Photo of Canseco and the A’s during Spring Training at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson by Gary Lewis (used with permission)

I have no idea when or how I became a fan of Jose Canseco. My wife recently asked me why I chose him to be my favorite player. To my surprise, I had to lean against the kitchen counter and give it some real thought. After this contemplation session, nothing but a simple answer came to my mind. He was cool.

The Oakland A’s weren’t on television much in our area, unlike the Cubs and Braves, and in my younger years my family didn’t own a TV because they were out of our price range. My friend Russell, who lived down the street, had a TV and was really into the Oakland Raiders. My guess is that I saw the A’s play over at his house. But my first memory of, likely where the fandom began for me, was at the first sports card shop I visited as a kid. In one of the most prominent displays next to the cash register, glistening in an inch-thick acrylic slab case held together by four gold screws, was the 1986 Topps #20T Jose Canseco rookie card. It was $80. To a family that couldn’t afford a used TV, it might as well have been a million. There was no way I was going to own that card, but I sure wanted it. I started a binder of Jose Canseco cards and left a space for it at the front of the binder just in case. Card by card, picture by picture in the newspaper, and the rare chance to see the A’s on a TV screen all reinforced the fact that Jose Canseco was cool.

As a Tucsonan in the late ’80s and early ’90s, I had one opportunity to see my favorite player play, and that was when the A’s came to town for Spring Training. I was an autograph hound, at this point just figuring out the strategy. I showed up at the game with a cheap ball purchased from the sporting goods store and a red pen. I got a few players to sign my ball — Walt Weiss is still legible — but the one I really wanted was Canseco. At the end of the game, I joined the crowd of people waiting for the players to exit the visiting clubhouse as they piled on the bus headed back to Phoenix. The crowd surged toward Jose and I was right in the middle of it, but he pressed through us all, and he didn’t sign… not that day. This is where my vision of my hero began to crack. It cracked further when I heard about a dramatic domestic dispute between Jose and his then-wife Esther, in which he chased and rammed her BMW with his Porsche. I couldn’t believe that someone so cool, and so popular, would be unhappy. It made no sense to me then. It makes total sense to me now!

It wasn’t the same when Jose got traded away from the A’s. First he was off to the Texas Rangers. At this point I’d learned a new strategy for getting autographs: through the mail. I sent a card, a letter, and a self-addressed stamped envelope c/o Jose Canseco to the Rangers in hopes that I might hear back. I remember the day when my mom and I drove down our dusty dirt road in north Tucson, between the mobile homes, toward the community mailboxes at the end of Star Grass Drive. I had begun sending cards out in the mail to a number of players, which made mail time very exciting. I would jump out of our little blue Mazda hatchback with the key for our mailbox and flip through the envelopes looking for my previously folded ones with my name and address in both locations. There was one in the pile that day, and as I opened it my heart quickly soared as I saw an image of Jose Canseco. I crashed back down to earth when I pulled out a paper print of his image as a Ranger with a printed signature, a strip of paper saying he was very busy but appreciated his fans, and — most notably absent — was my card of him on the A’s that I was hoping to receive back with a real signature. That was the day I moved on. I kept the picture and slip of paper for some reason, filing it into my binder of Jose Canseco cards, but I decided that he didn’t want me as a fan. He was too cool, too big, and too busy for kids like me.

In my quest to re-connect with friends through baseball this year, I decided to try getting autographs again. It’s been a really fun way to jog my memory and feel the emotions we felt as kids chasing down our heroes in the parking lot of Hi Corbett Field. I had forgotten about sending requests through the mail until Facebook targeted me — due to my renewed interest in the hobby — with some groups of people who collect autographs through the mail. Part of my quest has been to give people a second chance, as I hope that friends who I’ve let down will give me one too. Shoot, I may need more than two chances! When I saw that people were sending cards, and receiving them back, from Jose Canseco, I knew I had to do it! So, I dug out the old photo and note his fan-mail team sent me and included them with a couple A’s cards of his I had doubles of, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and a new note saying that I wanted to reconsider him as my favorite player. I dropped it in the mail along with two others to Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson before I headed off for some work travel.

When I returned from my trip, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Did I get anything back in the mail? My heart leapt a little when I saw two envelopes in a little pile my wife had made for me on our kitchen table. In a larger envelope, I found my Andre Dawson letter, destroyed by the sorting machine and sent back to me with a note saying “received damaged.” Though that was a downer, I peeled open the first envelope to find a return from the player I was most urgently trying to reach: Ryne Sandberg. He is pretty responsive to fans but is also battling cancer. It thrilled me to see that I had reached him in time and for this little bit of evidence that he might be doing okay with his treatment. Then I peeled open the second envelope and saw the black-and-white photo of Jose that I’d seen peeking out of my envelope as a kid — except this time, it was signed in blue Sharpie. He also sent back and signed the other two cards I sent and my note, perhaps an acknowledgment that it had been received. The one thing I didn’t get back was the lame little slip of paper saying he was too busy. I’m glad I gave Jose a second chance. Life has a way of changing us, and after all the ups and downs of his career, I hope that he is more appreciative of his fans. We all change with time and reflection.

My friend Jimmy, who was there with me when we tried to get Jose’s autograph as kids, taught me something when we re-connected after twenty-five years. He introduced me to his family as his friend, even though we hadn’t seen each other in a quarter century. He didn’t say that I was his friend, but that I am. That subtlety is something I have been pondering ever since. Friendships don’t stay the same, but it doesn’t have to mean that they only exist in the past. They have shaped us and made us who we are. These people are our friends. So, today I choose to extend this same grace to Jose Canseco.

Jose Canseco is my favorite player.

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