Victory Is Mine

Jose Canseco to be on "The Surreal Life"

As most of you know, Jose Canseco used to be my favorite athlete of all time. I have about 600 baseball cards of his, and some autographs too. In fact, if you google my ass, the first entry you'll get is a bright-eyed teenage posting I made to a Jose Canseco mailing list back around the dawn of the internet in Monroe, LA. (There weren't a lot of fellow Canseco fans in Monroe, as you may have guessed.)

August 31, 1992, the day he was traded to the Texas Rangers, was the best day of my life. The Ballpark in Arlington is the closest ballpark to Monroe, so we grew up attending games out there (well, at the time they played at the old Arlington Stadium). That was our "home team" to the extent you could really call it that, since we were in fact across state lines. But no MLB team existed in Louisiana, and I didn't want to hop on the Braves wagon. And I hated the city of Houston (and boring National League Baseball, which I have since come to appreciate).

In any event, I have come to my senses in the decade since and now realize like the rest of you that the guy is a complete jackass. As a kid I ignored a lot of the negative press: So he put rocket fuel in his car, that was actually somewhat amusing. He drove a Countach, which apparently wasn't fast enough, so hell, who WOULDN'T add a little octane to that engine? So he hooked up with Madonna. Who gives a rat's ass who he screws? So he started a 1-900 number which served no purpose but to fatten his wallet. And I called it once. Who cares about his off-field ventures?

Then things became not as amusing when I find out the asshole was accused of beating his wife. And actually having a car chase with her which ended with his 911 ramming her BMW on the side of the road or something like that. Roid Rage indeed. Now you're all aware he sold out just about all of Major League Baseball - a necessary step for MLB, but real prick way of accomplishing it - the Jose Canseco Way, I guess.

In any event, I now hate the bastard, largely a result of my own ineptitude in having chosen him as a favorite player and wasting so much time and effort into knowing and idolizing only the good things about the guy (rare as they were). Hell there was even a comic book about him and his brother; I still may have the thing lying around my old room back home.

All that said, I don't think I'll be able to avoid watching the Surreal Life. If he can serve to be a bigger bitch than Omarosa, then diggidy damn, maybe I can reach some - what did Rachel call it? - ahh yes, "CUHH-LOH-SURE."

This'll definitely be the newest addition to my Tivo Season Pass (currently featuring: Alias, Scrubs, South Park, Showbiz India, The O.C., Las Vegas, the soon-to-be-added Family Guy, and the soon-to-be-deleted Blue Collar TV).

posted by Publius @ 2:24 PM