oldtimefamilybaseball:

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Long before the reality shows, body switching, celebrity fights, and mayoral campaigns,  there was simply Jose Canseco: professional baseball masher and suspected steroid user. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we, with the “unauthorized and proud of it” issue of Baseball Superstars Comics: Jose Canseco. 

Once you open the cover, you already know this comic is going to be amazing, thanks to a sunglass-wearing Jose Canseco, “The Misunderstood Man,” surrounded by all the things that make him so misunderstood. Like fast cars and tee-shirts which say “Leave Me Alone.” That’s our Jose. 

We are then thrust back, back, deep into the past. Cuba 1959 to be specific. We know this because Jose Canseco’s father comes home and tells his wife “The communists have taken over Cuba. Fidel Castro is in charge of the government.” And if you think that’s needless exposition, I call it a character choice. Why, on the same page, as Jose and Ozzie are born, Jose’s father says that Ozzie will be named “Osvaldo Capaz, after my dead brother, God rest his soul…” You know, because that’s a thing a person would say. 

As the two grow, we soon realize that Jose and Ozzie switching places a la The Parent Trap has long been a traditional, perhaps a symptom of their arrested development: 

We also learn that young Jose was a voracious reader: 

If I could get a tattoo of young Jose Canseco saying “Cool! Look at that shark!” on my face and remain gainfully employed, you better believe I would. 

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Too amazing not to reblog.