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Ex-slugger Jose Canseco joins pursuit of Bigfoot, aliens

Updated February 13, 2019 - 6:07 pm

Major league baseball pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this week.

Jose Canseco reported to Mars.

A message on his Twitter account said the former slugger and longtime Las Vegan is available for Bigfoot and alien excursions and listed a phone number.

It has been a while since my last Bigfoot encounter, which was invoking the size 22 sneakers of NBA Hall of Famer Bob Lanier in describing giant steps MGM Resorts was taking to land an NBA franchise. So I called the number. The voicemail box was full.

It has to be a scam, right?

Not according to Canseco’s manager and girlfriend Morgan Strelow, who informed the RJ’s John Katsilometes via email that the Bigfoot and alien excursion was legit, costs $5,000 and will be limited to “five lucky individuals.”

I hope this chance to meet and greet a Bash Brother turns out better for Canseco’s current girlfriend than a similar opportunity did for a former one.

Poker no-show

Five years ago, I was invited to play poker with Jose Canseco at his home in the shadow of the Las Vegas Nevada Temple.

You should have seen the look on the face of his former gal pal when about 10 of us knocked on his door early one Saturday.

She said Jose wasn’t home.

Supposedly he was stuck in the airport in Pittsburgh after hitting softball home runs for charity into the Allegheny River the night before. But then Leila Knight did something even more bizarre than advertising Bigfoot and alien excursions on social media, or deflecting a routine fly ball over the fence with one’s head for a home run:

She invited us in.

As I recall, there were a lot of statues of naked women in Jose’s crib. Surprisingly, it did not smell like Brut.

As I interviewed Leila Knight about what is was like to be Jose Canseco’s girlfriend, or one of them, strangers played cards on his custom-made poker table featuring an Oakland A’s motif.

It was a surreal experience. Twilight Zone stuff.

But sitting on an ornate sofa at Canseco’s place, chatting up his girl as a bunch of guys he didn’t know played poker in his den, was a scene that not even William Shatner could have imagined on the airplane after being released from the sanitarium.

Canseco for sale

“The Twilight Zone” was referenced in another recent tweet on Canseco’s account. Others said he was available for baseball and softball hitting instruction, a round of golf, that he had traveled into the future where the Rams beat the Patriots 27-20, that time travel puts 42,651 pounds of pressure on a human skeletal structure, that Bitcoin has the same setup as a pyramid scheme, that MLB was colluding against Manny Machado.

He also appears to be feuding with Cox over a Wi-Fi issue. And he’s interested in selling his 2008 super custom Tiffin Allegro motor home.

Apparently the initial asking price was too high. Strelow said in her email the five lucky individuals would be stalking Bigfoot and former left-hander Bill “Spaceman” Lee and other aliens in Jose’s custom RV.

If you didn’t know better, you would swear her boyfriend is either starved for attention or hurting for cash. Remember when Tim McGraw’s dad, Tug, said he would probably spend 90 percent of his new contract on good times, women and Irish whiskey, and the other 10 percent he’d probably waste?

Happens to a lot of ballplayers.

At last check, Canseco’s otherworldly Twitter post had attracted 1.1 thousand likes. An older message on Pete Rose’s account that said he would be signing autographs at Mandalay Bay for a fee had 695.

Some guys would walk through hell in a gasoline suit to get Pete Rose’s autograph. More apparently would rather stalk Bigfoot and aliens with Jose Canseco.

Provided he doesn’t get stuck in the Pittsburgh airport.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.

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