Jose and Ozzie Canseco will be in Madison Aug. 28 to honor the Huntsville Stars
On Aug. 28 at Toyota Field, the Rocket City Trash Pandas will host a special Throwback Thursday by celebrating the 40th anniversary of the inaugural season of Double-A Baseball in North Alabama with the former Huntsville Stars. The franchise exited Huntsville after the 2014 season, but left behind a bevy of great memories with many Minor League players who would move to “The Show” as players in Major League Baseball.
The most famous of all the hundreds of players to suit up for the Stars is Jose Canseco. He and his twin brother, Ozzie, who also played for the former franchise, will be in attendance for the festivities that will include autograph sessions and meet and greet with fans of their yesteryear baseball heroes.
For the two-time World Series Champion, six-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger Award winner Canseco, who completed a 17-year Major League career with a .266 batting average, 462 homeruns and 1,407 RBIs, his life became a fascination for people of all ages and both genders. So much so, a Hollywood movie is planned on his life story.
“I recently signed a deal to do a movie on my life from moving to Florida from Cuba to where I am today,” said Canseco, from his five-thousand square foot home in Las Vegas, he shares with his fiancé, Erin Querio, of two years, and which features no natural grass, but complete coverage by artificial turf. “This is expected to be a major film. The script is in development right now and I’ll be heavily involved in the production from start to finish.”
The ups-and-downs of Canseco’s life have all the makings for an amazing Hollywood film. Growing up in Cuba with nothing, to becoming MVP with two World Series rings and back to the bottom again after being black-balled by Major League Baseball. But at the core of it all is a simple man. A man who made a promise to his dying mother to become the best ballplayer in the world.
No movie title or possible cast has been released.
Arriving in the United States from Cuba as a young child, Canseco settled in the Miami area with his brother and parents, Jose Sr. and Barbara Canseco. His early life was mostly stable, but far from luxurious as his family struggled to make ends meet. As a young boy, he was growing by leaps and bounds playing in neighborhood parks or wherever he, his brother and friends could find a place to play some type of baseball-like game.
‘We played a lot of that sandlot type of ball. What we did was we played behind buildings in vacant areas,” said Canseco. “We would visit a flea market and but these really used tennis balls sometimes a dozen at a time. We would play pitcher-batter-catcher, basically a catcher sitting on a chair, the pitcher about 40-feet away and we could literally throw these tennis balls 90-100 miles per hour from that short of distance. We played a lot of that. We used really light aluminum bats. We used to go out on fields and play two-man games with each team having two players.”
Throwback – Former TV sports anchor Bob Labbe, baseball interviewing Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson near the end of his career and Jose Canseco This photo has been on display for years at Bob Baumhowers Victory Grille in Huntsville.
The Cuban-American did not play organized baseball until age 12 and matter of fact only one year of high school baseball on the varsity level at Miami Coral Park High, but when he joined the ranks of a team with a uniform as a 12-year old, he was forever connected to the sport where he would one day make as much as $55-million.
“I remember the first time we got signed up for an organized team and the team name was the Cincinnati Reds and they gave us a uniform, of course back then they were passed-on, old uniforms from the years before,” said Canseco. “I got my uniform and would not take it off. I wore it to school the next day underneath my clothing. I loved it so much I would not take it off. I’ll never forget it. I wore my Converse rubber-spiked turf shoes and would not take those off. I went to school the next day with my uniform underneath wearing my Converse shoes.”
Upon graduating high school in 1982, Canseco was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 15th-round of the 1982 Major League Baseball Draft and soon played for several minor league teams before being assigned to the start-up team Stars in Huntsville. Even Canseco was unsure of what he could do as a baseball player, but in Huntsville, his career exploded when he hit 25 homers in just half a season under the Stars’ banner.
“Huntsville was the first place where my career really took off,” said Canseco. “If you look at my stats they were incredible for the short time I was there, so right then and there I had direction that wow, maybe I could be a Major League player, but of course Huntsville was my breakout year, 100-percent.”
Canseco added, “I realized I had some talent that I could hit very well, at least in Double-A, and do so with power. I never really expected anything. My stats were mind boggling. If you expanded those to a whole season I would have had over 50 homers and maybe 200 RBIs. It was crazy stuff.”
Many of the home runs became legendary at the Stars’ home field of Joe Davis Stadium clearing the scoreboard and the trees beyond the outfield fence as many people thought the balls would make it to nearby Memorial Parkway. He was nicknamed “Jose Parkway.” He left Huntsville midway through the 1985 season elevated to Triple-A Tacoma and then promoted to “The Show” on Sept. 2. He would hit his first Major League homerun a week later. For his incredible play in Huntsville and Tacoma he won the Minor League Player of the Year Award. In his official rookie season of the Major Leagues in 1986, Canseco was named the American League Rookie of the Year hitting 33 homers and posting 117 RBIs.
But to the trained eye, Canseco also grew physically and over the years he was connected to anabolic steroid use. Canseco told the Madison Living, “In 1985 there were no restrictions in the Major Leagues for using PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs). We really didn’t know what they were or what they did. I thought they enhanced talent of being bigger, stronger and faster, but we really didn’t know. You can’t regret using what was not illegal in the game.”
