Because steroids are such gosh darn fun, let's ponder this one for a bit:
Jose Canseco plans to file a class-action lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the players' association, saying he's been ostracized for going public with tales of steroids use in the sport.
Canseco said Wednesday that he has discussed the suit with lawyers and intends to enlist Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro to join in the suit. Canseco said the basis of the suit would be "lost wages -- in some cases, defamation of character."
"Because I used steroids and I came out with a book, I was kicked out of the game, but I have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame," Canseco said in a telephone interview.
With a few minor exceptions, this is a fabulous idea! The exceptions being that (a) Canseco was done as a player after the 2001 season and came out with his book in 2005, meaning that he couldn't have been kicked out of baseball for writing it; (b) Canseco could not have been "defamed" over steroids when he, you know, has admitted to everyone in the planet -- often with glee -- that he did, in fact, do lots and lots of steroids; (c) There is no such thing as a "class action lawsuit" that involves Canseco plus whatever small number of players could cobble together, and even if there was, members of a class action lawsuit have to have common claims; and (d) neither he nor anyone else has a legal right to be inducted into the Hall of Fame or to be given a job in baseball after retirement.
If a court should do anything involving Jose Canseco, it should, in the interests of public decency, prevent him from taking these media victory laps and being allowed to spew this kind of garbage each and every time a new person is connected with steroids. Jose: your 15 minutes ended about 500 minutes ago. Please, for the sake of everyone's sanity, go find something quiet to do until you can collect your pension and thus no longer need to make a spectacle out of yourself for self-tanner and mesh shirt money.
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How about writing a story of support for the minor leauguers of this era who stayed clean. Maybe the publicity would help reach other minor leaguers who were cheated out of their opportunity (by staying clean) and they could join the "class" that I had already started a few years ago...
Google: Rich Hartmann Steroids class action to find out more.
Let's focus onn the victims. (yes, there were actually victims here!) The lost opportunity and wages of the minor leaguers whom honored their contracts but were stuck playing against an unlevel playing field. (Our contacts actually stipulated agreeing to "fair play". It was MLB's words! ... many of us HONORED THIS!
All the best, Rich Hartmann
Craig, you say his 15 minutes are up. But we keep seeing this stuff.
I have had enough and it sounds like you have too......
Quit writing about him and he will go away.
Simple enough????
I hear you Jim, but this is a news blog, and when something is being reported, it's pretty much my job to comment on it.
You do get my point tho....
We just keep letting him back in.....
Is it really news when as you say, he has no basis and all he is looking for is to see his name and picture somewhere again. Some of us are so fed up with what we believe is the best sport ever being abused by these arogant &%&&^&. I for one am done with Major Leage Baseball, there are allot of good games being played that those of us that love the game can watch and enjoy without promoting this crap anymore.
Jose,
In all probability you're going to be about as successful at this as you were wrestling.
Does this mean all the players he labled and who were proven to be clean, can sue him for defamation?
Oh yes, and for those like me that have had it with Pro Baseball,
Look around your areas.
In Northern Ohio alone these have come up in the last 2 years:
North Coast Knights of the Propect League and the Lake Erie Crushers of the Frontier League. (Google them and see what they have to offer, I am sure there are leagues like these all over the country) Now this is baseball. No team affiliations, these kids are trying to make it and you see some great baseball the way it was meant to be played.
I think I am done giving MLB any more of my entertainment money when there are so many better products out there.
This is as ridiculous as saying that a guy who chose to smoke cigarettes for years can turn around and sue the tobacco companies.
Oh, wait...we do allow such lawsuits
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-12592669_ITM
Maybe if there was concrete evidence that MLB engaged in a specific policy of encouraging its players to use steroids or other PEDs, the comparison to the tobacco lawsuits would be apt. Those companies researched ways to make their products more addictive so that people would have a harder time quitting. They did this knowing that their product kills people. I think there is a difference between what Canseco is trying to do and what happened with big tobacco.
