By now, you, dear reader, may have read the Jose Canseco/Alex Rodriguez story spreading through the Internet. It started this morning with a Deadspin post, spread to Baseball Think Factory and from there, landed on blogs across the Internet. A little over an hour ago, the story jumped from the Internet to Newsday when Kat O’Brien wrote up a quick story.
There’s only one problem: I think it’s a fake.
The story begins with a column by Joe Lavin, a Boston-based writer. Lavin writes that he’s read a copy of Canseco’s latest book Vindicated put on sale early by a “quaint Cambridge bookstore.” The book, Lavin writes, is full of stories about Magglio Ordonez, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez:
As for Alex Rodriguez, Canseco says he didn’t inject Rodriguez, but that he “introduced Alex to a known supplier of steroids.” Canseco didn’t mention Rodriguez in the first book because he “hated the bastard.” He was worried that people would have “questioned [his] motives” had he included Rodriguez.
Why all the hatred, you ask. Well, Canseco claims that A-Rod was trying to sleep with Canseco’s wife. Apparently, even after Canseco had been nice enough to help A-Rod find a friendly steroids supplier, A-Rod kept calling Canseco’s wife.
Canseco’s ex-wife, Jessica, is a former Hooters girl. Remember the story about A-Rod and his Toronto woman?
Anyway, Lavin claims that Canseco ends with a story in which Mike Wallace asks him, off the record, about the benefits of HGH as though the venerable CBS host wanted to try the hormones himself. If that sounds a little incredible, it’s because Joe Lavin is no mere writer. He’s a Boston-based humorist who pens a bi-weekly humor column. He joked about Google Stalk and penned a parody of a Harry Potter letter last year.
Right now, everyone is falling for his A-Rod/Canseco shtick. But considering the story — aren’t all Cambridge bookstores quaint? — I’m calling this one out. It’s a humor column being reported as news. I could be wrong; maybe Lavin is using his space normally devoted to sarcastic humor for a real breaking news story, but I doubt it. Let’s see how this plays out.