career, no steroids were used. Canseco introduced him to a supplying fitness trainer after a few years of A-Rod's career.

When A-Rod was ages 21 and 22, he posted 36 and 23 HR over a span of 145-plus games per season. After that, from the ages of 23-28, Rodriguez hit between 41-57 home runs every single season, never playing in less than 129 games. That brings us to 2004, A-Rod's transition year to the Yankees when he hit 36 long balls and then the next three years where he had his off-year in 2005 with 35, and 48 and 54 home runs the other two seasons. The third baseman's batting average never left the range of .285 to .318 during any point except his first full season when it was .358 (the same year he first hit 36 home runs). So, in 12 seasons, Rodriguez never hit less than 30 homers or batted under .285, but at some point during that span he supposedly started juicing? I know it's possible, but really?

Even odder is that Canseco estimated when he first met Rodriguez he couldn't have been much more than 200 pounds. This was when he was in his early 20s and A-Rod is 6'3". Today he is listed as 225 pounds. So as Rodriguez matured, it is out of the question to assume he gained 20 pounds over the years? I'd like to see that kind of weight to age breakdown with the rest of the majors then.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time believing that a man who was completely paranoid another man was having sex with his wife, and is the same man that Canseco admitted he hated more than anybody AND admitted he was a gifted ballplayer, would cheat. At least not based on those facts. There is a reason this book wasn't co-written originally. Using a quote like "Rodriguez is your biggest threat" from an inmate while your in jail just doesn't do it for me. Wouldn't it make slightly more sense that a man who injected steroids into Major League Baseball and started using them to be an elite baseball player, might be a little jealous of somebody half his age with twice his talent that openly admitted to being attracted to his bombshell of a wife?

The defense is that Canseco can defeat lie detector tests? Huh? Now Canseco is daring A-Rod to call him a liar and then he will spread "further evidence". Did Canseco come from the McNamee School of Logic? At least in this case, Brian was sworn to testify. Canseco is doing this on his own accord, coincidentally with a lot of money to be made on the rumor and that's even scarier. If you're Alex, do you release a statement to get into a mudslinging match with pure slime? I know I don't.

Alex may be a lot of things and I most certainly, for the record, believe he cheats on his wife, but didn't we learn anything from a certain Senator and his Communist Hunt or a small town named Salem? At some point, the line needs to be drawn and players need to get back on the field. A-Rod never came out of retirement, he's not old enough to steadily decline with his numbers and his career has been as consistant as a superstar's can get. His best power seasons were in Texas instead of Safeco and Yankee Stadium, two pitcher parks for righty hitters compared to one of the best hitter's parks in the league, go figure. I'm not buying it, are you?