THE ROOKIES : Canseco and Company Spring Forth : A’s Tout Young Slugger as the Next Roy Hobbs

PHOENIX — His name is Jose Canseco, but you can also call him:

--The new left fielder of the Oakland A’s.

--The most promising of a very promising group of major league rookies.

--A legend before his time.

A legend before his time?

Do you know another rookie whose bubble-gum card is already selling for $1, or whose batting practice exhibitions rival any July 4 fireworks display and conclude with ovations from the Cactus League crowds?

Do you know another rookie who bench presses 390 pounds, looks like Charles Atlas in double knits and hit his first major league homer about three-quarters of the way up the center-field bleachers at the Oakland Coliseum last September?

That first homer, incidentally, was a Texas Leaguer compared to No. 2, which ultimately descended on the left-field roof of Chicago’s Comiskey Park.

Do you know another rookie who played 147 games at the double-A, triple-A and major league levels last year and hit 41 homers, drove in 140 runs and batted a composite .328, which translated to a run batted in every 3.9 times at bat and a home run every 13.2?

Still not satisfied?

How about the view of former major leaguer Bob Watson, who spent most of last summer with Canseco as the A’s minor league hitting instructor and has moved to the varsity now to help Canseco retain a continuity?

Watson wheeled out the “Baseball Register” and said, “Jose is a show stopper, a combination of Roberto Clemente, Dale Murphy and Reggie Jackson rolled into one.”

Or there’s Karl Kuehl, a former manager at the major and minor league levels and now the A’s farm director, who said: “I’ve been in baseball more than 30 years and never seen anyone who hits the ball harder. He’s as good a young clutch hitter as I’ve seen.”

Kuehl had seen Canseco before he started lifting weights two years ago.

“He had tremendous potential then, but now he’s put himself in a class where he might hit 50 (homers a year), might hit more than anyone,” Kuehl said.

“He’s not only got power, he’s a good hitter, period.”

Maybe even as good as Roy Hobbs.

The cover of the A’s media guide resembles an old-time movie poster with “The A’s Story” billed as the possible “ . . . Surprise Hit of the Year.”

Directed by Jackie Moore, the stars are listed as “Dwayne Murphy, Dave Kingman, Joaquin Andujar, Alfredo Griffin, Mike Davis, Jay Howell, Dusty Baker, Jose Rijo, and introducing Jose Canseco as ‘The Natural.’ ”

Too much? Is this all more than any 21-year-old can endure? Will he be more fizzle than phenom, following, say, the route of Clint Hurdle, who quickly went from touted cover boy to a footnote in the folklore of baseball?

The A’s have some concern about that, but it’s not shared by Canseco. Not, at least, if the concern is that pressure will do him in. He sat in the A’s dugout the other day and said that pressure is something you put on yourself.

“To me this is fun, exciting, what I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. “People overemphasize the pressure aspect. I really don’t believe in the word. I’ve always felt that if you set your mind to something, you should be able to do it. I guess it depends on how strong you are mentally.”

Canseco tends to think that he is as strong mentally as physically.

You want biceps? Forget Popeye’s after a spinach fix. You want a hulk? Forget Brian Downing.

The sculptured Canseco is 6-foot-3 and weighs 228 pounds, which is 43 more than when he began weightlifting two years ago. Physically, he has gone from strong to stronger. As a hitter, from long to longer.

Tacoma Manager Keith Lieppman said that watching Canseco creates a feeling of pure amazement. “He has the best bat speed of any big man I’ve ever seen.”

Would there be this amazement if he had never gone into body building? Would he have made it to the major leagues without it?

“Maybe, but not as quickly,” Canseco said. “I had some power, but I felt it could be enhanced. I thought I could bring out my complete potential.

“I’ve put in a lot of hard work the last two years. Six days a week, 3 1/2 hours a day takes discipline and dedication. I think I’ve proved that I can set my mind to something and do it.”

Canseco added, however, that most things are predetermined, the course set.

“Whatever is going to happen will happen regardless of what people say I can or can’t do,” he said.

People are saying all kinds of things. The Paul Bunyan of rookies is threatening to replace drugs as the most talked about subject of spring.

Seldom does a player arrive with Canseco’s credentials. Members of the national press take turns at his locker. Canseco said he realizes that his obligation stretches beyond the playing field, but now it appears that he is tiring of the same questions.

He seldom leaves the field before a game, stretching out his work in what appears to be an obvious attempt to shorten the time devoted to interviews. He is polite but succinct. He is also only 21, new to this and facing a gantlet that may get worse before it gets better, particularly if the dark haired, ruggedly handsome Canseco is everything he is expected to be.

