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Thursday, January 24, 2008

N.Y. Times: Canseco Sought Cash From Magglio Ordonez (RR)

Juiced! Vindicated! Extorted!

José Canseco, the former major league slugger and admitted steroid user who exposed other players in his 2005 best-selling book “Juiced,” offered to keep a Detroit Tigers outfielder “clear” in his next book if the player invested money in a film project Canseco was promoting, according to a person in baseball with knowledge of the situation.

Four people in baseball confirmed that referrals were made from Major League Baseball to the F.B.I. regarding Canseco’s actions relating to the six-time All-Star outfielder Magglio Ordóñez, who was not mentioned in Canseco’s earlier book or in any other report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. All four insisted on anonymity because they said they didn’t have authority to speak about the events.

The F.B.I. did not open a formal investigation because Ordóñez said he did not want to pursue the complaint.

Canseco denied that he — or any associate of his — ever asked Ordóñez for money to keep his name out of a book.

Repoz Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:35 AM | 28 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: books, rumors, steroids, tigers

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1. Enrico Pallazzo Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:52 AM (#2675142)

Real classy, Jose. You've gone from wife-beating to extortion.

2. Frisco Cali Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:02 AM (#2675147)

Alleged

3. Corey Hart Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:03 AM (#2675148)

This article pisses me off in so many ways:

1. Canseco is an attention whore who cannot be trusted.
2. Blackmailing Maggs for movie funding is a classless move by someone desperate for attention.
3. Maggs had the best year of his career last year, after testing began.
4. Maggs is one of my favorite players in baseball. Now, anything he does/has done will viewed with suspicion, despite no proof.
5. A witch is continuing to try to conduct a witch hunt.

4. jamcadbury Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:13 AM (#2675152)

Canseco refused to say whether Ordóñez would be named in connection with performance-enhancing drugs in his second book. “You are going to have to buy the book to see that,” he said.

Why bother? The names will be all over the internet the second the book leaks anyway.

5. Sawney Snows Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:23 AM (#2675156)

I like how the headline makes it sound as if Canseco asked to borrow money for lunch the day before his paycheck hit, or something like that.

6. Corey Hart Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:25 AM (#2675157)

From SI.com:

"Scott Boras, Ordonez's agent, filed a complaint with the FBI after Canseco spoke with a Boras employee and said Ordonez would be "clear" if the outfielder invested in the movie project, the newspaper said."

Boras versus Canseco...I hope there is no winner.

7. danup Posted: January 24, 2008 at 06:47 AM (#2675172)

If #2 is as knowing as I think it is, that's one of the funniest comments I've ever read here.

8. A triple short of the cycle

Posted: January 24, 2008 at 07:30 AM (#2675193)

Keep him in the clear?... Does that mean clear of trouble, or a free season's worth of the clear?

9. Gambling Rent Czar Posted: January 24, 2008 at 09:01 AM (#2675213)

From the same NY Times piece.

Canseco denied that he — or any associate of his — ever asked Ordóñez for money to keep his name out of a book titled “Vindicated.” .. “Absolutely not,” Canseco said in a telephone interview Wednesday. He also said he had not been told about being the subject of F.B.I. referrals

Ordóñez has known Canseco since they played half a season together on the Chicago White Sox in 2001, Canseco’s last year in baseball. “He never talked about anything” regarding steroids, Ordóñez said of Canseco on Wednesday

Asked whether Canseco had ever specifically asked him for money, Ordóñez said, “No.”

A former ghostwriter on “Vindicated,” which is scheduled to be published at the start of the baseball season, said Canseco planned to name Ordóñez. “He was the most prominent,” said Don Yaeger, a former Sports Illustrated associate editor who reviewed all of Canseco’s materials in December.

Canseco’s book agent, Brett Saxton, has said the book contains some “huge” new names of players who used performance-enhancing drugs, in addition to those named three years ago

10. Gambling Rent Czar Posted: January 24, 2008 at 09:11 AM (#2675215)

A witch is continuing to try to conduct a witch hunt

Now wouldn't that be something. a few more Canseco's. Witches turning on other witches.

when is Cal Ripkens story hit the shelves? #### they wil probably make a movie.

come to think of it .. I bet he didn't see a thing.
Nothing.
Just a guess.

11. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: January 24, 2008 at 01:09 PM (#2675246)

I wouldn't be surprised at *all* if Ordóñez juiced/s. He seems to "fit the profile."

