With each passing year baseball’s old muscle-bound duo of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, once triumphantly joined at the forearm as “Bash Brothers” with the A’s, fades further and further away from the sport’s relevancy.
Some point out it’s the price to be paid for cheating the game during its worst scandal in nearly a century.
Canseco’s tell-all book in 2005 detailing his own steroid usage and implicating other players, including his buddy McGwire, had dire circumstances for many in baseball. It also had a devastating effect on the two sluggers’ relationship. It’s been 15 years and counting since Canseco has had any contact with McGwire, who has blocked any attempts at reconciliation.
“I don’t care to ever speak to him again,” McGwire told ESPN. “What he did was wrong.”
But, 32 years after Canseco and McGwire first officially introduced the “bash” to celebrate their home runs on the A’s Opening Day on April 4, 1988, it’s still difficult to separate the two.
The negativity surrounding the exposure of McGwire’s performance-enhancing drug usage, and Canseco’s continued salacious revelations and missteps in life keeps them uncomfortably attached.
Only they’ve gone from “Bash Brothers’ to “Backlash Brothers.”
Not that Canseco doesn’t keep finding a way to remind people of the good old days, when he and McGwire terrorized pitchers while launching home runs deep into never-before-reached places around the American League.
With the anniversary of his bash approaching, the 55-year-old Canseco recently used an old bash for a new PSA in the new age of COVID-19.
Remember Don’t Shake Hands, Bash Instead! #CoronaVirus #WashYourHands pic.twitter.com/nIypL0nMS3
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) March 14, 2020
“Remember don’t shake hands, Bash instead!” Canseco wrote on Twitter, including #CoronaVirus and #WashYourHands.
No pandering was needed back in the spring of 1988 when the young sluggers decided to come up with their own version of the high-five. After testing it out in spring training, Canseco got the first opportunity to show it off when he blasted a solo home run in the A’s 4-1 season-opening win over Seattle at the Coliseum.
Canseco, after depositing a Mark Langston fastball over the fence, greeted McGwire at the plate and they emphatically slammed their forearms together to form an “x” in what would become an exhilarating celebration around the game for years.
In fact, current A’s Khris Davis and Mark Canha still pay homage to McGwire and Canseco by executing their own bash.
Counting McGwire’s 363 home runs in Oakland and 231 from Canseco, the Bash Brothers had nearly 600 bashing celebrations with the A’s.
If you asked Canseco now he’d probably trade a couple of them for one more chance to bash forearms or even exchange a hug with McGwire.
“Mark, to me, when I played with him, I looked up to him,” Canseco once said. “I idolized him for a lot of reasons — the guy he was on the field (and) off the field.
“It haunts me till this day that I said those things about him, even though obviously they were true. I could have gone about it a different way and gotten my point across.”
Also on this date …
Last year: The Sharks’ Joe Thornton passed his childhood idol, Steve Yzerman, with an assist on Marcus Sorensen’s goal in San Jose’s 3-2 victory over the Oilers in Edmonton, Alberta. Thornton’s 1,064th career assist moved him past Yzerman and into eighth place on the NHL’s all-time assist leaders list.
2017: In the final season of his 40-year head coaching career at Stanford, Mark Marquess became just the third coach in NCAA Division I baseball history to win 1,600 games with the same program. Marquess beat rival Cal at home, 8-4, for his 1,600th win. He would finish with 1,627, although his top-seeded Cardinal was upset by Fullerton State in the first round of the NCAA Regional in Long Beach.
2015: Warriors help first-year coach Steve Kerr set an NBA record for most wins by a rookie coach by beating the Suns 123-110 in Phoenix for their 63rd win. Kerr broke Paul Westphal’s previous record of 62 with the Suns in 1992-93. Kerr and the Warriors would go on to win 67 regular-season games before finishing things off with an NBA title by beating LeBron James and the Cavaliers.
Another milestone along this journey!!! You know we had to hit Coach Kerr with the shower #DubNation pic.twitter.com/RgESoiFUDW
— Harrison Barnes (@hbarnes) April 5, 2015
1971: In their final game as the “San Francisco Warriors” before moving to Oakland in 1972 and being renamed “Golden State,” the Warriors are eliminated from the Western Conference semifinals. They suffered a 136-86 Game 5 loss to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (23 points, 17 rebounds) and the Bucks in Madison, Wis.
Also on this date in sports around the world…
1888: Baseball Hall of Famer Tris Speaker is born Hubbard, Texas. (d. 1958)1937: Byron Nelson wins the fourth annual Masters golf tournament at Augusta, Georgia.1947: Ray Fosse is born in Marion, Illinois.1963: Jack Del Rio is born in Castro Valley.1974: Hank Aaron hits his 714th home run to tie Babe Ruth for No. 1 all time,.1983: Jim Valvano and North Carolina State beat the heavily favored Houston Cougars in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game 54-52 when Lorenzo Charles dunks home a desperation airball from Dereck Whittenburg.1986: Wayne Gretzky scores his 213th point of the season, breaking the record set by him in 1982.1988: Danny Manning and the Kansas Jayhawks, aka Danny and The Miracles, claim the NCAA men’s basketball tournament with an 83-79 victory over Oklahoma in an all-Big 12 final.1989: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 42, plays his final NBA game.1993: Sheryl Swoopes scores 47 points to lead Texas Tech to an 84-82 victory over Ohio State in the championship game of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.1994: The Arkansas Razorbacks of Nolan Richardson beat Duke 76-72 for their first national championship in basketball.1999: Baseball Hall of Famer Early Wynn, 79, dies of a stroke.2005: North Carolina beats Illinois, 75-70 for the NCAA men’s basketball championship, it fourth and the first for coach Roy Williams.–Source: onthisdate.com
