Major League Baseball

Hey, Jose: Please check your swing

Published May. 22, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

Sam Gardner

It’s not exactly breaking news to assert that former slugger Jose Canseco might be just a little out there.

With a barrage of imprudent tweets about his involvement in an alleged sexual assault in Las Vegas, Canseco seems to have crossed a dangerous line, going from quirky and confounding online sideshow to a man who may be distressed, unstable, unhealthy and perhaps in trouble that extends beyond his current legal situation.

In the past two days, Canseco has tweeted the name, phone number and place of business of his accuser, as well as photos of the woman — later deleting some of the messages but choosing, seemingly at random, to leave others up. He also tweeted that he didn't wipe out any of those tweets, which somehow vanished.

He’s also repeatedly petitioned her to take a public, televised polygraph test, continuing to refer to her by name, as though doing so is OK.

And Canseco has offered no sense that he even begins to grasp that, even if he is innocent, attempting to publicly shame an accuser isn’t the way to handle such a sensitive situation.

Regardless of whether he’s telling the truth about the legitimacy of the assault claim he’s allegedly facing — and clearly, he’s confident that he is — Canseco seems to have no understanding of the possible ramifications of his online actions.

There are plenty more tweets like these, and, though most people, historically, have found Canseco’s irreverence humorous, each new post does more to beg the question: Is there actually something more seriously wrong with this man? Is he in a frame of mind where it’s a good idea — or even safe — for him to be in the public eye?

And rather than allowing Canseco to keep painting a caricature of himself and reducing himself to a constant topic of water-cooler discussion, should someone, anyone, who has a say in the way he lives his life — if such people actually exist — be doing something to try to get him help?

It might sound extreme to make such a leap and question Canseco’s safety to both himself and others, especially when talking about a celebrity who has curated an online presence based almost entirely on being obscure, profane, frivolous and taboo. Just look at a small sampling of his tweets in random weeks, in which his bizarre side certainly shined through:

But Canseco’s recent foray into making light of sexual assault accusations is a different story and should sound an alarm for anyone who cares about his livelihood. It’s easy to deride him as crazy, but Canseco has reached a point at which someone may actually need to call his sanity into question. A person who doesn’t see the harm in publicly outing his own alleged sexual assault victim to 500,000 strangers online isn’t exactly using his best judgment.

His ex-girlfriend, Leila Knight, told TMZ she thinks Canseco should stay off Twitter and bashed the accuser in the process.

However, rather than allow him to jaunt around the country pretending he's still a ballplayer, challenging Shaq to fights, a person with Canseco’s true best interests at heart should stop him before he makes things worse and hurts himself or others.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball