By David Gibb

Dear Jose Canseco,

In response to your apology for the naming of names in your best-selling book “Juiced,” I have only two things to say. First of all, I accept your apology. Secondly, I absolutely refuse to accept your apology.

I’m willing to forgive you because, frankly, I pity you at this point. Three years ago when “Juiced” first hit shelves, your smug, self-assured, ultra-masculine face was smeared all over TV, beaming with pride over your recently-released money machine. Now the manly, Madonna-bedding façade has fallen away, and to make it back on TV you are now forced to blubber to A&E, delivering your personal mea culpa for the insanity that has ruled the last three years in baseball and explaining the squalor your life and health have devolved into.

The good news for you is that there is no story more American than a fall from grace, and no courtesy more frequently extended by Americans than a second chance.

Now that we all know that you are in fact not the pinnacle of sheer manliness, but rather a desperate, hormone-deprived shell of a man, the healing process can truly begin.

Your detention at the border in San Diego could finally do what all your home runs and steals could not: endear you to people, make them want to root for you. What you never understood as a player is that we like our heroes to have flaws.

As awful as it sounds, your current medical, substance abuse, and financial problems (I hear you’re fighting Danny Bonaduce for money now. Good luck with that!) could finally get the people to give you the attention and recognition that you so desperately need. You’re only a stay on “Celebrity Rehab” away from being the flavor of the week again!

On the other hand, I can’t ever forgive you for what happened to baseball during the McCarthy – oops, I meant Mitchell – era.

While steroids were surely (and, arguably, continue to be) a problem in baseball, it certainly took a certain kind of self-centered, petty, jealous nitwit to think that the best way to tackle the problem was to write a name-naming, tell-all book.

The only reason I can’t get angrier is that as far as I can see, you never lied when naming names; you only told the vicious truth.

Sorry about your damn luck.

Regards,

David Edward Peregrine Gibb .