Mark McGwire’s Steroid Admission – MLB Baseball
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 19:14
Mark McGwire’s admission to using steroids is at best delusional and at worst sleazy “image” spin-control to garner sympathy for Cooperstown consideration.
HITTING THE HALLMARK
Mark McGwire’s former team, the St. Louis Cardinals, has recently hired him as their hitting coach. It’s part of that organization and their famous slugger’s plan to help “Big Mac” slink back into baseball’s good graces–culminating with his Hall of Fame induction in Cooperstown, New York.
Some of America’s best sports writers weighed in on “Big Mac” after his tearful interview with Bob Costas during which the former slugger confessed to using steroids.
Here is a sampling:
MIKE LUPICA – New York Daily News
You walked away feeling sorry for McGwire…because how could you not? You walked away hoping he does make the most of this second chance, in a country of second chances. But if he only took drugs to heal a wounded body, why has he been this tortured for this long?
Full article here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2010/01/12/2010-01-12_attempt_to_come_clean_covers_up_real_dirt.html?page=1
A brilliant question don’t you think? If Mark McGwire really believed what he did was for health and recovery reasons, why not bring it up during his congressional testimony? Steroids were not banned from baseball at the time and are legal, even now, under a doctor’s supervision. This would have been the course of action a self-respecting adult with qualities such as responsibility, character, and honesty would have taken.
Who is advising these athletes? Has to be image-makers and misguided friends. In fact, McGwire’s every move since his laughable testimony before Congress has been calculated in the same manner that you will see Tiger Woods do in mid-March as well as Barry Bonds after he finally cops to being the liar we all know he is–rebuild his “image”.
Here is Merriam Webster’s definition of that word: a reproduction or imitation of the form of a person or thing; especially: an imitation in solid form.
In other words, something fake.
BOB RAISSMAN – New York Daily News
Now, we are left to wonder about the circumstances surrounding McGwire’s drug use. Were their trainers or other people in baseball involved? Costas has a well-deserved reputation of being a fair and pointed interviewer. Yet, in this case, his alliance with the MLB Network and the fact he did not ask specific details concerning the particulars of McGwire’s drug use leave a bad perception.
Full Article here: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2010/01/12/2010-01-12_mac_show_a_cryin_shame.html
And there Mr. Raissman reveals another tarnished instance of the media’s complicity in the whole sordid steroids mess. Who were the main cheerleaders during the steroid-fueled home run race between McGwire and Sosa? ESPN and the other outlets airing baseball games. The same culprits conspired when the Great Pumpkin sprouted from Barry Bonds’s shoulders during his “pursuit” of McGwire’s “record”.
BERNIE MIKLASZ – St. Louis Post Dispatch
The one thing that bothers me (and others) is McGwire’s refusal to link steroids with enhanced power. I pressed him on it Monday, and he would not agree that there’s a connection. It was all about his health and recovering from injuries. He insisted his power numbers were valid; the added clout came through improved hitting mechanics.
From this we can reasonably reach the following conclusion:
Mark McGwire is clinically delusional.
Miklasz continues:
His best power seasons — in terms of homers per at-bat — occurred in a four-season sequence that began in 1996. This is also the time McGwire said he used steroids.
Full article here:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/berniemiklasz/story/3DE7C1EDD73389EC862576A90017C64E?OpenDocument
As we’ve noted in this space before, an athlete breaking a 40-year-old record in no way proves he/she is on steroids or HGH–which, by the way, is probably the most commonly used enhancer. But, breaking that 40-year-old record in proportions never seen in the sport or in the annals of human competition is absolute proof of cheating.
Miklasz ends an otherwise insightful column by unwittingly joining the effort to rebuild McGwire’s image with this question, (brackets mine):
But he, [McGwire], honestly does not believe it, [hitting power], is related [to steroids]. So what do we want from him? Should he lie and go against what he really believes to score points with the baseball writers?
No, Wimpy, we only want responsible journalists to ask tough probing questions. When interviewees obviously lie or deny reality, the questioner is obligated to confront his subject with facts–if they exist–that unequivocally prove he is a liar.
The facts say it took Roger Maris 30+ years to break Babe Ruth’s record by one–and he had eight more games in which to do it. Maris broke that record by 1.64%. Logic says thousands of bigger, stronger men–during an era the baseball lords were dying to inject (pun intended) more offense into the game by lowering the mound and producing livelier balls–failed to break Maris’s record.
Big Mac broke Maris’s record by 15%. Want some perspective? To break his 50.58 second Olympic record in the 100m butterfly and equal that 15% proportion, Michael Phelps would have to swim that same 100m in 43 seconds.
How fast do you think the IOC would be demanding blood from any swimmer who swam that time?
Fact: Phelps broke his 2004 Olympic record of 51.25 seibds by a smidgen over 1.3%
Fact: Prior to the four years Mr.Miklasz cites above, McCryer approached 50 homers only once, hitting 49 in 1986.
Here is McGwire’s quoted answer to Miklasz:
“There is no way that a pill or an injection will give you the hand-eye coordination you need to hit a baseball,” McGwire said. “There’s one thing that I know: I was born a home run hitter.”
Conclusion: Mark McGwire is clinically stupid.
Nobody in any medium ever intimated steroids or HGH has even a remote connection to hand-eye coordination–or that McGwire wasn’t as natural a home run hitter as there ever has been.
What McGwire and his cheatin’ heart won’t acknowledge is that 20-30 pounds of muscle mass enables natural power hitters to increase their output at least 50-70%, and often more. Low line drive singles or shallow fly-outs become gap shots. Long lazy fly balls to the warning track, ground rule doubles and line drives to the wall become home runs.
During the twelve years McGwire himself says he didn’t use steroids he averaged 28 homers a year. During the time he admits to PED use, he averaged 61.
Perhaps “delusional” and “stupid” are far too kind.
Apologies…I seldom resort to name-calling, but these “bitch-letes” make me puke. They think that they can hire a slick former media manipulator like Ari Fleischer, make a few phone calls, cry like a startled toddler on television and, BOOM, they are off the hook and back on their way to Cooperstown.
McGwire saying he used steroids only to “get healthy” and never to increase muscle mass–and ultimately hitting power–is like some old guy insisting he uses Viagra to lower blood pressure and has no idea why his wife has started walking around bowl-legged.
Make no mistake–it’s all about McGwire and his major league of liars trying to slither their way into baseball’s Mecca, the Hall of Fame.
If cheaters like Mark McGwire are voted in, Cooperstown will become baseball’s graveyard.
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