12. ian Posted: January 24, 2008 at 01:38 PM (#2675251)

Ordonez doesn't perfectly fit with this idea, but I've always thought that if you were going to expect any one group to have fewer steroid users than another, "pure hitters" would have relatively few steroids users. And that's where Maggs is, a guy that can hit any pitch to any place in the park, someone with spray power. So I disagree that he particularly fits the typical (whatever that is) profile of a user.

13. BeanoCook Posted: January 24, 2008 at 03:46 PM (#2675318)

Nice. It is about time Canseco goes down. If this were the 20's, MLB would have been able to drum up charges on Canseco years ago.

14. Big Train Posted: January 24, 2008 at 03:52 PM (#2675321)

So, he hinted ARod would be in the book, which would be the biggest name. If Yaeger said Maggs is the biggest name, maybe that means no ARod. Or Arod paid him.

How many more books will he write?

15. chemdoc Posted: January 24, 2008 at 03:56 PM (#2675327)

How many more books will he write?

I guess that depends on how many more movies he wants to make. Of course, the writers' strike may force Jose to start penning his own scripts.

16. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: January 24, 2008 at 04:06 PM (#2675335)

You stay classy, Jose.

17. The cushions are crowded for Edmundo

Posted: January 24, 2008 at 04:55 PM (#2675363)

So, he hinted ARod would be in the book, which would be the biggest name. If Yaeger said Maggs is the biggest name, maybe that means no ARod. Or Arod paid him.

That could be a really lame marketing ploy. From Appendix A:
List of known non-steriod Users
David Eckstein
...
ARod
....
Meathook

18. Hack Wilson Posted: January 24, 2008 at 04:58 PM (#2675366)

Well how does all this effect Canseco's Hall of Fame chances?

He may have to settle for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

19. JDLink Posted: January 24, 2008 at 04:58 PM (#2675367)

I found this part to be interesting:

Yaeger pulled out of the project at the end of December, saying he questioned many of the accusations Canseco was preparing to make. “What he sent me was stuff like, ‘Look at the difference in their bodies’; there were not a lot of specifics,” Yaeger said.

20. Voros McCracken, Human Shield Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:21 PM (#2675378)

If you mention extortion again, I'll have your legs broken.

21. John Northey Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:25 PM (#2675385)

Eh, I'm waiting for him to add some 'classic clean' guys who played with him like Nolan Ryan and the like. Be entertaining to see how the media reacts if one of their favorite players gets named. Probably would instantly go 'we knew it all along' or 'how could he have let the children of America down' ala what we see already for McGwire and Clemens and the rest. Guy goes from hero to goat in three words - 'he used it'.

22. Chris Hansen, NBC Dateline Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:30 PM (#2675394)

Eh, I'm waiting for him to add some 'classic clean' guys who played with him like Nolan Ryan and the like.

They would turn on Canseco faster than you could say Charles Foster Kane.

23. Dan Evensen Posted: January 24, 2008 at 05:30 PM (#2675395)

Who came up with the idea of making a documentary movie based on "Juiced"? Geez, that's really milking the cow for all she's worth.

24. Avoid running at all times.-S. Paige Posted: January 24, 2008 at 07:24 PM (#2675488)

Who came up with the idea of making a documentary movie based on "Juiced"? Geez, that's really milking the cow for all she's worth.

A repeated-visits-to-the-bathroom-stall montage would be well worth the price of admission.

Nick Broomfield would be my first choice for director. Then the Dark Bros.

25. Best Regards, Larry M. Posted: January 24, 2008 at 10:24 PM (#2675637)

So, he hinted ARod would be in the book, which would be the biggest name. If Yaeger said Maggs is the biggest name, maybe that means no ARod. Or Arod paid him.

His original ghostwriter said that Canseco had nothing on A-Rod, and quit.

26. jwb Posted: January 24, 2008 at 11:47 PM (#2675696)

Nick Broomfield would be my first choice for director. Then the Dark Bros.

I'll go with John "Buttman" Stagliano.

27. Cris E Posted: January 25, 2008 at 12:15 AM (#2675711)

There's some confusion about the actual threat: Jose wasn't threatening to accuse Magglio of steriod use. No, he was going to be listed as a co-author unless he came up with some cash.

28. AJM Posted: January 25, 2008 at 12:26 AM (#2675715)

Yaeger pulled out of the project at the end of December, saying he questioned many of the accusations Canseco was preparing to make. “What he sent me was stuff like, ‘Look at the difference in their bodies’; there were not a lot of specifics,” Yaeger said.

Isn't this pretty much that same thing he did in the first book?

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Thursday, January 24, 2008

N.Y. Times: Canseco Sought Cash From Magglio Ordonez (RR)

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