Jose Canseco is serious about making a comeback

“He’s an extremely nice guy, very down to earth, and he knows the situation… He’s self-aware.”

What are “things probably no one else in the history of the world has said about Jose Canseco,” Alex?

Canseco is serious about making a comeback. He has an agent and everything. Adam Fusfeld has the story over at Business Insider this morning. It’s well worth a read because it’s not Canseco himself talking. Instead it’s his agent, Nello Gamberdino, who is trying to land Canseco a job in Korea or Japan. He has his work cut out for him:

“The main obstacle that I’ve had to get over as his agent is when you initially throw his name out there, people think it’s a joke. We’re trying to make it clear that, no, he’s not doing this as a publicity stunt; he’s doing this because he wants to play, he loves baseball, and he still feels he can contribute as a player. In this country where everyone has a second, third, and sometimes fourth chance at redemption, why can’t someone step up and help him? There are certainly guys in baseball that have done far worse than write a book.”

I don’t think the biggest obstacle is that people think Canseco is a joke. I think it’s the fact that he was below the Mendoza Line when he played in the independent leagues several years ago. Baseball will forgive many sins. If Canseco was younger and could still hit, he likely would have even been forgiven for his steroids books by now. But he’s 46 and there’s no reasonable expectation that he can can contribute to competitive baseball any longer. And even if he could still play, Asian baseball leagues don’t do non-conformity and celebrity very well.

Good luck in your future endeavors, Mr. Canseco, but I think you’re far more likely to be drawing your major league pension than a check for actually playing baseball in the future.