Years ago in the late ‘80s, my father ran baseball card shows. He organized the space, but most importantly he booked the players that would appear to autograph items. This meant that when the show was over, the players would stick around for a few minutes when everyone was gone except my father and his partners, and the players would sit, casually telling stories, signing whatever we put in front of them.
These sessions were the only reason that my father put any time into card shows at all. A typical baby-boomer, my father grew up in baseball’s golden age when kids played pick-up in the sandlot after school without anyone saying when or where, and the major leaguers were revered. The idolatry my father and his colleagues had for ballplayers was a simple kind, the kind that I suppose comes from a simpler time.
I was too young at those card shows to know the importance of whom I was meeting, but hazy memories always seep into my thoughts. There was Roy Campanella, braving an appearance in a wheelchair because he had said he would do it. He would pass on two weeks later. There was Muhammad Ali, a step slow in the 80s, but always a step ahead mentally. Ali pretended to pass out in the middle of signing, his head falling to the table, and when we tried to revive him, he looked up with a sheepish grin and said, “Got ya, didn’t I?”
And then there was Jose Canseco. My recollection of meeting Canseco is simple: he was all business. Which is to say that in comparison to the dozens of baseball immortals I had met cordially, Canseco was a jerk. On the same note, if Rickey Henderson ever orders me to get him orange juice again, I think I’ll knock his brittle ass out.
Having met the man, though, Canseco’s allegations about steroid use this past week are no surprise. The man was, is, and always will be one of baseball’s black sheep. At the same time, his accusations came at a point when the public was itching for a name to break the steroid silence, and if Jose Canseco is that name, so be it.
I want to disbelieve Canseco, but it is nearly impossible to toss aside allegations that seem to confirm everything we already believed. Canseco surely has credibility issues, and his bumbling 60 Minutes interview only intensified that criticism. It would be a disservice, however, to discount him entirely. Lest we forget, Canseco was trying to get his book published three years ago, long before BALCO was ever in our vocabulary.
Canseco’s allegations mark the definitive beginning of a new era in sports. Sure, ESPN’s boom in the last 10 years, coupled with the rise of all other sorts of media, has changed the sports landscape. As much as I love checking the rolling ticker for a quick score update, I wish that I had a chance to experience a time when the final score was all that mattered.
