There's no mystery to this "Where are they now?" story.
Years after his bitter exit from baseball in 2001, just 38 home runs shy of the then-elite 500 club, Jose Canseco hasn't gone anywhere. He's still talking in wild sound bites, flexing his muscles and dreaming of his chance to grab a bat.
With the passing of time, Canseco is as recognized today as the first player to log 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a season, as he is the man who was dubbed the "Typhoid Mary of steroids" in baseball.
In the years since the fallout from writing "Juiced," his regretful tell-all book that exposed baseball's biggest secret, Canseco hasn't attempted to hide from the backlash.
Nor was his goal to blend into the background after his career as a professional baseball player ended.
Lounging in the pop-up television studio in his Las Vegas home, clad in his work clothes — a tank top and backwards hat — Canseco spoke candidly about all the things he's done and the interests he continues to pursue as he welcomed in his 53rd birthday last month.
He wants you to know how far he can still crush a baseball, how many games of bowling, golf and softball he packs into his afternoons and how good of shape he's in compared to many of his former counterparts.
As evidenced by the never-ending stream of consciousness on his Twitter account, Canseco wants to let you into his eclectic world and let you know what he's thinking — everything from a spat he had with the energy company that unexpectedly shut off power in his Las Vegas home to his thoughts on what Donald Trump would look like as a mythical dragon.
He wants you to know about how his ties with Major League Baseball were severed, much like the time he severed the middle finger on his left hand when the 45-caliber Remington accidentally went off when he was cleaning his loaded gun, and how he desperately wants to heal those figurative wounds.
That affiliation to baseball has long been a nagging itch for Canseco. Years after the steroid scandal turned him into baseball's pariah, one thing remains as constant as his attention-drawing antics.
He'll do just about anything to get back into baseball.
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His quest to be accepted by the sport that turned its back on him has been an endless journey marked by participation in home run derbies against players some 30 years younger, midseason appearances on unaffiliated minor league teams and shuttling himself from function to function where he's paid to sign memorabilia.
It has often mirrored the character of Mickey Rourke in the critically acclaimed movie "The Wrestler," a tale of an aging athlete clinging to his fast-fading fame of yesteryear.
But for Canseco, this time around things might actually be different, and his journey of a random conglomerate may be turning in a direction that could actually lead him to the promised land.
This season, the Oakland A's and NBC Sports California gave Canseco an opportunity that serves as the closest thing he's gotten to MLB since his anticlimactic exit 16 years ago.
Canseco signed on with the network as a studio analyst for A's Pregame Live and A's Postgame Live. From his home in Vegas, that is wired to do remote broadcasts, Canseco has been afforded the opportunity to step into an analyst role while remaining true to his persona — unfiltered and unapologetic as ever.
As the Bay Bridge series culminated Thursday, so did Canseco's first year as an analyst with his 25th and final broadcast of the season.
"It's an opportunity for him, maybe even a little bit of a second chance, to be at a different point of his life and his career and kind of come back home in some ways and have some of the same success early in his career, but on a different platform with media and TV," A's president Dave Kaval told the Bay Area News Group earlier this season.
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The reward of positioning Canseco front and center as an analyst outweighed the risks, NBC Sports California and the A's ultimately decided.
The move was among the many steps Kaval took to rejuvenate the Oakland fan base by connecting it to the franchise's most historical figures.
"(Kaval has) infused a lot of energy into what they're doing, and part of that is he's willing to do anything, even if it's a little outside the box," said David Koppett, the vice president of content strategy for NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California.
His bulging biceps aside, Canseco's larger-than-life personality precludes him from fitting within the walls of any box. The A's and NBCSCA never attempted to mold him into the cookie-cutter, ultra-polished ideal of a former player turned analyst, the opposite approach of which has made another controversial steroids figure, Alex Rodriguez, into a star for Fox Sports.
Instead, they told Canseco to be himself, and the two parties got exactly what they asked for.
As an athlete, Canseco felt he had to do more than hit some of the longest home runs in MLB history.
He was an entertainer. His job was to put on a show.
"Forget about how I played on any given night; I knew my role was to give the media and the fans what they really wanted — which was to be colorful and larger than life," Canseco wrote in "Juiced."
As an analyst, Canseco follows that same approach.
Trading in suits for tank tops and backwards hats, Canseco gives viewers the full version of himself in front of a bookcase lined with figurines of his heyday at-bats, an A's road jersey, baseballs, bats and other memorabilia. His 17 years of major league experience and unabashed bluntness leaves viewers on the edge of their seats wondering what he's going to say next.
It provides them with a different way to look at the game.
"I just tell the truth, how I see it," Canseco said. "Maybe I need a filter? I have no idea. I tell you exactly how it is. I think that's why they like it."
On broadcasts, and subsequently afterward on his Twitter account, Canseco has called out left fielder Khris Davis for having "the worst throwing arm I have ever seen," questioned why the A's fired pitching coach Curt Young and equated the major league club to a Triple-A team earlier this year.
The A's brought Canseco on to connect to the fans. That's exactly what he's doing.
"You alienate (fans) if you beat around the bush," he said.
So Canseco chooses to pour on the full "bar" talk — the type of casual banter fans would have when watching a botched play unfold.
"If I see a terrible play, it's 'Wow, what was he thinking?' " he said. "Another analyst might say he'll get it right next time. But what happened right there?
"If you struck out four times and you stunk, I'm going to call you on it. Hopefully next time you have three great at-bats. But if you have three bad at-bats, I'm going to call you on it, too."
Canseco's paycheck comes from NBC Sports California, but neither NBCSCA nor the A's had to receive a sign-off from Major League Baseball to put him on their broadcasts.
His unfiltered takes have allowed the former A.L. MVP to use his platform to hammer on baseball's biggest issues, including the hypocrisy of Hall of Fame voters and PED use.
He's also stayed true to himself with his quirkiness and antics, pranking host Mindi Bach and analyst Bip Roberts in the Bay Area studio when he and near-identical twin brother Ozzie switched places to see how long it would take for the crew to notice. Spoiler: Roberts spotted the "imposter" shortly after Ozzie started talking, and the in-studio crew tried to remain composed in between chuckles before Jose entered the frame to let everyone else in on the joke.
Canseco hasn't tried to be someone he's not. Arguably his biggest endorsement of that came from former teammate and current analyst partner Dave Stewart, who joined the network at the same time as Canseco this spring.
His message to those who hold doubts about Canseco the analyst? Put aside your thoughts of Canseco, baseball's former bad boy.
"When you listen to Jose on the show and you listen to the way he analyzes the game, players, at-bats, situations, you realize he's got a chance to be very, very good at this regardless of the cutoff sleeves or the cap on backwards," Stewart said.
"I think he's capable of doing things on the national level."
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Canseco's future as a broadcaster will be determined in the offseason when NBCSCA evaluates its talent pool, how everyone performed and whom it re-signs for the 2018 slate.
For a brief pause in time, the ex-slugger was as close to the game as he's been in years. After Thursday, he hit the road for more autograph signing sessions and appearances, his way of making a living.
Some ex-athletes find a sustainable income flow a struggle in their post playing days. As Canseco is with home run derbies, fans used to be able to take batting practice off late Cleveland Indians legend Bob Feller, a way he chose to support himself long after his career ended.
Canseco won't disclose how much he makes off those ventures, but points to a responsibility he feels to partake because he's still physically able to.
"I fill my plate with physical things because I truly feel that even though I was severed, ex-communicated from baseball, I still represent the game of baseball," Canseco said. "I don't ever want to be one of these players that leaves the game and (becomes) 300, 350 pounds and when you look at him, you don't even know who he is. Athletes have a responsibility, even when they're retired, to represent their sport."
In the years since his persona as the "Godfather of steroids" died down, Canseco concluded that his addiction wasn't to steroids at all.
He's never been able to let go of baseball. To be fair, he's never really tried despite sporadic attempts to dip into other sports and cheesy entertainment ventures.
Canseco is still chasing the dream he feels was derailed because of his fall out with Major League Baseball. He's gotten a taste of that acceptance as the A's have slowly welcomed him back with the 1989 World Series reunion, Jose Canseco Bobblehead Night, being included among the group of franchise legends often honored and recognized and the chance to get his foot in the door as a broadcaster.
Will it ever be enough?
Coaching, in Canseco's mind, is the only way to yield that yearning desire. He's gotten a start with it in independent ball when he came back to play with the Pittsburg Diamonds each of the last three summers.
"He's a very open guy and genuine in anything that he speaks to you about," one Pittsburg Diamonds player said recently during Canseco's latest stint with the club. "A lot of us have asked him for hitting tips and things of that nature, but we also talked about his lifestyle and how he used to handle the pressure at 20, 25 years old. It's nice to get that advice from an icon in Major League Baseball."
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