Canseco and Melendez team-up again in Yuma, Arizona

Former Laredo Broncos Jose Melendez and Jose Canseco in Yuma, AZ


From ESPN Sports (Excerpt)

So really, the question is not, "Why is Jose Canseco managing a team in Yuma?'' the question is, "Where are the reality show cameras?''

Actually, Jose had hoped for reality show cameras when he signed on with the Scorpions this April. He did so after attempting to land playing jobs in Puerto Rico, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Mexico. The gigs fell through for various reasons. "The final straw was [he was] going to go to the minor leagues of Mexico. That's how bad it was,'' says Jose Melendez, the Scorpions' general manager. "The minor leagues. There is the Mexican League and then there is the minor leagues of the Mexican League. And Jose said, 'Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. We'll do that.' He was going to go. [Then] this came up.''

"This'' was actually going to be a Las Vegas-area team in the North American League, an inexplicably far-flung independent minor league that stretches from Texas to Canada and Hawaii. Jose had hoped to sell a network on a reality show based on him managing and playing for the league's Vegas team. When the proposed team's stadium wasn't ready for the season, the league offered Melendez the Scorpions job (the NAL owns the team). Canseco came with him, quickly agreeing to the average salary for a manager in the league ($30,000) as long as he could play and pitch (he throws a knuckleball) and have Ozzie as his bench coach.

Jose still hoped to arrange a reality show in Yuma, even insisting on a 10,000-square-foot mansion on Martinez Lake some 40 miles out of town -- so far away, Melendez ran out of gas driving from it one day -- that would provide the proper setting for a reality show. No show has developed, but Jose still lives in the house, along with Ozzie, Melendez, pitching coach Roger Clarke and the occasional Yuma player. "