Last night I had the opportunity (I almost called it a privilege, but that wouldn’t be true) to be at a minor league baseball game in Little Rock, Arkansas where MLB-MVP-turned-laughingstock Jose Canseco would continue his boxing “career” against Gary Hogan, a 60-year old assistant athletic director from a local university.
How did this all come about, you ask? Like most of Canseco’s actions over the last decade, this match occurred because he’s a bankrupt attention whore (check out his Wikipedia page for a breakdown of his escapades, including attempting to “rent” a day with him at his house for $5,000). I’m not sure what his payday was for this event, but I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to have Canseco wrestle a midget at your next birthday party.
So, Friday evening, I headed out to the ballpark, camera in hand, to witness this debacle.
The ring was set up as the fans were arriving. I’ve been to 5-6 games here this year, and I’ve never seen the place this full and well before the game at that. As far as minor league promotions go, this was pretty effective.
Hogan emerges. More on him: formerly a baseball coach at Arkansas-Little Rock and has the school’s baseball field named after him.
Canseco comes out. Everyone is booing. I honestly don’t know if there is a single person in the entire world who likes this guy.
Some joker they got to announce. Not a noteworthy person to the best of my knowledge.
Ding Ding! Here we go…
I have about 200 photos from the 4 rounds, and most of them look just like this. Canseco was content to stand with his gloves in front of his face and dance around Hogan’s punches. There should have been a clause in his contract that required him to actually fight.
One of the few moments where we actually saw some action. Players from both teams seemed to be enjoying the fight.
One of the hookers they hired to wave around the crappy cardboard signs.
Post-match embrace. I’m still searching for a good name for this fight (a la the “Thrilla in Manila”). Something about how boring it was, that rhymes with “in Little Rock” or “on the river”. Let us know if you come up with something good.
All-in-all, it was a pretty boring fight from beginning to end. The “judges” gave Hogan the win, but I’m not really sure why since both guys spend a majority of the time hopping around and pretending to care (probably hometown bias). Hogan is still an assistant AD and Canseco is still the same old greedy steroid-era ballplayer, though I’m surprised there wasn’t a table or two with his books for sale. I was hoping I could meet Canseco somehow, but he got away quick and the ticket Nazis/security guards wouldn’t let anyone near him. His recent tweets imply that he was holding back, but I don’t buy it. This was nothing more than a good distraction on a Friday night; the most memorable 4-round, intensity-free boxing match of all time. Oh, and here’s a video:
