Jose Canseco will Always be One of Brain’s Favorite Players

Say what you want about Jose Canseco. He's heard it all before. Call him a steroid user. A cheater. Call him a rat for writing a tell all book about who was using and abusing steroids in baseball. I don't care. Because Jose Canseco will always be one of my favorite baseball players of all time. His 1988 season is one of the all time greats. That was the year that Canseco became the first MLB player to hit 40 or more home runs and steal 40 or more bases in the same season. He won the American League MVP. And a teenage farm boy from Iowa was one of his biggest fans.

In the late 80's and early 90's, baseball ruled my life. It was my favorite sport. Growing up on a farm, my brother and I didn't have the chance to play in leagues like the town kids did. So we had our own games. I remember in the summer we would play baseball everyday. We'd keep track of our stats. How many hits we had, how many home runs we hit. And we would pretend we were the 'Bash Brothers'. Just like Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire of the Oakland Athletics. Yes, here in Iowa there weren't a lot of Oakland fans. The Cubs, Cardinals, Twins and Reds control the fandom here. But my brother and I loved the A's. Oakland lost in the World Series in 1988 to the Dodgers, but returned the following year and beat the Giants. They went again in 1990 but got swept by the Reds. That ended the Oakland run.

Canseco got traded to Texas and eventually several other teams including Toronto and even the Yankees. My interest in sports shifted to basketball. Some guy named Jordan might have had something to do with that. In 2005, Canseco released his tell all book about the steroids in baseball. It named names and baseball ostracized him for it. However, history has proven Canseco to be anything but a liar. Players got busted. Players that Canseco named in his book. While no one in baseball will publicly say it, steroid reform got started when Jose Canseco forced everyone to talk about it. Are players still cheating? Sure, and they always will. The competitive nature of some will always lead a few to find an edge, legal or otherwise. But the game has change since the steroid era, you can't deny that.

Canseco has boxed, fought MMA fights and found other ways to stay in the spotlight since his playing days. He's a great follow on twitter, always an interesting take on what's going on. He'll be at the Cedar Rapids Kernels game tonight signing autographs and taking part in a home run derby. Get out to see the former All Star. It's not everyday that a 'Bash Brother' rolls through town.