A word of caution for anyone in the Chicago White Sox organization who thinks the signing of Jose Canseco is a bad idea: Keep your complaints to yourself.

	Jose Canseco has been playing in Newark looking for a chance.

Plainly, this is a man who has the power to cloud the minds of others. He can alter opinions telepathically. He can make people do his will. He can mess you up with just a raised eyebrow.

Either that, or he's just irresistible.

Canseco's return to the big stage, albeit with the White Stockings, is an odd reminder that some folks are just naturally gifted enough to convince others that their gifts can still be mined. After all, this is the big galoot's eighth chance, and seventh big-league team; his last stop was with the Newark Bears of an independent league, and it wasn't as though he was hitting .452 or anything.

But he is Jose Canseco, just as he was Jose Canseco when he came up with the A's in 1985, and with the Rangers, Red Sox, A's again, Blue Jays, Devil Rays and Yankees. All he needs is to get untracked, to find the swing that launched a lot of pitchers' next careers.

At least that's the theory that the Sox are clinging to, despite the fact that they play in a park that doesn't reward what Canseco does best -- hit a fly ball. They need a power hitter now that Frank Thomas is done for the year, and though they are trying their best, the illusion of Jose Canseco apparently trumps the reality of Paul Konerko and Carlos Lee.

But how, you wonder. Canseco has been a model study of perseverance as his once-sure Hall of Fame career has turned into a Moebius strip of false starts and stutter steps. We cannot fault his desire to keep at it until he either relocates his game or abandons even the last hope.

What is unusual, though, is that there is another general manager (Kenny Williams) who sees Canseco as he was in Oakland in the late '80s, just as Brian Cashman (well, George Steinbrenner) did before him, and Chuck LaMar did before him, and Gord Ash did before him, and Sandy Alderson did before him, and Dan Duquette before him, and Tom Grieve before him.

General managers aren't normally this forgiving. They usually prefer some young buck they drafted and nurtured through the low minors to someone who has toured the big leagues like those civilians who try to see a game in every park every year in hopes of getting three paragraphs in USA Today under a headline, "Another Person Blows Summer Vacation."

But Jose Canseco is plainly a different case. He has a personal charm that is undeniable, but that usually means a broadcasting job. He has an indomitable will to keep playing, but that usually results in a coaching job, or at least a minor-league managing job.

Mostly, though, what he has is a four-year stretch during the first Bush administration in which he was the most feared player in baseball, and guys like that are hard to come by without a nine-figure contract in hand.

And the White Sox are hoping to see signs of that dominance, even though it has been dormant for nearly a decade now. This is plainly a case of hope springing external.

Makes you wonder how many teams will try to coax Cal Ripken out of retirement this winter, doesn't it?

It should, anyway. Coming back from retirement has become the cheapest ploy in sports; you almost have to read the obituary page to find men or women who have truly given up any intention of playing again.

But Canseco has never retired. He's talked about it, thought about and even threatened to do it, but he's kept plugging at it, through surgeries, through dismal seasons, through even the gall of being signed (and unused) by the Yankees in the latter half of 2000.

Not that the Yankees should necessarily have made room for him on principle, mind you. They won a World Series with him mostly watching, so it's hard to make the case that he was underused.

But the Yankees bought into the past potential just as the White Sox are doing now, and that may be Jose Canseco's greatest skill ever -- to hint at greatness even when that greatness is years behind him.

It is hard not to imagine the possibilities, though. Kenny Williams couldn't resist, and if it doesn't work out in Chicago, someone else may decide it can on another team. Jose Canseco is that intoxicating.

All in all, a pretty good life skill to have.

Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com