Can't Keep A Good Canseco Down

Jose Canseco is more than an amazing steroid-barbecue host, he's also an exceptional extortionist author. His new book Indicted Vindicated is due out on April 1st, one day after the Yankees open up against the Blue Jays. The book promises to enlighten baseball fans, including “revelations about Alex Rodriguez,... Mike Piazza and other members of the New York Yankees.”

This title is embargoed, and Simon Spotlight is not giving out information until Canseco appears on Nightline on Friday, March 28. Like Canseco’s career and reputation, the book has taken a beating on its way to publication. It was shopped extensively before finally being picked up by Penguin/Berkley in late December 2007. Shortly thereafter, former SI sportswriter Don Yaeger, who had been hired to co-write the book, dropped out of the project, saying, “There’s no meat on the bones.” He was referring specifically, he says, to the allegations about steroid use by Yankee Alex Rodriguez. “I don’t think there’s a book there,” Yaeger told the New York Daily News. “I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod.”

Less than a month later, Berkley dropped the project, and it was picked up by Simon Spotlight. PW asked Jen Bergstrom, v-p/publisher of Simon Spotlight Entertainment, why she decided to publish Vindicated. “The same reason I decide to publish any book,” she says. “I started reading it, and I couldn’t put it down. I devoured it in one sitting.” Asked if she was troubled that Berkley had dropped the project so quickly, Bergstrom says, “Not at all. They’re a fantastic publisher. Obviously, I wasn’t privy to their reasons for not wanting to move forward, but publishing is a very subjective business.” Yaeger’s comment about there being “no meat on the bones” didn’t bother her either. “Don Yaeger didn’t read what I read,” Bergstrom says.

Yaeger's reaction, along with Canseco's failed efforts to blackmail Magglio Ordonez are all sane people need when pondering whether the Juiced sequel was written for content or cache. [Or in this case, a desperate need for attention and cash]