FanHouse Jose Canseco

Jose Canseco has fired back in a war of words between him and his teammates from 1989 A's.

Before the A's hosted a reunion of the World Series championship team on Tuesday, Giants hitting coach Carney Lansford said he was glad that Canseco wasn't coming because Canseco had not endeared himself to teammates by writing a tell-all book.

On Wednesday, Canseco responded on SportsNetCentral, a sports news show produced by Comcast Sports Net Bay Area.

OAKLAND -- The Oakland Athletics invited the members of their 1989 World Series championship team back for a reunion on Tuesday, and a couple players were conspicuous in their absence: Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco.

Canseco, who was otherwise occupied (see right), was hardly missed.

A day after Carney Lansford said he was still upset at Canseco for writing a tell-all book, Dave Stewart said the A's distaste for Canseco started long before that.

"This book had nothing to do with it, he was a bad teammate," Stewart said.

Does Jose Canseco refuse to leave the spotlight, or does the spotlight refuse to leave him? No matter the case, the two are married to one another. Since his days as a household name, he's managed to find a dozen different means of attracting attention. He was hit on the head by a fly ball. He attempted to pitch and threw out his arm. He wrote a bestseller, the impact of which has rivaled that of his playing career. He's appeared on reality television, he's launched a mixed martial arts career, and now he's suing Major League Baseball. The spotlight will not leave him, and he will not leave the spotlight.

Tonight's Dugout is the first part of a series exploring the history of this sophisticated, decades-old relationship. Read it after the jump.

I often think to myself that Jose Canseco can't do anything new to surprise me. Whenever I think that, Canseco tends to end up surprising me. What's the next logical step for Canseco after recently being pummeled in his MMA debut? Why a lawsuit, of course. A class-action suit, in fact. Filed against Major League Baseball and the MLBPA. Yep, that sounds about right.

Anyway, if you're interested in the details (and at this point, why wouldn't you be?), Canseco is alleging that he's been blackballed from baseball for both his steroid use and his role as steroid whistleblower and that said blackballing has cost him money, job opportunities, a chance at the Hall of Fame, etc. etc. He's also planning on asking Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa to join him in the suit.

Here's a shocker: David Wells probably didn't take steroids during his 21-year playing career. Boomer told the New York Daily News on Sunday that while Jose Canseco offered him HGH in 2001, he declined performance enhancers both then and at other other available venues during his career. Jose Canseco offering David Wells' steroids sounds more like a bad SNL skit than something that actually happened in real life.

Maybe my favorite part of this story is the money quote that Wells, who was (if you don't recall for some reason) rather fond of food and beer during his playing days, gave to the Daily News when discussing Canseco's offer, "That stuff is not good for the game and it is not good for your body." Yep. David Wells was all about what's good for the body.

MLB Power Rankings: Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.

Well, that took freaking forever ... but the Blue Jays finally started to stink the joint up. I swear to you, you can't stay long atop the MLB Power Rankings -- our failure by osmosis jinxing ability is just too strong, son. At any rate, it was a weird week for ranking baseball: the Cubs continued to skid, the Padres went on a tear and Toronto fell off the face of the planet. So, yeah, spiciness ensued, and you may take the jump to see how badly your team fared. Unless you're a Rangers or a Braves fan, in which case they couldn't have done that poorly.

Ariel Helwani and I are back for another edition of our weekly MMA Podcast, and this week we're as busy as ever, discussing the future of Lyoto Machida and Matt Hughes after their big wins at UFC 98, plus the future of Dream after the surprising loss of Kid Yamamoto and the unsurprising loss of Jose Canseco at Dream 9. Listen below to the best hour of MMA talk you'll hear all day.

Jose Canseco's mixed martial arts debut lasted just over a minute Tuesday, as the Korean giant Hong Man Choi knocked him to the ground and pummeled him the way everyone expected he would at the Dream 9 tournament in Japan.

This past year has been one to forget for Gesias Cavalcante. Once considered one of the best lightweight fighters in the world, "JZ" hasn't competed since losing to Shinya Aoki last April at DREAM.2 in Saitama, Japan. After taking some time off to get healthy, his next two fights were either canceled or postponed.

On May 26, he finally returns to action against veteran Tatsuya Kawajiri at DREAM.9, with the American Top Team member looking to prove that he is as relevant as ever in the 155-pound division. Looming on the horizon is a chance to avenge losses to current DREAM lightweight champion Joachim Hansen or Aoki, and that alone is enough to fuel the Brazilian fighter.

FanHouse spoke to JZ about his time away from MMA and sharing the DREAM.9 spotlight with the likes of Jose Canseco. The full interview is below.

Ariel Helwani and I are back for another installment of our MMA podcast. This week we talk about whether Roy Jones should hang up the boxing gloves and give mixed martial arts a try, try to make sense of Jose Canseco fighting for Dream, discuss the matchmaking of Strikeforce, and consider how the mainstream media covers UFC President Dana White. Listen below.