#500 Jose Canseco

About the Front: It must have been really strange to see Jose Canseco in a Rangers uniform when this card was released. He'd been traded the previous August after an eight-year stay in Oakland that included a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, and three straight trips to the World Series.

About the Back: The aforementioned MVP season was 1988, when Canseco became the first member of the 40 HR/40 SB club. His OPS+ that year was 170, meaning that he was 70% better than the league average hitter.

Triple Play:

1. Arriving in Texas kicked off the itinerant phase of Jose's career. From 1992 through 2001, he played for the A's, Rangers, Red Sox, A's again, Blue Jays, Devil Rays, Yankees, and White Sox. He also had Spring Training stints with the Angels and Expos.

2. He finished his big league career with a batting line of .266/.353/.515, 462 home runs, and 1,407 RBI. Even with the overall home run spike of the last few decades, he's still 35th all-time in round-trippers.

3. Canseco has achieved infamy as a fame-chasing bonehead, from the release of two "tell-all" books that accused several of his peers of steroid abuse, to his forays into reality TV, to moonlighting in mixed-martial arts and boxing, to...I'll just link to this summary of his various legal troubles.

11-Year-Old Kevin Says: The major story with Jose Canseco in 1993 was his disastrous relief appearance for Texas in a 15-1 loss in Boston on May 29. In one inning, he threw 33 pitches (12 for strikes), gave up three runs on two hits and three walks, and blew out his right elbow, necessitating Tommy John surgery. I didn't realize until looking it up just now, but this happened three days after Cleveland's Carlos Martinez hit a fly ball that bounced off of Jose's head and over the Cleveland Stadium wall for a home run! Talk about a long week.

Bill James Said: "His chance to be a star now is to be Cecil Fielder, to hit 50 home runs and drive in 130, but he has to stay healthy to do that, and he needs to grow up to stay healthy." I think we all know how that turned out. Canseco topped 113 games played one more time in his career, when he clouted a career-high 46 homers in 151 games for the Blue Jays in 1998. By the way, James lists his position as "Right Field/Relief Pitcher". Har har!

On This Date in 1993: February 27. The Rangers sign pitcher Allan Anderson as a free agent. Anderson led the American League with a 2.45 ERA for the Twins in 1988, but lost effectiveness over the next few seasons. He would split the 1993 season between the Texas and Cleveland AAA affiliates, posting a 5.79 ERA in 26 games, and then retire.