Canseco’s Tryout Has Novel Approach

VERO BEACH, Fla. —  He came to this annual Dodgertown tryout camp dressed as if he were going to have lunch at a beachfront restaurant.

He wore a blue and white designer-type sweat outfit with a gray cap turned backward. They pinned the No. 521 on his back, which isn’t the highest or longest he has been assigned because he has twice endured extended jail time in the last two years.

He was one of 108 players of all sizes, shapes and experience who participated in the one-day camp Monday that began with Tom Lasorda welcoming them to “blue heaven on Earth.” He came from his new home in Encino either in an attempt at 39 to revive a career in which he hit 462 home runs or to tout a tell-all book that he insisted will finally be published in September.

It has always been hard to separate reality from fantasy where Jose Canseco is involved, but the one certainty to emerge from a long day is that the Dodgers, despite their need for a right-handed, slugging first baseman (about the only position this man without a position can play), aren’t going to offer him a major league contract, and Canseco said he will not go to triple A.

“This is probably going to be my last attempt at it,” he said, having last played in 2001 with the Chicago White Sox, having last tried to play with the Montreal Expos the next spring before being cut and seemingly certain the Dodgers won’t call today with anything positive.

“I’m just trying to be realistic,” he told a group of reporters. “See you guys in the movies.”

The movies?

Well, agent Doug Ames said Canseco had three movies on his plate and would begin filming with Steven Seagal during the summer.

Of course, Ames and Canseco appeared to be making it up as they went along Monday, with Canseco even revising his infamous estimate of two years ago that 85% of players use steroids.

Now, Canseco said he was misquoted, although only slightly.

“The percentage I used was 80,” he said, “and I think the numbers may have changed. When I said [80], it was awhile back, maybe one and a half or two years. Who knows? Maybe the number has diminished, but at the time I think it was 80%.”

Canseco said he thinks too much is being made of the issue, considering that steroids can’t automatically create the hand-eye coordination essential to succeeding in baseball (“you’re either born with that or you’re not”). Whatever the percentage is now, no one, including Barry Bonds, has ever been more suspected of using steroids or more often denied it than Canseco.

Still cut impressively, Canseco was asked whether he could pass a steroid test if offered a contract by the Dodgers. “Yes, I could now,” he said, and then teasingly volunteered:

“No one knows if in the past I could have passed, because no one ever tested me.”

Whether his alleged steroid history will be included in the book he has long said is in the process of development isn’t certain.

He repeatedly answered questions Monday by saying “read the book,” and he insisted the book -- to be titled “Dare to Truth” -- will be published this fall by Judith Regan, a manuscript developer for HarperCollins. He acknowledged, however, that none of it is written, and neither Canseco nor agent Ames could identify the co-author.

There were other curiosities.

Ames, for instance, said Canseco had been preparing for five weeks by working out with Coach Gary Adams and the UCLA baseball team, but Canseco said it was only 10 days, and UCLA sources had another version, insisting Canseco had been around the Westwood diamond for only a couple days, playing catch with a friend.

As to Canseco’s motivation in attending the workout, Ames said it was strictly about baseball and his desire to get the 38 homers needed for 500 and possible inclusion in the Hall of Fame (“he would be willing to donate the minimum salary to charity and play for nothing,” the agent said). But former St. Louis Cardinal farm product Jeff Tolotti, among the 107 trying out, said Ames told him it was all about publicizing the book.

“He just kind of volunteered it,” Tolotti said.

Ames denied that, saying Canseco already has an around-the-world tour scheduled to publicize a book that isn’t written, but who knows?

As Canseco said, it was even kind of curious that the Dodgers would allow him to attend (“I wanted to take one last shot and see what happened”) considering he has been blackballed by the sport (a charge he has made before) and beset by legal problems.

Those include the 73 days he spent in jail last summer for allegedly testing positive for steroid use in violation (for the second time) of his probation, a charge that was later dropped by prosecutors. The probation stemmed from a November 2001 incident in which he and brother Ozzie pleaded guilty to beating up two men in a Miami nightclub.

“I’m very surprised [to get the opportunity],” Canseco said. “I didn’t think I had a chance.”

He got the chance, said Matt Slater, the club’s director of professional scouting, because the annual March 1 tryout is open to everyone except high school and college players and “basically we’re not turning anyone away.”

The Dodgers generally sign only one or two players out of the tryout to fill minor league holes, although catcher Rick Wilkins advanced to the big club out of the tryout in 1999.

Five other former major league players -- Bryan Rekar, Doug Jennings, Rusty Meacham, Alex Arias and Jeff Sparks -- participated Monday, and Canseco came knowing he had little chance of being signed, if that was his goal.

“We told him we weren’t offering anything, and there was a 99% chance we wouldn’t,” Slater said.

The percentage didn’t improve during the morning trials, in which Canseco couldn’t get his arm even to shoulder height while throwing and hit only one of 18 lobbed pitches over the fence.

Nor did he change the perception during an afternoon intrasquad game when he singled twice, struck out twice, popped up and lined out.

“I haven’t played in two years and had only 10 days to prepare,” he said. “Obviously, I was going to be a little off. I could be ready in three or four weeks.”

It’s not going to happen with the Dodgers.

“He still has bat speed, but this is the National League,” said a scout who supervised the tryout. “What position is he going to play?”

At least, said Canseco, the tryout would provide another chapter for the mysterious book.

As it played out, however, No. 521 won’t be offered anything to sign at Dodgertown beyond the ball that Lasorda asked him to autograph when the tryout ended.