A’s collector buys gun Jose Canseco used to shoot off finger
You can collect just about anything these days.
Back in 2014, Jose Canseco accidentally shot the tip of his left middle finger off while trying to clean a gun. On Monday, a dedicated A’s collector named Andrew with the handle @Bashbrothers3325 on Instagram visited Canseco’s house in the Las Vegas area and bought the fancy-looking handgun to add to his collection.
“It was a lot of fun,” Andrew said of the buying experience. “I was nervous going all the way there, but once I was there and the deal was done, I finally took a breath and was, like, ‘You know what? That was kind of a cool experience.’
“I’m just sitting here in Jose’s house, big old living room. He’s got those roundabout stairs like a princess would come down on her prom night — you know, one of those staircases. Little pool and jacuzzi in his backyard. I can’t believe I was 10 years old and thought this guy was a God, now I’m standing in his living room right now and talking to him. That kind of hit me.”
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So, how did Andrew get the idea to purchase the custom Remington 1911 pistol?
A couple of months ago, Andrew was BS’ing with hardcore Canseco collector John Carlson when they started talking about the time Jose shot his finger off. A light bulb went off in Andrew’s head.
“I went, ‘Oh my God. I gotta have the gun,’” Andrew said.
A couple months went by and then Andrew had a nightmare that Canseco sold the pistol. So he called up Carlson, who connected them and made it happen.
“We were joking around about it, then I actually honestly asked him after I had that nightmare, like, ‘Dude I gotta have that gun,’” Andrew said. “He said, ‘OK, I’ll hit him up right now.’ Then Jose said, ‘Just give him my number.’ It was real cool. Jose was cool about it — I know his home address, I know the code to open the gate. He was cool about it.”
Andrew said he arrived Monday morning and talked with Canseco for about 20 minutes before they went to a mailing facility to ship the gun back to California. Then they came back and Canseco signed a couple more things for him before making a gun post on Instagram, which was eventually taken down.
Andrew has a very impressive collection of authentic nic-nacs and memorabilia associated with Canseco, Mark McGwire and Rickey Henderson. This is his first A’s-related gun in the collection, though.
For years, Andrew held a collection of rookie cards for every MLB player from 1948-2000 before he started to sell those to get his hands on unique memorabilia for the Bash Brothers and Rickey Henderson. Sure, he’s got cleats, bats and awards, but Andrew also has other weird Canseco items like a pair of his shower shoes and a signed testosterone bottle. Not to mention one of Vida Blue’s old traveling suitcases.
When it comes to the gun, gotta hand it to Andrew — a former law enforcement officer — for getting a unique piece of A’s lore that probably (hopefully) will never be duplicated ever again. And gotta hand it to Jose for being such an entrepreneur and making some money out of a bad episode.
Andrew is going to continue to focus on finding unique, one-of-a-kind items associated with the A’s.
“There is one thing I’m trying to get — I can’t give too much away because I don’t want someone else to get it,” Andrew said. “But there’s an old Oakland A’s player and in his suitcase one of these buyers found — and it’s confirmed he had some issues with drugs — found a razor blade and a mirror in his luggage. I gotta have it.”
Guns, cocaine and A’s baseball, baby!
