Mike Celizic

Until now, Alex Rodriguez may have thought that his biggest problem was having to play in the same city prowled by the prurient pundits of The New York Post. That was before Jose Canseco decided to write another book.

A-Rod’s in there, Canseco told Boston sports radio station WEEI on Saturday.

Asked if the Yankee third baseman used steroids, a coy Canseco said, "wait and see."

He’s also got stuff to say about the Yankees, his last stop in a 17-year career that included stints with six teams. It won’t be nice stuff. Canseco doesn’t do nice. But he went out of his way to call A-Rod a "hypocrite" who "was not all he appeared to be."

Who knows what that means. None of us are what we appear to be, so that’s a meaningless comment. Besides, what A-Rod appears to be is an image-obsessed superstar who never quite gets anything right. Oh, and he dabbles in the occasional blonde on the side. Finding out he’s anything different would have to be a good thing, wouldn’t it?

It’s what Don King used to call "insults and insinnuendo." And there’s no better target than A-Rod, who could bring peace to the Middle East and still come out the bad guy.

A-Rod is probably the greatest player this generation will ever see and one of the best ever. He’s not perfect, but neither was Babe Ruth. Until now, though, the rap on him has been that he’s never won a World Series.

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Now, even if he manages to shake that criticism, Canseco seems intent on making sure that there will be something else to hang over his head, but he doesn’t want to say what. That’s because Canseco may speak the truth but he doesn’t care about the truth. He cares only about getting back at everyone and everything in baseball — that and making as much money as he can by dishing dirt.

What’s wrong is hinting that it could be steroids and then leaving it hang over A-Rod’s head. If it’s steroids, tell us now, Jose. It’s beyond unfair to allude to something like that and then say, "wait and see." But expecting Canseco to play fair is like expecting Alberto Gonzalez to tell the truth.

Reach in your bag of insults and epithets for uncharitable things to say about Canseco. It will be hard to find one that won’t fit. He’s a paranoid egomaniac with a nasty temper and vengeful streak wider than the observable universe. After talking to him for five minutes, you feel the need to take a Lysol shower; shake hands with him and you want to soak your hand in bleach.

But there is one thing we haven’t been able to call him — a liar. Two years ago, when he was plugging his book "Juiced," in which he told about just how prevalent steroids were in baseball, a lot of people dismissed his charges as the vile slanders of a sore loser.

No one’s ever sued him over his claims in that book, and subsequent revelations have shown he was right in most of what he said. Encouraged by his literary success, he’s written another book that’s coming out in the fall under the title "Vindicated." In addition to a lot of "nyah, nyah, nyahs" and "I told you so’s," the book is expected to name many more names and add to the game’s embarrassment at the culture of drugs it turned its back on for so many years.

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If he didn’t take so much delight in causing so much misery, you might be able to congratulate him on being the one person with the courage to tell the truth. But Canseco doesn’t act from courage or principal. He acts from malice and vindictiveness.

He still thinks he was blackballed from baseball after his final season in 2001. The truth was he couldn’t get another job because he couldn’t play at a major league level. A stint in the minors showed he couldn’t play at that level, either.

He doesn’t see it that way, so he’s taking his anger out on everyone. We wanted someone to be honest, but not him. We wanted someone to tell the truth, but not the way he’s done it.

Now, he’s at it again, and we have no choice but to wait and listen. It’s impossible to like him, just as it’s impossible to admire the way he’s ratted out so many people in the game, the way he’s broken the code of the locker room.

He said he’s going to name many more names. One is A-Rod’s. What Canseco’s going to say remains to be seen, but we can be certain it won’t be nice.

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