Older AND Wiser : Bash Brothers McGwire, Canseco Reuinted With A’s

PHOENIX —  Jose Canseco had his Porsche delivered to the Oakland Athletics’ team hotel at Sky Harbor Airport nearly a week before he arrived for spring training. The car sat outside the hotel, a daily reminder to the public that the other half of Oakland’s fabled Bash Brothers was about to return to his baseball home.

Mark McGwire left his Porsche in California. He packed his belongings into a simple Chevy Suburban and drove himself across the desert. He arrived in Arizona early, with little fanfare. And he heard early about Canseco’s Porsche. It simply amused him. “Brothers” or not, he’s never been anything like Canseco. Save, of course, for when he swings the bat.

“We really didn’t know each other personally, and we never hung out,” McGwire said. “People just associate us because of all the Bash Brothers stuff. That was a big thing for the A’s at a time when the team was winning . . . but things have changed. We’re older, we’re wiser, we’re the veterans--that’s really the big difference.

“We’ve come a long way,” McGwire added, glancing across the clubhouse to where Canseco was dressing for a spring workout. “To think we’d ever play together again, well, it’s surprising.”

McGwire is 33, Canseco 32. It’s been eight years since they won a World Series with the A’s. It’s been five since they played in the same lineup. Still, they will forever be linked in Oakland history--the young guns with the big bats who smashed home run after home run for the A’s during their glory run in the late 1980s. Canseco was a rookie in 1986, and hit 33 homers and drove in 117 runs. McGwire came up to stay the following season, and hit 49 homers and drove in 118 runs. In the four years that followed, they hit a combined 215 homers, despite injuries to both.

“We both grew up in this organization and both became superstars at the same time--winning the World Series, helping put the Oakland A’s on the map,” Canseco said. “People associate us with that history. Hopefully, we can bring back some of that excitement this year.”

Canseco already has made a difference. When asked what Canseco’s return added to the club, Manager Art Howe said, “In a word, offense.” But a better word might be visibility. The day Canseco signed with Oakland, the phones in the ticket office started ringing and season ticket sales took an impressive jump.

“Right away, people got excited about having him back,” Howe said. “They’re excited about having him and Mark back together.”

The A’s aren’t fools. They know that good pitching may win ballgames, but big power hitters sell tickets. And together, Canseco and McGwire make one of the most fascinating combinations in the game. At spring training in Florida, much has been made of the eye-popping White Sox lineup, which features Frank Thomas and Albert Belle hitting back-to-back. And while those two may be a lot nearer their primes than Canseco and McGwire, the Bash Brothers still have the juice. Despite injuries, Canseco hit 28 home runs in 96 games with the Red Sox last year. McGwire hit 52 homers for Oakland.

“When you have two guys like Mark and Jose, between them they can hit 100 home runs,” said Jason Giambi, the 26-year-old Oakland outfielder who hit .291 in his first full season last year. “That brings a lot of excitement. And they also bring back some of the excitement of the old days-reliving what happened here through the Bash Brothers.”

When the Bash Brothers were truly the Bash Brothers (the nickname is “kinda old, and worn out, and we’re still looking for a new one,” Canseco said) they were about Giambi’s age, and were the kids in a veteran clubhouse. Now, they are the veterans, with McGwire the clear-cut team leader. And Giambi isn’t about to let them forget that. He calls McGwire “dad” and routinely borrows things out of his locker, making loud references to how the kids need help from the old geezers.

“I steal all his stuff,” Giambi admitted. “All the time. He’s like my dad. He looks out for me.”

Giambi may not have been around when Canseco and McGwire first played together, but he has a very good idea of how the twosome are perceived. “Jose will say whatever he wants,” Giambi said, “but Mark’s more the All-American boy. Everybody loves Mark. Nobody will say anything bad about him. Whereas Jose, he has two kinds of fans--those who love him and those who love to hate him. He’s kind of been the bad boy of baseball.”

Canseco laughed at that description--”bad boy of baseball”--but did not deny it one bit. He has, by his own admission, “been in the papers” more than McGwire, and been in quite a few more scrapes. For some reason, Canseco explained, the public seems to be obsessed with all the little details of his life-what he eats, what he drives, what kind of underwear he wears.

“Nobody asks Mark those questions,” Canseco said, a sly smile on his face.

Then again, Canseco always has been the one to speak his mind, while McGwire has been far more reserved. When Canseco left Oakland in 1992, he did so with such an explosion of vitriol toward the club that no one-least of all Canseco-ever thought he would be back in an A’s uniform again. McGwire certainly never thought he’d be hitting behind Canseco for another season.

“It’s surprising that this is happening,” McGwire said. “But we’ve come a long way. We’re a lot different now.”

A lot different, and perhaps a lot more the same. Despite having been labeled “brothers” McGwire and Canseco never were close--or even all that friendly, for that matter--when they played together the first time. They didn’t hang out, or talk about their personal lives. In fact, they had almost nothing in common.

These days, though, Canseco is married for the second time, in a union that--by all accounts--does not include the drama and public blowups that characterized his first marriage. He is also a new father to a baby girl named Josie. All of that has changed him. And McGwire has noticed.

“I have to say I have a lot of respect for Jose-he’s come a long way,” McGwire said. “We’ve really been nothing alike, but he’s mellower now, more approachable. Seeing him come from the person he was to the person he is now--well, I guess a lot of things have changed.”