He’s Always Been in Lone-Star State

Jose Canseco is going to love Texas.

Why?

Many reasons:

Wide open spaces. Perfect for high-speed driving and outrunning Smokies.

Bigger hats. Texans sell very large hats to accommodate very large heads.

--Nolan Ryan. Someone for Canseco to pal around with, as they have virtually identical personalities. (Cough.)

Number to be retired. Too bad it will be his Oakland toll-free number.

New teammates to impress. Canseco has been in a World Series. Young and old Rangers alike will sit around and ask: “Jose, what’s a World Series?”

New fans to impress. Canseco can transfer that 900 phone line to Southwestern Bell. He should be bigger than Jessica Hahn.

Solid footing. When Texas finally has a World Series, it will not be interrupted by an earthquake. Killer bees, maybe. But no quake.

40/40 clause. Next contract will stipulate that if Jose hits 40 homers without hitting 40 cars in the parking lot, he gets a bonus.

Better games. You never know how Texas games will turn out in the ninth inning. But Oakland brings in that Eckersley guy and the game is over.

More brothers to bash. Oakland guys could really hit. Jose’s arm is sore. Texas players score fewer runs, have less reason to celebrate.

Dallas is nearby. And what better place for a maverick?

Jose, no longer an A?

A’stounding.

I was as flabbergasted as anyone when the Oakland Athletics announced that they had pony-expressed Canseco to the Texas Rangers for outfielder Ruben Sierra and two pitchers. The A’s trading Canseco--next thing you know, somebody will trade Wayne Gretzky or Charles Barkley.

Four or five years ago, Oakland could have traded Canseco to the Texas Rangers for the Texas Rangers--all of them.

Still, they didn’t make out too badly.

Sierra has one of the game’s most wicked swings. Jeff Russell is an ace relief pitcher--as if the A’s needed one--and Bobby Witt is the major league leader in unrealized potential.

But Canseco was one of those players who seemed as permanent a fixture in Oakland as Teddy Roosevelt on Mt. Rushmore. He had ability and personality. He was both swift and strong. He was the athletic Athletic.

For some reason, though, his popularity ebbed.

“When you start hearing boos from your own fans, maybe it is time to move on,” Canseco said after the trade.

I don’t know what Oaklanders would have to say boo about. The team is in first place. Dennis Eckersley already has lost the one game he loses every season. Where’s the beef?

Maybe the worry is that Mark McGwire is hurt. Or that McGwire and others might bolt the A’s for greener pastures. This team has more free agents than William Morris. So far, about the only people Oakland has signed for next season are Eckersley and the groundskeeper.

Canseco’s act did get stale.

When he left a game recently before it was over--and when I say left, I mean left, as in the whole ballpark--even Manager Tony La Russa seemed fed up. Jose’s first priority was, as usual, Jose.

Often, though, he was good for a laugh. Predicting that Wally Joyner would deny him 1986’s rookie-of-the-year honors, Canseco said: “Joyner? Talent-wise, he couldn’t carry my jock.”

And when he was seen emerging from Madonna’s apartment in the wee hours of the morning, it was good for a week’s worth of truth-or-dare, take-or-swing-away jokes.

But when he was a no-show at a Baltimore banquet in his honor, attended by the governor and 2,500 others at $35 a head--the proceeds designated for cancer research--it wasn’t the least bit funny to Frank Sliwka, the man who ran the Maryland Professional Baseball Players Assn.’s 33-year-old event.

“I feel like killing him,” Sliwka said. “What a crude, irresponsible individual.”

When David Letterman booked him as a guest on his talk show, Canseco canceled on airday.

When Steve Corbin of Mechanicsville, Va., tried to book him for an autograph show, he said: “This guy wants $15,000 for two hours and $20,000 for three. He wants what Mickey Mantle gets and twice as much as Willie Mays.”

When a Montgomery, Ala., card show met his price, Canseco reportedly threatened to cancel unless another $5,000 was thrown into the pot.

Said promoter Jim Pitts: “I lost $11,000 on him. Let’s put it this way: If he was on fire, no one would walk across the street to spit on him.”

Teammate Don Baylor once said: “Jose’s attitude is scarier than his potential. He can be one of the most selfish players I have ever seen.”

In Miami, however, they named a street for him--really, Jose Canseco Street.

It probably goes one way.