Via the L.A. Times -

Here sits the great baseball sage Jose Canseco, dressed in a black hat and a black motorcycle jacket, slumped in a folding chair in a small room just off the main stage at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

It is Friday night and he is minutes from giving a talk about his life in baseball: the rise and fall, the steroids, his knowledge of who injected what and his speculation about current players — even, it turns out, Manny Ramirez.

What about Alex Rodriguez, the audience wants to know? Canseco calls the Yankee third baseman a Canseco copycat, from the steroids to the dalliance with Madonna. He scoffs at the notion Rodriguez is telling the whole truth about his drug use.

What about Ken Griffey? Canseco says Griffey has always been clean, but offers a caveat: nobody can be sure about anyone anymore.

What about Manny Ramirez? someone asks.

Canseco laughs and offers his theory. A-Rod was exposed only when his name was leaked from a list of 104 major leaguers who in a 2003 test showed up postive for steroids. Because the test was anonymous, those names were never to be made public. But in Canseco’s mind, baseball’s power-brokers know who is on it: players he is sure will be seen as toxic if the truth comes out.

He says this, despite the fact that A-Rod isn’t being treated as toxic, nor are other players caught up in the steroid scandal but who publicly apologized, including Miguel Tejada, the starting shortstop for the Houston Astros, and Andy Pettitte, a starting pitcher with the New York Yankees.

Why didn’t Ramirez get a long-term deal? Canseco asks. Why were owners gun-shy about signing arguably the game’s best hitter?

Never mind that Ramirez was asking for a mega-deal at age 36. Or that he was negotiating in a sickly economy, while weighed down by the heavy baggage of a surly reputation. Canseco will have none of it. To Canseco, the drawn-out negotiation, the lack of a long-term deal, the lack of interest, all raise red flags and so tells the Bovard crowd that Manny Ramirez’s “name is most likely, 90%,” on the list.

The first “Wow!” on this one: What if it’s true?

The second “Wow!” on this one: What if it’s true, and the Yankees had signed Manny this off-season? Could you imagine the mess of having A-Rod and Ramirez on the team, with PED scarlet letters branded on their chests? What a mess that would have been…