It was last month when Canseco took to Twitter — where his regular forays into self-pity and bizarre rants have earned him almost 400,000 followers — to reach out to Shennib. "Someone tell leila shennib that I love her," he wrote June 3. "Leila please call me."
On June 9, he proposed to her on Twitter. A day later, as she continued to ignore him, he changed his tune: "I made a total fool of my self for someone who never even cared about me .what an idiot I am."
Courtesy of Leila Shennib
Canseco and Shennib in happier times.
Courtesy of Leila Shennib
A teddy bear Canseco sent Shennib the day before he tweeted her phone number to the world.
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On July 7, Canseco sent her a massive teddy bear, taller than her sofa, holding a red heart embroidered with "From Jose: I love you." The next day, when Shennib again asked him to stop harassing her, Canseco let loose on Twitter, unleashing a slew of insults before tweeting her cell phone number and discussing her drug and sex habits.
Shennib described all of this to New Times — and no other newspaper — as her life fell apart last week. After scores of strangers called her to offer weed and ask for sex, New Times phoned Canseco to get his side of the story.
The slugger at first originally politely declined to comment. But then he called back.
"I can tell you right now she's an absolute liar," Canseco said. "She's lying just like Major League Baseball lied about me and my brother."
He and Shennib didn't live in a garage, he countered. "It was a large, over a 1,000-square-foot room." He smoked weed with his ex-girlfriend, he admitted — but only because "she forced [him] three times." (Canseco is still a muscular 240 pounds, it's worth noting.)
But why tweet her phone number just because she broke up with you, Jose?
He referred to an argument they had after she told him to stay out of her life. "I said I'd never forgive or forget what she said," he explained. "I wanted people to call her and ask her about what she's said and what she did."
Don't you feel bad about the harassment she's gotten in return?
"I'll tell you this," he said. "She loves attention."
There was only one way to call Canseco to task for his online abuse: New Times shared his cell phone number with the world the same way he had been so giving of Shennib's personal info.
When we explained the plan to Canseco, he wasn't thrilled. "You're just a young, little boy," Canseco hollered at a reporter. "[You're] a piece of shit... You obviously have something personal about this."
Nothing personal, Jose. Just a little sweet Internet justice. Websites around the world linked to New Times' blog after we published his number — 818-903-6598 — and Canseco's voicemail filled up within hours.
Shennib, it should be said, played no role in our vigilante campaign. She's still trying to put her life back together — changing her cell number, meeting with lawyers about a possible defamation case, and dealing with a mammoth Verizon bill.
If nothing else, the past two weeks have hammered home one fact that all of Miami probably could have told Shennib two years ago.
"I made one mistake," she says. "Dating Jose Canseco."