They did ostracized him. Even before he wrote the book, Canceco talked about using steriods. Players and management disliked him because he wouldn't keep his mouth shut. I think in the process they tried to discredit him over the years, because he was coming out and saying that players were using steriods. If you remember in the 80s most players knew that Jose had connections that could get them the "stuff". Many hence used him for that. I think the real hypocrites are the baseball-owners and sports-media. It is widely known by them that steriods were being used. They despite that turn the other way. I think because steriods brought money to the game due to the increase home runs and other power numbers, secretly sports-media and baseball owners wanted steriod usage. May be have a trival testing to give the impression that they care. It is pretty much what has happped in the NFL. HGH and steriods are used there but are cleverly disguised with masking agents and undetectable drugs. If they really wanted to clean up the sports (like they pretent they do), why not have a strict testing similiar to Tour-de-France or the Olympics?
I think I will sue him for cheating us fans out of the spoils of ligitimate wins.
I just love when people throw around the phrase 'class action lawsuit' trying to sound threatening but without understanding the concept of a class action lawsuit.
"(c) There is no such thing as a "class action lawsuit" that involves Canseco plus whatever small number of players could cobble together, and even if there was, members of a class action lawsuit have to have common claims"
Was bascially what I wanted to say. And his contention that he and all the other players who juiced prior to 2002 should be given a mulligan on that is spurious at best. Regardless of MLBs naive policy on PEDs at the time, they were (and still are) illegal under federal law. And they created an uneven playing field for the players who respected their fans and own health to not use PEDs.
This is just proof that steroid use also affects the mind.
More proof that steroid use shrinks many things in different parts of the body.
Jose must have ran out of the money he was paid to lie to the committee investigating Clemens (sorry, I'm reading the Icon book right now).
UGH!!! Does Jose's LAWYER know about this lawsuit? If he's agreed to this, HE should be "defamed" as well by it being said that he is a puppet that will chase whatever idiocy his moron clients tell him to, regardless of the validity.
Keep in mind that Canseco made more than enough money in his career to live a fairly opulent lifestyle in perpetuity.
IIRC, Jose stiffed his last lawyer (there was a big article about him and his lawyer admitted that he was never paid). And despite making a zillion dollars in his career, he has apparently squandered almost all of it. His house -- a modest suburban one, according to the article -- went into foreclosure last year. He does things like fight that guy in Japan because he has no dough.
None of your comments change the fact that MLB didn't ban steroids until 2002, and that they promised anonymity regarding the later test. So, what have we learned? MLB is not to be trusted.
The truly vile thing about Canseco is that he might not have been a drug dealer, but he was a great advertisement for the use of steroids. Face it, a no talent bum who pulled off some of the greatest offensive seasons in baseball history, probably sold more of his colleagues on using PED's than anybody else in baseball. I still think of him as the guy who had a fly ball bounce off his empty head, not a Hall of Fame player.
He is probably the biggest gainer of everyone associated with steroid use. His record, his books and notariety, all because he juiced.
Jose C.- "but I have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame," Canseco said in a telephone interview."
Is he seriously expecting to be? a career avg of 82 RBI's, Batting avg of .266 and an OBP of .353 ?? AND on steroids?!??!?!?!?
Sure, if HE gets included into the HOF, then anyone else caught juicing will be able to used him as an example.
What I find entertaining about this article and the comments about it is that you all seem to really hate Jose, but if not for him MLB would still not have a policy and all these cheaters wouldn't have been exposed. He was right when you all were wrong, and just because his list hasn't been completely proven is likely more a tesitiment to a good coverup then anything else. I don't like him as a person, and I don't at all think his motives were pure, but I at least respect the fact that he was willing to name names and expose this, and if he got payed in the process, then so what. How much did A-Rod and Sosa make juicing?
Pete Rose is patiently waiting to see how this suit turns out.
Don't the courts have enough frivolous lawsuits?
Let's quit hassling baseball! If you want to see who scores the WORST in drug testing, go to ESPN and type in "Gold Standard for Drug Testing" and you'll see that baseball gets a B+ over ALL sports.
He's just desperate for big money.
He walked away from his mansion. Couldn't pay it off. Another dumb jock.