Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Five months ago I wrote that Jose Canseco had no interested in cleaning up the game of baseball and his books were revenge against the league for the demise of his career or lack there of. Well with recent events surrounding Canseco’s new book, “Vindicated,” my statements in the previous post have been supported. (I am not being cocky but I was correct. Wow how ironic is that?)

WEEI 850’s The Big Show invited him to be on the show today to answer questions about being throw into the news once again. Host, Glenn Ordway, asked Canseco to not hang up on the interview and Canseco obliged. Ordway and his co-hosts discussed Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez and Major League Baseball approaching him to help clean up the game. Canseco’s comments on the last part were that he felt shocked because baseball blackballed him and called him a liar before. (Doesn’t that sound like some one with a personal vendetta?) Later on during the interview when things were not going the way Canseco wanted it he hung up on Ordway and the Big Show. That makes three radio shows he has hung up on.

Canseco was hurt by Major League Baseball because they did not want to deal with him and now he is trying to bring them down one player at a time. Do not be fooled folks, he is not trying to save America’s Past-time he is only throwing out names for his own personal pleasure. If you do not believe me just take a look at some of the people he has mentioned.

It was leaked out early that Rodriguez was mentioned in his second book. Canseco says he introduce A-Rod to a steroid supplier but then it came out later that Canseco had a personal vendetta against the Yankee third baseman thus why he treated him differently than Clemens. Canseco believes that A-Rod allegedly hit on his wife a few years back; plus Canseco is still a bitter taste in his mouth when Rodriguez stiffed him and his twin brother, Ozzie. (Jose and Ozzie wanted to start an agency and asked Rodriguez to be their client but Rodriguez declined.) Not really objective reporting. Although Canseco told the co-hosts on the Big Show that the reason for different treatment was because he “introduced him to a well known steroid dealer.” (Not buying it.)

Magglio Ordonez is another example Canseco’s second book is a personal grudge against baseball. According to Canseco, Ordonez was not going to be in Canseco’s new book but told Detroit radio host Frank Beckman Ordonez was “very, very, very late addition.” Apparently the Tigers outfielder was a very late addition because he would not comply with Canseco’s money demands.

In his last book, he wrote about Roger Clemens’s usage of performance enhancing drugs but came to Clemens’s defense when the All-Star pitcher was named in the Mitchell Report. Upon Clemens’s name appearing in the report, Canseco told the public he did not believe Clemens used steroids, completely contradicting what he wrote in his own book. (Maybe Canseco just “misremembered” what he wrote or was “misquoted” in his own book.)

With Canseco it is as simple as this, if he likes you, you have nothing to worry about, but if he hates you, then you should fear. Fear for your reputation. He is a dictator who has absolute power and knows it and is using it for his own personal benefit – not for the greater good for the greatest amount.

Canseco holds all the cards. With one stroke of the pen, he can ruin the reputations of many players who may not have even touched a syringe but are ruined because one guy wants vengeance. Just imagine that for a second. Your worst enemy, the person you least like destroying your life, reputation, career with one accusation that is not true. Everything that you worked so hard to build comes crumbling down because one person wants revenge.

It comes back to me now. I believed this never was about what was good for baseball and I was right. This was all about Jose Canseco. This is a guy who would sell out his entire family for the right price. It never was about baseball. Canseco is an arrogant, narcissistic, power monger.

Now that he has the absolute power he desired he is using it to extort, blackmail and harm other players, such as Ordonez and Rodriguez. These guys might have used performance enhancing drugs but you do not know that and it is not right to accuse players just because you hold a personal grudge against them. It is juvenile and immature.

But there is one thing we do know. We do know that absolute power corrupts absolutely and Canseco is going to mess with the wrong person and he is going to go down in a blaze of flames. I just want to be there to watch. Although what we are seeing with Canseco “is a man in emotional turmoil.”