McGwire just one of baseball's black marks regarding steroids
August 7, 2006
If you're a baseball fan who doesn't harbor a deep dislike for Mark McGwire, you just haven't been following orders.
If you don't consider it your civic obligation to treat McGwire like a pariah, you are in need of an attitude readjustment.
In that case, read the story that came out of New York over the weekend, citing McGwire for obstructing former Sen. George Mitchell's investigation into the past use of performance-enhancing drugs among major league baseball players.
The story characterizes McGwire as a one-man impediment to baseball's Crusades, but fails to mention how many other former players also have refused to speak up.
It's a convenient omission. Apparently, nobody cares about the cooperative spirit of other retired players. Not the media. Not the person, likely somebody within MLB, who leaked the information to the New York Daily News. For now, McGwire is the primary target of righteous indignation.
Because McGwire's name will appear for the first time on the Hall of Fame ballot this winter, it is open season on his reputation. This begins a new, darker chapter for baseball. From now on,
steroids will be a factor in almost every election process; steroids will be in the air over Cooperstown.
Nobody wants McGwire on stage next summer with wholesome Cal Ripken Jr., and cherubic Tony Gwynn, cinches for Cooperstown. The swirl of controversy and ridicule wouldn't be fair to Ripken and Gwynn. But if voters are determined to diss McGwire, they should do it by the numbers, not by quoting something he said before a Congressional subcommittee in March 2005.
McGwire's performance that day was pathetic. His lame attempt to evade questions about steroids rightly angered people. But what does any of that have to do with his Hall of Fame credentials?
When he hit 70 home runs in 1998, McGwire broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record. Maris isn't in Cooperstown; if detractors reject McGwire on the first ballot, despite his 583 home runs, they could point to his relatively meager 1,626 career hits. Steroids don't have to be the overriding issue.
Barring the door to McGwire because of steroids - or because of what he said to Congress - would satisfy a lot of people. But that would also represent a simple, visceral response to a complex problem. It's so easy to hang baseball's shame around the necks of McGwire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and a few others. But that's too neat. It doesn't take into account how many other players - pitchers, too, we're learning - were on the juice.
McGwire's reclusive demeanor invites abuse, but in the summer of '98, nobody could have predicted his reputation would tarnish so badly. Unlike Bonds, who flaunts a repellent personality, McGwire was the most popular athlete in America while challenging history. He won over the country even more when he graciously included the Maris family in his celebration. He was Paul Bunyan with a heart as big as his swing.
That was just a snapshot. It didn't divulge the entire story behind the home runs. We know that now. But the sum of the man wasn't revealed through his Congressional testimony, either.
Not to make him out to be any less self-serving than other drug suspects, but remember what McGwire told the subcommittee: "My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself. I intend to follow their advice."
Self-preservation isn't the noblest of human instincts, but if McGwire were to spill his guts, he'd also take down former teammates who used performance-enhancing drugs. He'd burn managers and coaches who turned a blind eye.
Then again, maybe only by giving up his secrets can McGwire rehabilitate his reputation. Candor might make him less of an outcast. But now, eight years removed from one of baseball's greatest summers, a story tinged with sadness grows more bitter.
