Who’s Lying?
You may have heard by now that on March 31, Jose Canseco’s follow-up to his 2005 book “Juiced“, will be hitting the bookstore shelves. By the way, in case you didn’t make the connection, that’s Opening Day for many teams. But who expects a guy like Canseco to care about such trivialities?
Anyhow, The New York Times published a story yesterday that claimed that Major League Baseball had been in touch with the FBI recently over an alleged incident between the former The Surreal Life participant and Detroit Tigers slugger Magglio Ordonez. According to the Times’ sources, Canseco posed a proposition to Mags - help finance my movie, or you’ll see your name in my new book.
Ordonez himself has thus far refused to talk about the topic in detail, but has apparently at least confirmed that Canseco did contact him. Mags then informed Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski about the situation, and Dombrowski alerted the Commissioner’s Office, who in turn called the FBI. The Times story goes on to mention that it wasn’t just Mags who was given this ultimatum. Supposedly, Ordonez’ agent, Scott Boras, was also approached with a similar proposition to keep his client’s name clean. However, no formal investigation was ever launched by the FBI - because Ordonez didn’t want them to.
“I didn’t want to press charges against him,” Ordóñez said. “I don’t want any problems. He is probably desperate for money. I don’t understand why he is trying to put people down.”
What’s also interesting here is that Mags is denying that he was specifically asked for money in exchange for the omission. Canseco’s camp is obviously denying the report.
So who’s lying? Did Canseco really give Ordonez and Boras an ultimatum - even if it was of the “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” variety? Or did Ordonez fabricate the story as a preemptive strike to discredit Canseco, knowing full well that his name is going to be in that book?
January 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
What’s great is that, even if Canseco did try to blackmail Miggy, I don’t know if that discredits him. I mean, if we were willing to overlook Canseco’s own steroid use, as well as the domestic violence charges, the bar brawls and his participation in The Surreal Life, we surely aren’t going to draw the line at blackmail, are we?
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January 25th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
The tricky thing about this book is that it picks up where “Juiced” left off—which is after Canseco has left the majors. How much could he really know about life in the locker room after his departure? If he’s not the one squeezing into the bathroom stall and sticking other dudes with needles, how does he have his info? Idle gossip?
Not surprising, then, that his original ghost writer dropped out (leaving him to work with the same guy who helped OJ write “If I Did It”) or that his original publisher just dropped him as well.
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January 25th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Coley, Who’s Miggy?
Sarah, It’s possible Canseco actually had first hand knowledge in this instance because he was teammates with Maggs on the White Sox in 2001. I don’t think it matters to Jose though if he has any actual evidence or not.
Paul, The story from Ordonez’s camp is that Canseco wanted Maggs to invest in a movie in exchange for no mention in the book. How could Maggs have known that Jose needed money for a movie unless Jose told him? I suppose it’s possible that he read it in Variety and then concocted the extortion story.
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January 26th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Melissa, I think Coley is referring to Ordonez, though usually when baseball fans say “Miggy” they mean Miguel Tejada…who was also accused of juicing by Jose Canseco. Confusing.
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