To think the steroids didn’t add muscle and make it easier for McGwire to bounce back from the daily grind of nagging injuries, both key factors in being able to hit a baseball a long way, is nothing short of laughable.
Sorry Mark, but your tearful admission to using steroids only made things worse on the PR scale. And that’s coming from an avid A’s fan who thinks McGwire is basically a good guy at heart. His problem? He just doesn’t get it.
McGwire, who has been hired by former manager Tony LaRussa to be the St.
Louis Cardinals‘ hitting coach, had to “come clean” before the 2010 baseball season got underway. So earlier this week he sat down for an interview with Bob Costas to set the record straight. An emotional McGwire did indeed confess to using steroids for several years, starting around 1993, according to the slugger.
OK, fine Mark. The timeline is up for debate – just ask Jose Canseco, who has so far been vindicated for his accusations aimed at other players at every turn – but the part I personally found most comical is McGwire’s claim that steroids didn’t help him hit home runs. He only used them to help deal with injuries that had slowed his career.
Really Mark? You honestly think the ‘roids DIDN’T have anything to do with your massive power surge into 70 home run territory? Yeah, pull this finger and a rabbit comes out of my cap. McGwire once had Popeye forearms on an otherwise normal looking body, albeit a large one. By the end of his career he looked like Paul Bunyan in the batter’s box! All that added muscle – which no doubt was developed to a great extent by his steroid use - didn’t add considerable power to an already powerful swing?
Please…
I don’t dispute that steroids don’t have much to do with hand-eye coordination, which McGwire claims was the true reason he hit so many home runs. But to think the steroids didn’t add muscle and make it easier to bounce back from the daily grind of nagging injuries, both key factors in being able to hit a baseball a long way, is nothing short of laughable.
I wish McGwire the best in his return to the baseball field. But if he thinks this interview is going to make life on the road easier now that he has “come clean” to the fans, he is in for a rude awakening.
Sadly, this has a lot to do with media manipulation. And it also has to do with the modern definition of taking responsibility.
I think Costas did a pretty good, professional job. He gave McGuire every chance to explain what seemed to me to be an obvious contradiction. The answers were absurd. “Yes, I did steroids, but no, they had no (performance enhancing) effect on me. I’m sorry I did them, I’m sorry I lied, but that should be good enough to let me back in the game. Whew. That was tough. I sure feel a whole lot better.” Any thinking person should see the dichotomy.
To put this into perspective, take a look at another sports-related transgression. Plaxico Burress, currently serving time for discharging an unlicensed weapon. Yes, I understand there were serious laws broken. He could just as easily have shot someone else, albeit accidently. The point is, he took responsibility. (Didn’t have much choice.) And he accepted the consequences. (Incarceration.)
In today’s high-dollar sports world, an apology is good enough. Giambi apologized. No damage. Bonds fights on. Damage. Tiger…hard to say but it isn’t pretty so far. McGuire, welcomed back to baseball. Pete Rose. On the outside looking in. There’s an inconsistency there until you realize how much money comes and goes on the marketability of these individuals. The consistency that I see is that the losers in this group all have something in common…they don’t/didn’t play well with the media. Remember Roger Clemens. Didn’t play the game very well, did he? Too stubborn or selfish to follow his professional advice….or was it just bad advice.
Regardless, Baseball continues this ridiculous dance under the stewardship of Bud Selig who can’t make up his mind about anything controversial. (Hey, Bud, there are no ties in baseball.) What is cheating? Is it cheating when owners encourage a particular behavior even if they do so by looking the other way? This will never be over until those to questions are definitively answered.
Meanwhile, Mark McGuire gets his pass. Tells us what we all knew already. And asks us to believe that PED’s are actually like band aids and iodine. But the media rehabilitation machine has already shifted from first (preparation) to second (re-emergence). Watch the progression.