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by Amaury Pi Gonzalez
thecomeback.com photo: Jose Canseco bobblehead as given out on Saturday night at the Oakland Coliseum. Canseco was asking why the body wasn’t beefed up looking?
OAKLAND–On Saturday Jose Canseco threw out the ceremonial first pitch during Jose Canseco’s Bobblehead Night at the Oakland Coliseum prior to the second game of a three-game series against the contending Boston Red Sox. Jose was scheduled to visit the Athletics Spanish Radio Network booth,after visiting A’s television and radio, but he never did, saying that “his Spanish is not that good”. Which is very interesting, since I used to talk to him at length and interviewed him many times when he was playing from the very first time he got to Oakland in the mid-1980’s. I still have audio-cassettes, remember those? With some of my radio interviews with him. I even interviewed him for Telemundo Television in the past.
I wonder if steroid use could affect your ability to remember a language that you once spoke. He was born in Cuba, and always spoke Spanish, when he left and when he got to the United States very early in his childhood. I remember speaking with Jose Canseco Sr, and he told me he used to speak to Jose in Spanish all the time.
However, long-term steroid abuse anabolic steroids and human growth hormones, can act on some of the same brain pathways and chemicals—including dopamine, serotonin, and opioid systems—that are affected by other drugs. This may result in a significant effect on mood and behavior and certain inconsistent patterns.
Who knows, really how the use of steroids affects people, probably some have more effects than others, some have even died very young of heart issues. Canseco was always a strange person, when he played for the A’s sometimes I would approach him during batting practice hours before a game and he would asked me about a previous home run he hit the day or night before. I remember one time he told me that Sportscenter reported his home run was 425 feet,when it actually was 450 feet. I remember I told him “who cares, it went over the fence and they all count as home runs, they do not give you anything extra for the total distance that the ball traveled. Those were they days when colleagues on national television used to say stuff like “chicks dig the long-ball”. So he was actually so obsessed by how far his home run went, that he actually forgot to work on his skills on defense. That is why one time a ball (while playing right field) hit him on top of his head and bounced and went over the fence for a home run. I don’t remember him asking how far that ball went. And never dared to ask him, since all hits to the head can be very dangerous.
Canseco is currently playing in the north bay, in Pittsburg in an amateur baseball league and probably is trying to get back as a coach in Major League Baseball, or some-kind of organized professional league where he would actually receive a steady check.
I hope Jose’s brain is still functioning well enough to speak Spanish, he is in his early 50’s, and Spanish is a very important language in California, much more important now than when he began playing with the Athletics. The A’s should also have a Bobblehead Day for Mark McGwire and bring him to the Oakland Coliseum. Big Mac and Big Jose do not get along, but who cares? If we are going to forget about all the players that took steroids, we must be consistent. The period when Canseco and McGwire played, those were the good times when the A’s were winning pennants and playing in three consecutive World Series. Those were really the “glory days”, aside from the early 70’s when the team won three consecutive World Series. But the 70’s seem so far away that nobody really remembers.
Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Angels Spanish TV talent and the Oakland A’s Spanish radio talent and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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