That’s all I could say when I saw that Jose “Publicity Stunt” Canseco is trying to play professional baseball as a pitcher. Once again, I am affirmed in my belief that I could be the General Manager of a team at some level of professional sports.

I can see a few obvious reasons not to employ someone like Jose Canseco: he’s an admitted steroid user (bad role model, perhaps prone to rage), he’s old (42), he’s out of shape (see picture below), and he’s a generally shady and disagreeable character. Oh yeah, one more reason - HE CAN’T %@#$^ PLAY!

Hey kids, check out this line! In Wednesday’s 8-2 loss Canseco pitched 4.2 innings using some exceptionally ugly form of the knuckleball (an ugly pitch even on a good day), he hit four batters, and he walked five more. Sweet. Just awesome. Hey Little Leaguers, it would appear that your one-way ticket to getting paid to play baseball is throwing the ball AT your opponents or walking them.

I realize that Canseco sells seats. I realize he is an attraction. However, putting a monkey in uniform and giving him a baseball might sell seats too. (As an aside, the monkey might be more accurate, too.) It’s clear that Canseco’s not in uniform to help the team. He pitches (you saw the stats) as well as playing DH sometimes - the former AL MVP is batting a staggering .169 with 4 HRs and 9 RBI in 21 games for the Long Beach Armada. So if he’s not there to help the team win, is he really anything more than a prolonged publicity stunt? If that’s the case, I think the next argument to be made is where the line should be drawn between sport and entertainment. Why not have “you be the team” night where nine lucky fans get to actually BE the team for one game? Why not have a whole team of monkeys who dress up and play against other baseball teams?

Oh wait. They do. They’re called the Kansas City Royals. I forgot.

Anyway, back to important business. GSB has invented a promotion which I’ve never even heard of anywhere else - they’re giving you  quite a lot of bonus money if you deposit on your birthday. Check out that and a promo where you can get 100% of your parlays back in this week’s GoSportsBet PowerPlay: http://www.gosportsbet.com/newsletter/newsletter_20060818.htm

Take care.

~Hansel.

Posted by Hansel Wei on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 3:29 am.