I feel we at GCS would be missing something if we didn’t have a multifaceted discussion on the Mark McGwire confession.
First of all, I don’t think anyone at GCS, or any of you, were at all surprised by the fact that McGwire used steroids. The simple facts stand that Big Mac was a homer-only hitter in a juiced generation. Plus, he was consistently injured but, in almost all circumstances, he would return to the lineup in record time. It’s a matter of simple arithmetic.
On Monday, 1/11/10, McGwire officially opened up to numerous sources and discussed his history of performance enhancing drug (PED) use. What began as phone calls to specific individuals and officials (Like Commissioner Bud Selig) quickly spread like a wildfire and engulfed all mass media.
Before getting to the meat of the confession, there are few things that I would like to address as something that hit me like a 500 foot blast to the seats in Big Mac Land.
I remember the summer of 1998 very well. Being from Chicago, it was all you heard about. Sammy Sosa, McGwire, and Ken Griffey Jr. all had chances to set a new Home Run record. McGwire and Sosa both had 50 homers before my birthday (8/24) and Griffey was coming off of a 56 Home Run season and was nearing that pace at the same time. It was easily the most exciting time for baseball in my lifetime.
As was probably best illustrated in Billy Crystal’s 2001 movie “61*” about the 1961 season and Roger Maris’ pursuit of Babe Ruth’s record, Mark McGwire got very nostalgic regarding his recent accomplishment. He seemed aware of Maris every step of the way. He did things like request Maris’ bat to be taken out of the Hall of Fame so that he could touch it (“with his heart” – ‘roids can make men very emotional).
I remember McGwire’s at bats being covered during other games and during episodes of SportsCenter. The Maris family was given seats at all home games in St. Louis as Big Mac came close to Roger’s record. The Maris’ seemed to love the attention the HR race was giving to their father/ husband and welcomed McGwire with opened arms.
McGwire Meets the Maris Family at Busch Stadium 1998 - Photo: AP
How could McGwire welcome such attention when he knew there was something unnatural, drug fueled, or different going on with his body? …Something chemically different from the body of the icon he was attempting to surpass? How do you go through that? How do you go over and hug the icon’s crying family? That aspect of this story is heart breaking.
Maris will never be a real hall of famer. His numbers just don’t complete with other inductees. That record was his legacy. It is now gone, tarnished, and lives in history as the seventh best season total of all time. Sadly, baseball doesn’t go back in time or take records away. As my favorite historian/ analyst said today (1/12/10) on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight: “It is up to the intelligent fans to decide for themselves who holds the real Home Run record.” As much as I like to make fun of Tim Kurkjian’s social ineptitude, I think he is right here.
The Quotes:
After his initial statement, which can be found, all over the place, under ‘McGwire’s Admits Steroid Use,’ McGwire stated, in his video confession to Bob Costas, his basic reasoning for taking up steroids; and gives a run-down of how things happened. The report that I found the most interesting was the interview McGwire gave to veteran writer Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All quotes are taken from a transcript of McGwire’s Interview with Bernie Miklasz
I selected some of the more interesting or telling quotes from the interview. The whole interview is linked, above, from this column.
“The reason I used steroids was because of my injuries. It was brought to my attention that it could help speed up healing. It could get my body back to normal, through the grind. There is no way that a pill or an injection will give you the hand-eye coordination you need to hit a baseball. There’s one thing that I know: I was born a home run hitter.”
Miklasz: “But wouldn’t using steroids help improve your bat speed? That’s one thing I’ve heard. Bat speed is so important and steroids can enhance that.”
McGwire: “…Steroids or HGH didn’t give me the strong mind that I had or the determination to be the first one at the ballpark and the last one to leave. You saw that. How hard I worked. I’d go work out and you guys had to wait a long time for me to come out. That was my dedication.”
“…The doses that I took of these steroids were so low. The most that I weighed was 250. And every year that I finished I finished around 235 or 240. I did not look like Lou Ferrigno. I didn’t take that (much.) I took very, very low dosages. I did it to keep my body and not break down. That was the reason.”
McGwire seems here that he wants to discredit the drugs for the sake of possibly being more appreciated as an athlete. In all honesty, I don’t know if McGwire is a Hall of Famer without being the first 70 HR hitter. He was a power-only hitter who had a career batting average of .249 before his admitted steroid phase. He set the rookie HR record with 49 and was voted Rookie of the Year in 1987, but it ends there. He batter .201 over a whole season in 1991.
It just seems as though he wanted more credit than he deserved before the steroid admission and then after it, he is still leaning toward asking for it. There are some HR only hitters in the HOF, but times and voting trends have changed drastically now that the PED years have come about.
Miklasz: “What about breaking the Roger Maris record for most home runs in a season? You said in your statement that you were using steroids in ‘98 when you hit the 70 home runs. Do you feel guilty that you broke the Maris record?”
McGwire: “I called Pat Maris today and I told her how sorry I was.”
(Note: Pat Maris is the widow of Roger Maris.)
Miklasz: “The thing that disappointed a lot of people, even your supporters, is that you told Congress you would take a leadership role to warn young athletes about the dangers of steroid use. You never followed through. Why did you back away from your pledge? Do you plan to do something to make up for that?”
McGwire: “That’s a good question. No. 1, I didn’t receive any phone calls. And two, I’ve done some things privately, and I’ve always done charitable things privately. I’m not a guy who when I do charitable things or if I’m helping out on things, I don’t need to call the media and tell the media this is what I’m doing. Because I do it out of the goodness of my heart. And that’s the way I’ve always done it. I’ve done it privately and I will continue to do it privately.”
I don’t know Mr. McGwire, cowardice camouflaged as character isn’t working too well in this case. I am disappointed in the fact that it took until McGwire’s this long to come clean. His playing career is long over and he has recently been given a job as the Cardinals hitting coach. He has stood in front of congress, millions of fans and adoring children, the Maris family and baseball royalty and avoided the truth. Why come clean now? Does he really think this issue won’t be a distraction to his players now?
However, as I stated in the introduction, no one should really be surprised by this confession, but there is nothing wrong with being disappointed by it.
January 13th, 2010 at 9:19 am
It’s true, the ending of this story is heartbreaking, especially for the Maris’. Looking back, though, remembering how it all felt at the time and how much fun it was… I’m not sure I’d wish it never happened. I loathe McGwire for it, but at one point, the home run chase was all I ever cared about.
How sad is it that Griffey, Jr. was the guy who didn’t take the steroids, continued to get hurt, and was on the verge of all these records anyway, yet could never get to them. The fact that Griffey was so injury riddled, to me, says he wasn’t juicing. Imagine him on ‘roids.. he’d have hit 85 home runs and would have broken the career HR record about four years ago.