Jose Canseco.
A baseball player who, at the pinnacle of the baseball card collecting craze was considered to be the best player on the planet. With his violent swing, he was a hero to almost all baseball loving children, but with his eccentric off-the-field press, he transcended the baseball world, and became a pop culture icon, for better or for worse.
Early in his career, it was a forgone conclusion that Jose would end up in the Hall of Fame. Plagued by injuries and an alleged blackballing from the MLB, the man who had the power to hit 600 foot blasts, is now most remembered for the ball bouncing off of his head, and writing books that named names – something that he has since publicly regretted.
What Canseco is remembered for by his fans though, is the level excitement he brought to the game of baseball. He didn’t just play baseball; he made baseball exciting. He came up with a crop of highly touted talent, and few would make you stop what you were doing and watch an at bat. The sweet swings of Ken Griffey, Will Clark and mark McGwire were like classical music. Poetry in motion. The murderous attack on the ball that Canseco possessed was like heavy metal…no…DEATH metal. Yeah, that’s better. Death metal!
All that to say, his on-field performance left a life-long impression on me, starting at the age of nine.
It was because of him, that I discovered my love for baseball and baseball cards. I still remember the Oakland Athletics play-by-play announcers informing me who was up to bat through my little toy Corvette radio. When Canseco was up, I quickly became unaware of anything else happening around me.
As a child, I sent him a letter inviting him to my birthday party, and sent him a 1989 Fleer baseball card wrapped in cellophane, asking him to sign. Much to my disappointment, Jose did not make it to my birthday party, but he did sign my card…on the cellophane!
As the years went by, as with any young man, I grew less interested in baseball, and more interested in girls and friends. It wasn’t until many years later that I came back to the sport and hobby I loved so much as a child. To supplement my cardboard addiction, I create custom baseball cards for my collection as well. The main focus is Canseco, as he is the only one I collect (check out my site, Canseco Collector – I’m always looking for rare Canseco cards!)
You may have read my journey in Beckett magazine last August. One day when I was driving home from a baseball card show, I had a far-fetched idea. What if I were to reach out to his manager and see if I could actually have a private signing with Jose to get my most prized custom card creations signed by him?
As the drive went on, I started thinking bigger. What if I were to be able to get my childhood hero to wear a jersey from each team he played on, as well as hats, cleans, gloves, etc. and cut up to put in my custom cards for my collection? It sounds goofy, but heck – the major card companies do this, so why shouldn’t I? At least I would know for sure he did wear them! Plus, there is hardly anything out there in terms of game used patch cards of his that aren’t the A’s.
For the Canseco fan, ALL teams he played with are important.
This pie-in-the-sky thinking is par for the course for me. It is one of those things that you know probably won’t happen, but you give it a try anyway. My philosophy is the more “out of this world” requests you have out there, the better the chance you have for something big to happen.
After many months of going back and forth with his manager, there were several times when it looked like there was no way this would happen.
But then, I got “the call”.
His manager told me Jose gave him the green light to set it up, so I packed up my family, and we made the road trip from Texas to Nevada to see my childhood hero. It is very unlike me to just pack up and leave like this, but this was special.
Something I would remember forever.
As minutes of driving turned into hours, I had plenty of time to plan in my head how it was all going to play out. I became concerned that this larger-than-life baseball figure would be annoyed that this strange fan of his would drive so far to get several autographs and want him to try on various baseball items. The plan was to get over 150 autographs. What if he just zipped through them in 15 minutes? Believe me, I would take a polite 15 minutes with him over a rude 30 minutes any day of the week.
Another concern I had was this: where was I going to meet him? I had assumed a hotel lobby. But then again, my thoughts got the better of me. If we did that, was he going to get bombarded by other fans and not say a word to me?
With so many things up in the air when we had already put 1,000 miles between us and home, my fears turned to excitement with a single email from his manager.
“Tanner, Jose has decided to have you over at his house. Here is the address…”
Words cannot express how this made me feel. I was going to set foot inside the former best baseball player on the planet?!? This was so surreal! To say I was a bundle of nerves was an understatement, to say the least!
The day came, and I found myself with my family knocking on Jose Canseco’s door. The entire experience could not have gone better unless we made and swapped friendship bracelets! My family and I spent the afternoon at his house, while a baseball game was on in the background. Not only did he sign everything I had and wear everything I asked; he talked to us. My family got to feed his animals, eat cupcakes, watch several home runs he hit on video while he narrated and even play cards.
As if that wasn’t good enough, he even traded me his game used glove and signed it in exchange for one of the gloves I brought.
When I got home, I was eager to write about my experience, because I don’t ever want to forget about it. I posted it only, and I received hundreds upon hundreds of responses. It landed me as the front page feature of Beckett.com and even on the cover of Beckett Magazine, including a full-color six-page spread…the biggest story in the entire magazine.
To make things even better, Beckett Magazine created a limited edition baseball card chase set featuring 15 of their covers from the past. The one that Canseco and I were on was one of them.
That’s right, folks: I am actually on a baseball card with Canseco and I didn’t even make it myself!
Several months later, Jose tweeted me to check in to see how my family and I were doing, which meant a lot to us. Though I admit I have tweeted him a few times since, but have decided to not reach out again unless he does, for fear of bothering him.
As I sit here typing this, it has been over a year since my family was invited over to his house, and I am still absolutely floored that it happened. It was kind of like winning the lottery, in many ways. I will forever be grateful to him for being so nice to my family and I.
If there is one thing I would like for you, the reader of my story to get out of this, is this: Don’t believe what the media wants you to believe about Canseco. He is a down to earth person who genuinely appreciates his fans, and goes out of his way for them. I’ve had the pleasure of befriending two of his closest friends, and they can attest to this as well.
If you would like to read the full story on my experience, you can go here.
Thank you, Hall of Very Good for allowing me to guest-write for you on your site, and enshrining not just a very good baseball player; a baseball legend.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tanner Jones not only has a sick mustache, but is, probably, the world’s biggest collector of Jose Canseco baseball cards. He asks that if anyone has any rare Canseco cards, to please reach out to him at [email protected].
*****
The Hall of Very Good™ Class of 2016 is presented by Out of the Park Developments, the creators of the wildly popular baseball simulation game Out of the Park Baseball. Out of the Park Developments has made a generous donation to The Hall.
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