In 2005, Canseco admitted to using steroids in a book titled “Juiced,” which became a best seller. He claimed 85-percent of Major League players used steroids and even named several famous players who used steroids and injected them. He wrote a second book titled “Vindicated” that hit stores in early 2008. He was soon blackballed by baseball and ostracized by any business associated with the sport. His life was in a quick downward spiral as he lost all of his fortune, estimated by Canseco to be $55-million, to spending sprees and lavish living, bad investments and two nasty costly divorces. At one time, he was reported to have $20 to his name living in a garage day-by-day. Even his one child, daughter Josie, was to have stated she kept up the look and actions of living a rich-type lifestyle to protect her father. Soon, she would become a successful model and is now 28 years old.
Canseco went from growing up in Miami, to baseball superstar and top-notch celebrity to at one time living in a garage. His life story was worth telling. He was at rock bottom. He was quickly not the superstar he once was.
When asked if he wished he had a son, Canseco answered, “I thought about that many times as I saw many of my ex-opponents have kids many of whom are in the Major Leagues now. Actually, that would have been amazing if I would have had a boy, but after I wrote the first book, he may have been blackballed from the game. If I had a son, maybe I would have changed my mind on writing that book.”
Canseco has very little memorabilia from his glory years in professional baseball. He explained why to the Madison Living. “When you have a loved one, like a wife, and you get divorced and it’s a bad breakup, you don’t really want to keep any memories of her, so I kind of did that with baseball. I was blackballed from the game. My career was cut short at 37 years old as I could have played another five years. Matter of fact, you look at my last five years in baseball you look at my homeruns per at bat, slugging percentage and RBIs were far better than my first five years. These stats are just there. Even at the end I wanted to play for free just to keep playing, but these organizations said they couldn’t touch me. I was being blackballed, so it was just a very bad divorce, bad separation. I almost want to put that whole memory behind me like it never happened.”
Today, Canseco is 61 and stays in marvelous physical condition utilizing a workout gymnasium in his home. He handles a drove of personal appearances, speaking engagements and some of those are because of the way he looks. “I kind of bridge that gap visually and it helps the fans remember you. In Huntsville, I hope to bring back some good memories for them. In the 80’s we had these power hitters hitting 450-500-foot homers. It was crazy. It was out of control,” he added.
On Oct. 17, 1989, Canseco was part of a devastating event during game three of the World Series between his A’s and the San Francisco Giants. The Bay Area Series soon became known as the “Earthquake Series” as a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck killing 63 people and injuring almost 4,000 more throughout the area. Destruction was massive and it was all caught on live television just prior to the start of game three at 5:04 p.m. local time. The game would be postponed and would not be played until 10 days later as the A’s won the series in a sweep over the Giants.
“Oh yes, I remember that day for sure,” Canseco told the Madison Living. “I sometimes would suffer from migraine headaches and I was running away from our dugout to my position in centerfield and I began to get dizzy. I turned around and, I kid you not, I looked up and the lights at the stadium were swaying back and forth. It looked light maybe 30 feet. It was the strangest thing you’ve ever seen. The first thing that entered my mind was, oh my God, I having a migraine and I’m hallucinating. I thought it was that bad as the migraine was messing up my vision. I was thinking what a time to get a migraine and I couldn’t play under that condition. I walked back towards the dugout and I heard people scream earthquake, earthquake. I would have never thought that in a million years that all of that was an earthquake.” Canseco did not know anyone who died in the event and it was the first and only time to experience the shaking of the earth in that manner.
Away from his unique artificial-turf lawn home, Canseco plays occasional softball games and charity poker and golf tournaments, but does not pretend to be a golfer. “I’ve never played my own ball in golf as I usually play in those scramble-team events. If I had to play my own golf ball, they don’t make enough golf balls on this planet because I would lose them. I can hit ‘em long, but they might land on another country as I don’t know where they’re going,” laughed Canseco.
Upon learning of how North Alabama has grown, particularly Huntsville as now the largest city in Alabama, since he was last here nearly 40 years ago, Canseco was stunned. He said, “I remember Huntsville was a small town with a new ballpark and a huge fan base who were very supportive.”
Thinking more of what could have been for the 6-foot-4, 270-pound athlete, Canseco spoke of how he wished he had more children than just his one daughter. He said, “It would have been interesting to see what a boy looked like and see if he had baseball-type skills or even have another daughter. Josie is a super athlete. She swings a bat like a guy, so that makes me think the genes would have carried over if I had a boy.”
Besides his current work and upcoming movie plans, Canseco ventured in business of late with the PX 4040 a new and unique hitting device for baseball, softball and golf. Developed by Canseco and endorsed by Ken Griffey, Jr., the groundbreaking invention is thought to revolutionize the art of power hitting and swinging in all three sports.
“My PX 4040 arm brace invention will bring back the long ball,” said Canseco, who should know. After all, his 462 dingers in the Major Leagues is ranked No. 38 all-time and his strength and athleticism helped him to be named one of the “Bash Brothers” alongside former teammate Mark McGuire who himself hit 583 homeruns.
Canseco’s life has been complex and open to criticism in and away from baseball. He’s flamboyant, gutsy and himself. He has been an actor, been arrested and is trained in the Martial Arts. Throughout all of his experiences, he gives his feelings outwardly and can at times sound brash, but one thing you will always receive from the former known Playboy is the truth.
“I want to be remembered as the person who told the truth,” said Canseco. “That’s what I am. Everybody that knows me knows I’m bound to the truth. I look forward to seeing Huntsville again.”
