MIAMI -- Describing himself as "a big teddy bear," former Oakland Athletics star Jose Canseco denied hitting anyone in a 2001 bar fight as testimony opened Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by two men. Canseco's twin brother, Ozzie, said he did most of the hitting out of fear for his own safety.
Jose Canseco said he made a "big mistake" when he pleaded guilty in November 2002 to criminal battery charges in the case. At 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds -- and with martial arts training -- Jose Canseco said the two men would have been injured much more seriously had he struck them.
"If I would have hit any of these gentlemen seven or eight times, as they claim, they wouldn't be standing," Jose Canseco told a jury of four men and two women.
His testimony came more than a month after he was among several star players subpoenaed by Congress to testify about steroids.
The two men who filed the lawsuit, Christian Presley and Alan Cheeks, both of California, seek a combined $1.5 million in compensatory damages and an unspecified amount of punitive damages for injuries sustained in the fight on Halloween night 2001 at a Miami Beach bar.
Presley says Jose Canseco hit him several times, breaking his nose. The Canseco brothers say Presley lifted the skirt of Jose Canseco's date and grabbed her; Presley's lawyer said he only touched a feather on the skirt and did not touch her body.
Presley testified Tuesday that Canseco was "still in a rage" outside the night club after the fight and shouted at him, "You're lucky to be standing."
Presley added, "I'm 90 percent sure that he added, 'You're lucky to be alive.'"
He told the jury that immediately after touching the feather on the Halloween costume, "I was accosted by this man, 6-feet-4 or -5, 270 to 275 pounds, a huge man wearing a sleeveless shirt and a black vest. He grabbed my arms so hard he bruised them."
"I said, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry,'" Presley said. "I didn't know what was going on. He was choking me. He shoved me and hit me twice in the face. I started to move away, trying to protect my face. He hit me two more times in the back of the head."
Cheeks said he was attacked by Ozzie Canseco when he approached. Ozzie Canseco acknowledged he struck Cheeks but only when he appeared to be threatening his brother with a beer bottle. Cheeks was left with a split lip that required 17 stitches, his lawyer said.
Ozzie Canseco, a longtime minor-leaguer who played briefly in the majors with Oakland and St. Louis, said he struck Cheeks and Presley with openhanded punches because he was dressed, like Jose, in a vampire costume featuring fake fingernails that prevented either brother from making a fist.
One of Presley's lawyers, Robert Josefsberg, read passages from Jose Canseco's best seller, "Juiced," in which Canseco acknowledged using steroids during his career. Steroid use, which experts say can trigger rage, did not come up Tuesday.
"I rarely, if ever, lose my temper," said Canseco, the 1988 American League MVP who hit 462 career home runs. "I'm a big teddy bear."
Canseco did admit to other violent episodes, including a 1992 arrest for ramming his estranged wife's car twice. Those battery charges were dropped when he agreed to counseling.