While most people were watching the NCAA tournament or celebrating Easter with their families on Sunday, I was doing something a bit different. I decided to email Jose Canseco’s agent to inquire about possibly setting up an interview with his client. Did I expect to actually get an interview? No, not really, but I figured it could be interesting to at least try since Canseco is frequently tweeting out his agent’s email address and has it featured prominently in his Twitter bio (JoeMelendez@msn.com if you want to hit him up).
I first contacted Mr. Jose Melendez at 2:58 PM PST by giving him some background information on myself as well as the site and by asking him how I could go about setting up an interview with Canseco. Yeah, his name is actually Jose and not Joe like his email states. I’m guessing another Jose Melendez signed up for MSN.com’s email services first or maybe people didn’t initially like the idea of someone named Jose representing another person named Jose, I don’t really know. Anyway, several hours passed and I didn’t get a response. I figured I wasn’t going to hear back, but I decided to try one last thing. I sent another email at 8:44 PM PST stating that I would be willing to compensate Jose for the interview and BOOM, he replied at 8:45 PM PST, not even a full minute later. Here was his response:
Connor
What is your budget for something like this?
Jose Melendez
I told him that I didn’t really have a set budget and asked for his standard rate. I also had previously explained to him that all Jose would have to do is answer three questions via email, that his answers could be as long or as short as he wanted, and that he could plug or promote whatever he desired. Joe Jose didn’t seem to take in much of that information and here’s how the rest of our correspondence went down:
3 questions emailed?
Jose Melendez
Yes. And like I said, the answers can be as long or as short as needed and he can promote whatever he wants.
-Connor
What are the questions about
Jose Melendez
His favorite baseball memory, what he thinks about the state of the game, and where he would play if he made a comeback.
-Connor
Ok. Let me talk to him in the morning. He is on a plane right now. Will touch base first thing.
Thanks.
Jose Melendez
The next day:
If its a 3 question email response to cansecos email. He said 500. Let me know what u think
Thank you
Jose Melendez
He also included what appeared to be his phone number in that final email, which shows that he’s not playing around.
There you have it, folks. For Jose Canseco to respond to three questions he could answer with as little as one word, it will cost you $500. I’m not sure if that’s a great deal, or the worst deal ever. Actually, after one second of thought, I’m positive that it’s the worst deal ever. I told him that I would “talk to my people” and get back to him, but LATE APRIL FOOLS! I’m definitely not going to do that. I don’t even have people.
At the very least, it’s encouraging to know one’s self-worth can still be very high even when they have endured a great deal of shame and public ridicule. Hopefully nobody has ever paid $500 to Jose & Jose for this kind of thing, but if they did I’m sure they got a dynamite interview.
Here are some screen shots of the conversation:
Follow me on twitter @ConnorHutyler if you like angry sports-related rants.
