Canseco Gets $23.5 Million for Five Years : Baseball: A’s outfielder passes Mattingly by nearly a million a year as game’s highest-paid player.

Jose Canseco sent baseball’s salary scale to new heights Wednesday when he officially signed a five-year, $23.5-million contract with the Oakland Athletics.

Canseco’s contract is the biggest in baseball history and represents an average annual salary of $4.7 million, almost $900,000 more than the previous high of $3.86 million, the average of Don Mattingly’s five-year, $19.6-million contract with the New York Yankees.

Mattingly’s contract was signed late in spring training, eclipsing the $3.75-million average of the four-year, $15-million contract Will Clark signed with the San Francisco Giants after the 1989 season.

Although the signing might force the A’s to renegotiate Rickey Henderson’s four-year, $12-million contract, Henderson said he will not ask to renegotiate.

“I don’t regret signing,” said Henderson, who signed his $3-million-a-year contract last winter, “and I’m not upset with Jose. He’s an outstanding player who is getting what he deserves. If I was mad at Jose, I’d have to be mad at Don Mattingly, Will Clark and everyone else who signed after I did.

“I play for pride, but money is a part of that. I consider myself the best at what I do, and as such I have to believe I’m now underpaid, but I won’t ask to renegotiate. I’m happy with the A’s. I don’t want to go anywhere unless I have to go.”

Henderson said A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson showed “heart and courage” by coming to him to say the club was on the verge of signing Canseco and to explain the financial rationale.

Alderson, however, did not mention the possibility of a renegotiation, Henderson said.

“We’re sensitive to disparities that occur in a rapidly changing market, but our general position is that a contract is a contract,” Alderson said, seeming to leave the door ajar when asked if he would be willing to reshape Henderson’s contract.

Dave Stewart, whose average annual salary of $3.5 million is baseball’s fourth highest, said he is more than satisfied. Of Canseco and Henderson, he said: “There’s no doubt we have the two best players in the game. Like everything else, it comes down to timing. Jose had the timing.”

Canseco’s contract calls for a $3.5-million signing bonus and annual salaries of $2.8 million, $3.6 million, $4.1 million, $4.4 million and $5.1 million. It includes a provision that allows Canseco to be traded to any team except the two in Canada, and Canseco can make another $200,000 a year if he is most valuable player of the league, playoffs and World Series.

Agent Dennis Gilbert said the record signing bonus was negotiated with the possibility of an increase in federal taxes in mind. Coupled with his 1990 salary of $2 million, it makes Canseco the first to receive $5 million in one year.

Noting that Canseco was recently hospitalized with a back ailment, Gilbert said: “The A’s didn’t break stride. They kept negotiating. They showed me a lot of class.”