Whaddaya Say, Jose?

•How killer bats once circled over his head in the outfield.

•How Esther cooks breakfast.

•How Esther looks when flexing.

•Why the A's wives do lousy cheerleader impressions.

Jose Canseco has a two-block walk back to his hotel from the stadium in Cleveland, and that's enough time for the autograph pests to spot him and begin pursuit. Engulfed, Canseco tries to sign as he walks, but they block his path. He keeps signing, pressing ahead, squeezing through, taking pens in the back of the head. A teenager holds a bat in front of him and pleads, "Please, Mr. Canseco! I've got every player on the A's except you, and you're my favorite!" Without stopping, Canseco signs the bat. The boy falls to his knees, then to his back, and lets out a yelp from the basement of his soul: "AAAAAAAARRRRGGGGH!" As he kisses the bat, the pack tramples over him.

Jose Canseco was soon to make his entry into the world on that day in 1964 when Barbara Canseco received a blood transfusion; the new blood infected her with hepatitis, and the medicine she took for the hepatitis apparently exacerbated a latent case of diabetes. In the years to follow, she was often sick from both diseases. In 1984 a blood clot that had lodged in her back suddenly made its way to her head. She was admitted into Miami's Cancer Research Center on a Friday, but her headaches worsened on Saturday and Sunday.

"I complained over and over to the doctors and nurses about her terrible headaches," says Teresa, "but they couldn't do anything for them."

That Monday, Barbara Canseco died of a brain hemorrhage. Teresa called the boys—Jose in Modesto, Calif., and Ozzie in Greensboro, N.C.—and told them a lie. "Come home, Mom is very sick."

When they arrived, the boys, only 19, were devastated by the tragedy. Neither returned to their teams for a month. "It was like a jolt to me," Jose says. Angry, he began working doubly hard on the weights. He gained weight and strength and resolve. "I think Jose just decided he wasn't going to take anything for granted anymore," says Ozzie. "I think he made his mind up right then and there to say, Nothing's going to stop me now."

But you cannot arm-wrestle a baseball. The new attitude only weakened his game. Every swing was bound for fences only Canseco could see.