“ Jose , we bonk you ! Jose , you suck ! ” It ’s 1992 in Louisville , Kentucky , and a man who yield a striking resemblance to major league home go king Jose Canseco issmashing baseballsout of Triple - A ballpark for the Louisville Redbirds , the minor conference sibling of the St. Louis Cardinals .
A screen set up specifically for abode run at Pilot Field in Buffalo , New York , fails to contain one 550 - foot drive . The ball run over the filmdom and past the highway .
“ Good line , Jose ! ”
Before and after games , the six - foot - two , 220 - British pound sterling slugger will be asked about go out Madonna ( he did n’t ) , antagonized into competitiveness ( he stave off them , mostly ) , and begged for autographs . When he signs his name , fans appear confounded . They tell him to stop joking around . Does n’t he do it he ’s Jose Canseco , perpetual All - Star and fertile wolf of baseball ? Who ever discover of Ozzie Canseco , Jose ’s identical twin , bear two minutes to begin with to Jose Canseco Sr . and his wife , Barbara ? And if they are selfsame , why is it that Jose was earning millions as a appendage of the Oakland Athletics while Ozzie only made sporadic appearances in the majors ?
Ozzie attempt to explain all of these things over and over again . Every sentence he cerebrate mass have the message , he would steer back out into the macrocosm , hearing his brother ’s name . Once , a carveeredand essay to run him off the route . When Ozzie hit the shoulder , the other driver laughed , as if it were a joke , and then referred to him as Jose .
There are relatively few examples oftwinswho excelled equally in sports . Ronde and Tiki Barber were both selected in the 1997 NFL Draft and had successful life history ; Karyne and Sarah Steben , both accomplished gymnast , toured with Cirque du Soleil and credit their psychological connectedness with help them do difficult airy feats .
More often , siblings of hotshot athletes idle in the shadows cast by their mellow - attain counterparts .
Hank Aaron ’s brotherTommiejoined himin professional baseball . Hank strike 755 home runs during his career ; Tommie connected with 13 . There were three DiMaggio chum , though it was Joe — the onetime hubby ofMarilyn Monroe — who stood out both on and off the field . Had any of these men looked selfsame to their famous pal , it would have compounded the compare . It ’s improbable anyone ever test to tend Tommie Aaron off the route .
bear on July 2 , 1964 , Osvaldo “ Ozzie ” Capas Canseco and Jose Canseco would soon be another sport sib history .
The two were barely a year old when their parentsimmigratedto the United States from Cuba . Both grew up learning to spiel " the gravid American pastime . " Jose , an outfielder who could wallop a orchis out of lot , was muster in by the Oakland Athletics in 1982 straight out of eminent school day . After round off his skills in the minor league for three long time , he briefly debut as a late - time of year call - up for the Athletics in 1985 . His prescribed cub time of year camein 1986 , when he went on to hit 33 home runs and rap in 117 RBIs , ensue in Rookie of the Year pureness .
Ozzie , who had played as much baseball game as his sidekick , decided to take a year forcollege . rather of being a baron batsman , Ozzie had gravitated toward pitching . The New York Yankeesdraftedhim in 1983 . After four mostly unimpressive year on the mound in the pocket-sized leagues , he was released by the Yankees and picked up by the Oakland Athletics organisation in 1986 to further explicate his skill .
It number to a genetical experimentation in sports : Two men , closely superposable in build — Jose was an in grandiloquent and perhaps 10 hammering cloggy — who play the same biz for the same amount of time . In 1989 , the two even suffer the exactsame injuryto the hamate pearl in the handwriting . Yet it was Jose who became a whizz , earning exponentially increase millions and stats for the Athletics and the Texas Rangers , while Ozzie struggled to get called up .
The problem , according to Ozzie , was that he had hawk fortoo long , polish a skill that would n’t pay the same dividends as an outfielder and star hitter . All those year pitching put him behind Jose and behind the game . When he was finally call up to the Athletics as an outfielder in 1990 , the divergence in ability when compare to Jose was obvious . After 20 homers and 67 RBIs with the Huntsville Stars farm squad , he managed only a .105 batting average innine MLB gamesduring his first time of year , chance upon out in 10 of his 19 at - at-bat . Meanwhile , in 1988 , Jose became thefirst MLB playerin history to remove 40 home run and slip 40 base in a exclusive season — a effort only three players have replicate since . When Ozziestruck outin his first Athletics game , Jose hit two home runs .
Pundits sample to pause down Ozzie ’s deficiencies . Superficially , he had everything Jose had , including a powerful build that was probably bolstered by steroids . ( Jose admitted to using performance - enhancing nitty-gritty in his 2005 tell - all al-Qur’an , Juiced ; Ozzie wasarrestedfor driving in a car that contain phial of steroids during a dealings plosive in 2003 . Jose latertold VICEthat Ozzie " used the same type of steroid hormone I used and in equal sum . " ) But expert pointed out that Jose was more flexible , with a better reach of motion in his swinging and a dissipated dash . He seemed to be more belligerent during play , too . These were insidious differences , but enough for Jose to make three World Series show while Ozzie toiled in the nestling .
Dejected , Ozzie headed for Japan to play for the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes to focalize his plot against different kinds of slant . Playing for the Nipponese eq of a farm squad in Osaka , he drop by the wayside halfway through the time of year to render to the U.S. minors , joiningthe Louisville Redbirds , the Cardinals Triple - A squad . In 1993 , he got achanceto jump on the Cardinals for six uneventful games . When Bernard Gilkey come off the handicapped list , Ozzie was chance back down . In foiling , he briefly quit baseball game before sign a contract with the Triple - A arm of the Milwaukee Brewers and , later , the Florida Marlins .
After being released by the Marlins in 1996 , he remarked it was the first summer he had not played baseball since he was a kidskin . While other people may have confused him for Jose , baseball game ’s management did not .
If Ozzie was never quite his chum ’s adequate on the field , he found parity in other agency . For geezerhood , rumors circulated that Ozzie would show up in place of Jose for John Hancock signings . The two also got in well-nigh tantamount effectual bother for a 2001nightclub brawlin Miami Beach that cease in probation and a civil lawsuit against both .
In what was probably their most audacious attempt to fool people , Ozziereportedlyshowed up for a 2011 renown boxing match exact he was Jose , who had do in prizefights against the likes of Danny Bonaduce . Promoter Damon Feldman claimed he had pay Jose $ 5000 and that he was confused when Ozzie finally removed his shirt . ( He lacks the bicep tattoo sported by his brother ) . Feldman had himescorted outand file a complaint for breach of contract , winninga default judgement against Jose for the $ 5000 advance and travel expenses . Feldman by and by expressed doubt he had ever actually met Jose . ( On Twitter , Jose Canseco abnegate Feldman ’s claim that he had sent Ozzie in his place . )
In 2015 , Ozzie wasnamedthe bump off coach for the Sioux Falls Canaries , a doubled - A team in South Dakota . Not long after , he and his brother once again obscure onlooker when Ozziefooledhis on - strain newswriter into recollect “ Jose ” had arrived to film a section for his role as an psychoanalyst for an NBC programme . It was a flake of levity that may have indicated that the eld removed from the field had allowed Ozzie to feel more comfortable — both in his own hide and his brother ’s .
It was a tenacious clip coming . talk toSports Illustratedin 1994 , Ozzie bewail the peculiar reality of resembling his brother in every panorama but the one that mattered to him most . “ It ’s difficult to explain my existence as Ozzie Canseco on a day-by-day basis , ” he enjoin .
