From the New York Daily News’ Christian Red.

As the Daily News first reported last weekend, former Bash Brother Canseco has finalized a deal to publish “Vindicated” with Penguin Books, with a planned release date to coincide with Opening Day. But former Sports Illustrated associate editor Don Yaeger, who was scheduled to collaborate with Canseco on the book, has passed on the project. Yaeger said Friday that Canseco does not have the goods on Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez that Canseco alluded to in media interviews last month.

“I’m passing,” Yaeger told the Daily News. “I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco (material) that he provided me. I don’t think there’s a book there. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod.

“There’s no meat on the bones.”

“I’m not sweating it if Don passes,” said Canseco’s attorney Robert Saunooke. “We had some terms of the contract concerning movie rights that we had to address which pushed the mansuscript date back. But we’re still moving forward.”

Yaeger said what he was provided with fell far short of the Canseco boasts. “The thing is, if he had all this material, why wasn’t it in the first book?” asked Yaeger.

Clearly, there’s only one man who can really do this book justice…but it seems Peter Golenbock is otherwise occupied.