BASEBALL Canseco violates probation after steroids found in urine

The one-time American League MVP was busted for violating house arrest.
By EVAN S. BENN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- The Jose Canseco saga -- an epic tale of home-run hitting, barroom brawling and spousal squabbling -- took a bizarre turn Friday when the former ballplayer was busted for violating his house arrest.
The reason: steroids in his urine.
The onetime American League Most Valuable Player, who just this week generated news -- and $2,500 -- through a "Spend a Day with Jose" moneymaking venture, was arrested at his home in Davie.
It's another black eye for baseball, which has been beset by suspicions that some of its most prodigious home-run hitters may have bulked themselves up through the use of anabolic steroids and other chemicals.
During negotiations last year with the ballplayers' union, baseball won the right to institute a steroid-testing policy that has been widely derided as feeble.
No comment
Major League Baseball spokesman Patrick Courtney had no comment about what effect -- if any -- Canseco's steroids bust would have on baseball's image.
Suspicion dogged Canseco during much of his 17-year Major League career. Opposing fans would sometimes chant "Staiirrroids . . . Staiirrroids" as the slugger stretched in the on-deck circle. Occasionally, Canseco would salute back, good-naturedly, by flexing his massive biceps.
The spotlight followed Canseco throughout his career.
Canseco was the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in one season. Canseco and teammate Mark McGwire were known as the "Bash Brothers" for their home run hitting prowess.
Canseco finished his career with 462 home runs, many of them rockets that sailed well past the outfield wall.
He hit big, and he many times whiffed big. Once, in 1993, the outfielder misjudged a fly ball that wound up bouncing off his head into home run territory, becoming an instant classic blooper.
Injured shoulder
Three days later, he pleaded with his manager to let him pitch an inning during a lopsided loss. Canseco injured his shoulder and was sidelined for the season.
Canseco was colorful and quotable. Once, after being dealt from the Oakland A's to the Texas Rangers for three players and cash, he told an inquiring journalist he had been traded "to Ethiopia, for a box of Froot Loops and a camel to be named later."
In an early effort to cash in on his celebrity, Canseco briefly set up a 1-900 hotline that dispensed quotes.
Off the field, his activities were just as unpredictable.
There was strange squabble involving his estranged wife -- who claimed he slammed his car into hers during a domestic spat. A mid-'90s fling with Madonna, tickets for speeding in his Jaguar at 120 mph with a semiautomatic pistol under the seat, and arrests at nightclubs in Chicago and South Beach also stand out in his non-baseball biography.
Claims he's blackballed
He has claimed to have been blackballed from professional baseball, and had threatened to publish a tell-all book to support his theory that 85 percent of pro ballplayers use steroids.
And, just this week, he began charging fans $625 an hour to hang out with him at his house. He calls it "Spend a Day with Jose," and said he plans to make it into a reality television show.
Nothing Canseco did seemed to escape public's attention. Friday's arrest -- his second probation violation this year -- was no different.
He was taken into custody at 11:35 a.m. without incident, Davie Police spokesman Lt. Bill Bamford said.
Jayne Weintraub, Canseco's attorney, was annoyed Friday afternoon with how long her client was being held in the small Davie Police station.
"All I've been trying to do since 11:30 is speak to him and get Davie police to process him so we can schedule a bond hearing," Weintraub said from her cell phone on the way to Davie. "It's Friday afternoon, and he's probably going to end up sitting in jail until Monday."
Pleaded guilty
Canseco's most recent troubles stem from a 2001 brawl at a South Beach nightclub. He and his twin brother Osvaldo "Ozzie" Canseco pleaded guilty to aggravated battery charges. The two allegedly broke the nose of one Opium Garden patron and split the lip of another, resulting in a number of "Bash Brothers" headlines.
Last month, Ozzie Canseco, who spent 24 games in the Major Leagues to his brother's 1,811, was arrested in Charlotte County after police found Nandrolone, an illegal anabolic steroid, in his car. He is in jail awaiting a June 30 hearing on that charge.
Jose Canseco first broke his probation earlier this year when he left Florida for several weeks and failed to undergo court-ordered anger-management classes and community service.
A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge in February ordered Canseco to spend 30 days in jail. When he was released, Canseco apologized to the court, his family and friends, and he said he had learned his lesson.
"Now I know the seriousness of probation," Canseco said at the time.