Said an A’s official who requested anonymity: “We want him to be PR and community conscious, but his work comes first. The challenge for him will be keeping his priorities straight.”

General Manager Sandy Alderson said he has talked with Canseco on several occasions, offering assurance that the A’s are not expecting him to win a pennant single-handedly.

“We’re excited, but we want him to experience as little pressure as possible,” Alderson said. “He has the potential to be a great player, but we’re not asking him to be a great player right away.

“He’ll not be the difference in our club winning or losing. We don’t expect him to carry us to the World Series. We’re prepared to let him play in triple-A, to consolidate his gains of last year, if that’s necessary.”

Alderson doesn’t think it will be. He said that Canseco has displayed significant maturation over the last two years, recovering from the death of his mother in 1984 to fashion a solid season at Modesto, then, amid his new dedication to weight lifting, coming back to have a spectacular summer in ’85.

“He was the constant focus of attention last year,” Alderson said. “He was constantly forced to adjust to a new environment, each of which revolved around him. He handled it well.”

Born in Cuba, Jose Canseco was a year old when his father--then an English teacher and now a territorial manager for an oil company--moved his family to Miami.

Jose and twin brother, Osvaldo, were reared in a bilingual environment and remain at ease with either English or Spanish. Both played baseball at Coral Park High School and both ultimately signed to play professionally.

Osvaldo, a pitcher, remains in the New York Yankee farm system. Jose was selected by the A’s on the 15th round of the 1982 draft and signed by scout Camilo Pascual, the former pitcher.

The late round on which Canseco was selected stemmed from the perception of many scouts that he was a defensive liability at third base, his high school position. Canseco was moved to the outfield by the A’s and spent two modest seasons in a rookie league before beginning his real development at Modesto, where he hit 15 homers and drove in 73 runs in 1984.

What followed, the A’s believe, was a combination of the priorities Canseco set after his mother’s death early in ‘84, the discipline he developed through weightlifting and the opening of his batting stance, giving him better access to outside and breaking pitches.

“He’d always been the type kid who’d pout, get mad at himself, let one bad at-bat lead to a bad week,” Farm Director Kuehl said. “All of that has seemed to stopped. He’s added maturity and determination.”

And last year he conducted his own home run derby. Have tape measure, will travel:

--In 58 games and 211 at-bats at double-A Hunstville, Canseco hit 25 homers, drove in 80 runs and batted .318 despite missing three weeks with a broken finger.

--In 60 games and 233 at-bats at triple-A Tacoma, he hit 11 homers, drove in 47 runs and batted .348.

--In 29 games and 96 at-bats with the A’s, he hit 5 homers, drove in 13 runs and batted .302.

He also struck out 152 times in 147 games, an average of once every 3.5 at-bats, but A’s Vice President Bill Rigney, the former manager of the Angels, Minnesota Twins and San Francisco Giants, said Canseco doesn’t chase as many bad pitches as most big swingers, such as teammate Kingman.

“The home runs and RBIs are great, but the thing that impressed me is that he hit .300 everywhere he went,” Rigney said.

Said Kuehl: “The only time Canseco gets out of whack is when he loses the strike zone. Otherwise he doesn’t really have any holes. You can’t pitch him just one way.”

Arms folded, sitting upright on the A’s bench, Canseco said he has always been motivated by home run hitters such as Jackson and Kingman because of the excitement they lend the game.

He had earlier put on a remarkable exhibition in batting practice, hitting more than a dozen pitches far beyond the fences, two clearing the 45-foot high green batter’s backdrop behind the 430-foot sign in center field at Phoenix Stadium.

In 19 years of Pacific Coast League play here, only three homers have been hit over the backdrop. Canseco has hit four this spring, all in batting practice. He also snapped an early exhibition slump, hammering three homers, all estimated at 425 feet or more.

Jackson? Kingman? Canseco said he sees nothing spectacular about his own towering and distant drives because “they’re now normal to me. I’m used to them.”

His goals?

“I don’t want to talk about numbers,” he said. “I came up and proved that I could hit big league pitching last year, but I can’t be expected to hit a home run every at-bat.

“It’s still a learning experience. I just want to be consistent and try not to do too much. I have to try to let my talent surface and try not to let the pitchers’ name and fame affect me.”

The position is his to lose. A legend before his time? Kuehl smiled and said, “He’s been a hit in all the little theaters, now it’s Carnegie Hall.”