Sports Illustrated photos of McGwire in his rookie year and his final year. Posted on Twitter today by @si_vault (and used without permission).
“Baseball is really different now — it’s been cleaned up,” McGwire said. “The commissioner and the players’ association implemented testing and they cracked down, and I’m glad they did.”
Translation:Â “I’m glad they did because this way no one will ever know the kind of pure bliss I had from breaking the Roger Maris’ home run record when everyone thought I was the cat’s ass.”
Until they test for HGH, until blood gets drawn to determine whether there are players using illegal, performance-enhancing drugs or supplements, well then there’s no way you can tell me that baseball has “been cleaned up”. Maybe there are less steroids (or at least less steroids that could be detected) than there were in 1998, but there’s too much other stuff players could be doing to call the game “clean”.
I wanted to greet the news of Mark McGwire admitting to steroid use with a huge yawn but I’ll admit to being a bit annoyed with it. When he had something to lose, or so he thought, in that Congressional hearing, he just kept falling back on not being there to “talk about the past”. When he could have actually tried to help MLB with this issue, he decided to keep his yap shut. Now that he saw he got less than 25% of the Hall of Fame vote this year, now that he has another job in MLB, he wants to make nice with the world so people don’t throw things at him when he visits opposing teams and the writers might actually consider voting for him, he admits to what we all knew he did. What’s the thought process there? “Well they forgive Alex Rodriguez and they don’t even like him! It’s Mark McGwire’s time to be forgiven – they want to love me again!”
I haven’t loved you for a long time, Mark. And your wildly belated admission to something everyone already knew about you doesn’t endear you to me any more.
According to an MLB Network tweet, Bob Costas will be interviewing McGwire tonight at 7 ET. I’m torn between wanting to watch it in hopes that maybe I’ll actually find some emotion for him that isn’t indifference or annoyance and just ignoring it because running to MLBN the day you make the announcement feels too planned to me. How convenient for him that he can just jump on tv and start the “Forgive Me” tour.
I don’t want him to ask my forgiveness because I don’t think it’s up to me to offer forgiveness. I can not like him and not get past what he’s admitted to doing without anyone else being bothered. I’m sure he isn’t worried about some Red Sox fan in Boston thinking he’s an arrogant jerk. Then again, I also don’t think breaking the rules, benefiting greatly from doing so, lying about it for years and then crawling back just so you can continue to benefit from breaking the rules (because 1998 was the bread and butter of his career) is any reason for anyone to welcome him back with open arms.
How welcoming would baseball fans, the media and ESPECIALLY MLB be if Mr. Barry Bonds had made this announcement today?
Had to make a last minute edit and add Curt Schilling’s comments about this:
Other than admitting it five years ago, he did it perfectly.”
See, to me, the whole not admitting it five years ago thing is kind of a big deal. He had a chance to come clean and help deal with this in MLB and hid like a frightened child. He gets no kudos from me for speaking up now.
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