Canseco Agrees to $23.5 Million

The Oakland Athletics have scheduled a news conference for this morning to announce that Jose Canseco has agreed to a five-year contract extension believed to total $23.5 million, baseball’s biggest ever.

Canseco’s package will surpass the five-year, $19.6-million contract Don Mattingly received from the New York Yankees in spring training and the four-year, $15 million contract Will Clark got from the San Francisco Giants during the winter.

It is also likely to force the A’s into a contract renegotiation with Rickey Henderson, whose four-year, $12-million deal--agreed to early in the winter--was baseball’s biggest briefly.

Henderson said Tuesday he would wait to see what Canseco receives before deciding if he will seek renegotiation. A’s general manager Sandy Alderson said he is sensitive to the disparities in the Canseco and Henderson contracts but isn’t sure how he will deal with them.