Now that I have your attention, let me get this out of the way: I have nothing factual to back this up other than some oblique quotes from Jose Canseco and good, old-fashioned deduction.
“Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who’s used,” said Jose Canseco to ESPN today.
He declined to name who that player was, saying he wasn’t in the business of naming names (really?) and then says “I know who’s on that list,” and the way it read to me implied the Hall of Famer was on that list.
Canseco then goes on to say “If you were in the game in the last 20 years, there’s a 95 percent chance you were knowingly using something.”
Strong words. They’re also pretty damning when you tie them all together.
For a player to be on the list and still make the Hall of Fame, he would have to have retired in 2003. Let’s look at the numbers.
Jose Canseco played for the Oakland Athletics from 1985 to mid-1992. That means he and Rickey Henderson were teammates from mid-1989 to mid-1992.
That enough isn’t alone to toss Rickey’s name around. But how about this: Rickey’s final season happened to be the season these anonymous players tested positive. Rickey was 44 and trying like hell to hang on. Do you think he cared if he tested positive anonymously? (If, of course, he did.)
Then there’s the fact there’s never been any mention by Jose Canseco before this to the best of my knowledge that a Hall of Famer was on steroids.
Pretty easy to tie all the loose ends together.
If true, it will be a steroid bombshell to end all bombshells. But apparently no more names will be released from the list, and the leaking hasn’t been systematic. Riiiight.