It's often been remarked that few spectacles are sadder and more squalid than that of the once-robust professional athlete not knowing when to hang it up and stop competing.
Jose Canseco, once the hottest player in the game of baseball, American League MVP and celebrity (once taunted on the cover of the New York Post as Madonna's "Bat Boy?") is still apparently juicing like mad to try to keep himself jacked up enough to swing and miss with regularity down in the Mexican League. Or was until he got busted.
What's next? I mean: Really.
I'm the guy who worked with Canseco on Juiced, as Jose later told the New Yorker magazine. I'm the one who, as the New York Daily News once put it, made Canseco tell the truth in that book. I'd reported on steroids and baseball for The New York Times, San Fransisco Chronicle, New Republic and Wired.com. That book hit No. 1 on the Times best-seller list and had a big impact. The wall of denial finally toppled.
So I'm here now to say: Please, Jose, hang it up!
Stop humiliating yourself!
You are 47! You are never, ever going to play again in the Major Leagues! You are never even going to get near a Major League ballpark except as a fan -- ever!
Here is the first paragraph of a story moved by ESPN News Services: "Mexican Baseball League officials say Jose Canseco has acknowledged that he took a banned substance for which he has no prescription and will not play as expected in the league."
The article goes on to cite Canseco's Twitter account for an update on his plans for a comeback with the Quintana Roo Tigers of the Mexican League: "'Back in baseball I knew I would play this year you just gotta believe in your dreams," Canseco wrote on Twitter Feb. 12. "Leave on redeye tonite to start spring training with AAA quintana roo tigers tomorrow.'"
Jose, go home, pop in a DVD of The Wrestler, and then go look in a mirror. You do not have to keep acting like a cartoon character -- really. It's over.