Jose Canseco tells SI what really happened when he shot his finger off

Former MLB All-Star Jose Canseco shot his finger off while cleaning his gun in October. Now he shares the full story with Sports Illustrated.

The long, complicated saga of Jose Canseco's left middle finger has been covered here at length, but now he's finally given the whole story to Sports Illustrated's Jack Dickey.

Dickey profiled the enigmatic slugger for the recent “Where Are They Now?” issue and got to the bottom of what happened on that fateful October night. 

“You know, it's funny,” Canseco said. “I didn't realize I had shot my own finger off. I just put my gun back on the table and looked to see where the bullet went because I was behind this huge desk. And all of a sudden I see my hand, blood spurting out. I said, ‘What the f---? Oh my god, I shot my finger off.’”

Canseco then attempted to minimize the blood loss by lifting the hand over his head and squeezing on his wrist. He went to find his fiancée and told her, “Listen, I'm sorry, but I just shot my finger off.”

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It turns out the finger wasn't blown clean off, but was instead “hanging against the back of his hand from an unsevered blood vessel,” Dickey writes. 

Doctors were able to reattach it but had to leave out the bone. They eventually inserted a piece of bone from his hip. 

After the finger was returned to its rightful place, Canseco spun a few threads about happened to it in the days after. He said it fell off during a poker game. He said he was going to sell the gun that maimed him. He said there was a video of his finger falling off. None of that was true, we learn. 

- Dan Gartland