Brace yourself, Jose Canseco is going to be back in baseball. Kind of.
The former major league slugger, best-selling author and the grandfather of the steroid era as we know it has signed a deal with the Laredo Broncos, an independent league team, to become a bench coach and designated hitter for two of the team's upcoming homestands.
Canseco will join the team on two separate weekends to serve his roll. His first stint will come Aug. 16-18 against the United League's Rio Grande Valley White Wings and will again return Aug. 28-30 for a series with the Coastal Bend Thunder.
"We gave him this option," Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said on the team's website. "He felt baseball was over with. We're the ones who encouraged him to come back and return to the game of baseball and back to where his beloved fans can see him again."
Of course, Melendez didn't mention that Canseco could probably use the money — any money — at this point. According to TMZ.com, Canseco was evicted from his California home recently after failing to pay two months' worth of rent. Canseco has recently confirmed that, doing so via Twitter, of course, referring to himself as "the modern day Frankenstein."
And while Canseco spent much of his career educating teammates and younger players on the perils of the long ball and in some cases, performance-enhancing drugs, the Broncos feel Canseco's veteran presence will benefit their team and the community.
"He's going to do a lot of work with kids, doing a lot of camps," added Melendez. "Doing all this for an independent team is a lot of sacrifice on his part. Jose is an amazing baseball player and accomplished so much in his baseball career, it would be great for the rest of the Broncos players to learn from him as well."
The Broncos have also gone as far to declare the deal "the biggest signing in independent baseball history."
