Cheers, Jeers as Canseco Visits N.Y.

April 3, 2008 — -- Fans and fanatics came out to meet Jose Canseco at a book signing in New York, offering the former major leaguer more handshakes and good wishes than the Bronx cheers some had expected.

Signing copies of his second book "Vindicated," at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan on Wednesday, Canseco, 44, met with a generally warm response, though a few in the crowd said they were dubious about the book's controversial claims and were there to "bust his chops."

In "Vindicated," the follow-up to his 2005 memoir "Juiced" in which he admitted using steroids and alleged their widespread use in professional baseball, Canseco again named names, this time claiming he introduced hometown hero and Yankee Alex Rodriguez to a steroids supplier named "Max."

Canseco told ABC News that he was not surprised by a New York reception he described as "positive," because even Yankee fans know "I'm telling the truth."

"Everyone has been very receptive and positive. People are coming around and realizing again that I'm telling the truth," he told reporters at the book signing.

Dressed in a blue blazer, jeans embroidered at the cuffs with multicolored Chinese dragons, and wearing wraparound sunglasses he removed only briefly for a photograph, Canseco gamely signed autographs and chatted with fans.

But this being New York after all, meant two things for Canseco -- Yankee fans and, shall we say "colorful characters."

John Feliciano, 24, of Staten Island, N.Y., fell into the former category.

"Sure, I came here to bust his chops," said Feliciano. "He is making money by throwing a lot of people under the bus. He's become a millionaire by exposing people, who does that?"

Feliciano said he believed many of Canseco's claims about steroid use, but the lifetime Yankee fan wasn't ready to accept the player's allegations about Rodriguez, known as A-Rod.

"I think he is telling the truth about a lot of stuff. A lot of what he said about steroids after the first book was true. But I don't know about A-Rod. Maybe A-Rod did do something with his wife, and he's just jealous. But when you look at A-Rod and you look at Barry Bonds, A-Rod didn't get nearly as big as quickly as Bonds did."

In the book, Canseco also accused the Yankees third baseman of lusting after ex-wife Jessica. At a book signing Tuesday in New Jersey, Canseco took it a step further, accusing Rodriguez of an having an affair with his then wife.

In New York Wednesday, Conseco said he did not expect to hear anything from Rodriguez about that latest allegation.

"He won't deny that, just like he has denied anything else. He has just said 'no comment' about everything."

Jason Zillo, a Yankees spokesman, told ABC News that Rodriguez would have no comment on Canseco's book or statements.

When Yankee fan Angelo Gagliardi, 32, asked Canseco to autograph his copy of "Vindicated," he had the player make it out to Rodriguez.

"I'm going to go drop it off at A-Rod's apartment. I'll leave it with the doorman. I think he'd get a kick out of it," he said.

Gagliardi said he was willing to give Canseco the benefit of the doubt about many of his claims.

"Who knows who is telling the truth? There are always two sides to every story. Some of the stuff has got to be true. Just look at the whole steroids scandal."

Conseco fans were also sprinked among the hundred or so people who turned out in the first hour of the signing.

Roy Mark Ramdas of Rutherford, N.J., presented Canseco with a binder full of two decades worth of newspaper clippings.

"I have been a fan for 19 years. He is in the only honest person in baseball and maybe the world. I believe him 100 percent about everything. After all A-Rod isn't even denying anything," he said.

The most vivid of New York's colorful characters that turned out was perhaps Joanne Maiorca, who claimed to know Canseco, though he clearly didn't recognize her.

"The only thing you left out of the book was us having group sex arranged by the Gambino crime family," she told Canseco.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," a perplexed Canseco replied.

It was not the oddball fans that surprised Canseco, but the number of people who still doubted the veracity of his claims.

"I'm truly amazed that people don't believe what I'm saying. The transcript of the polygraph I took is in the book and people still don't want to believe it," he said.

"I'm doing everything to clean up this sport. I'm happy to do what I can to help. People are already saying the next commissioner of baseball is going to be Jose Canseco."