Canseco believes 90% chance Manny is on the juice

April 6, 1:35 PMSports ExaminerPaula Duffy

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Hey, it's Opening Day and I'm certain that old ballplayers remember how it felt to start a new season. Some who are out of the game more recently than others might yearn to experience it all one more time.

Jose Canseco just wants to make a living. At a 1200 seat auditorium on the campus of USC, a crowd estimated by the college's publication, Neon Tommy at under 200 waited to listen to Canseco give his speech.

There's no new book to pump more life into the crowd or Canseco's typical stump speech. So he needs something to stir it all up and the Q&A gives him that opportunity.

He takes pleasure in being correct about the ballplayers he's accused of being chemically helped over the years. Well, at least a couple of the big names.

He ridicules A-Rod for treading the same path as he did with Madonna and injections. It's not surprising that he believes Rodriguez hasn't 'fessed up to even half of his activities.

But then it's on to others that have seemingly escaped scrutiny despite their numbers and length of their careers. The audience asks about Ken Griffey and Manny Ramirez.

Even Canseco says what has become familiar to all of us who talk about the cheaters and non-cheaters in baseball. Griffey, says Canseco has always been clean but of course he can't anyone know for sure.

Manny is another story. Canseco deliciously teases the small audience and media members in attendance with his hypothesis about Ramirez. He believes that once additional names are revealed from the list on which A-Rod's name resided, there is a 90% chance, according to Canseco, you'll find the name of the Dodgers' free agent acquisition.

He goes so far as to say that baseball insiders know who is on the list. He firmly believes that their knowledge is the reason Manny got no other offers and had to come back to the Dodgers for less money and fewer years than he wanted.

Is he certain of that? Of course not but he thinks it makes a lot of sense. According to the LA Times columnist, Kurt Streeter, Ramirez laughed when told about Canseco's comments.

But as Streeter goes on to say, and as we have come to realize, Canseco's accusations have been spot on about the biggest names in the game. He just wants you to remember that based on that track record he doesn't need any proof of his beliefs.

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MLB Examiner Tony DeMarco brings you his impressions of Opening Day, here