McGwire Comes Clean: With an Excuse

[CentreHice]

McGwire Admits Steroid and HGH Use

On and off for nearly a decade....and he hid it, from everybody. (Don't know how well he actually "hid" it. Better to say he didn't tell anybody he was doing it.)

"I did this for health purposes. "There's no way I did this for any type of strength use."

Then why hide it...if it was strictly for health reasons? And why refuse to answer at the congressional hearing....if it was strictly for health reasons?

Geez...how do we believe even one ounce of what these guys say?

Anyway, the commissioner is okay with it.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig also praised McGwire, saying, "This statement of contrition, I believe, will make Mark's re-entry into the game much smoother and easier."

Tony LaRussa's okay with it, too.

I guess we all should be okay with it.

The lesson is simple for guys like Bonds, Clemens, and Ortiz....come clean, apologize, cry, have a non-cheating excuse ready.....and all is forgiven.

What a boys' club. MLB needed that home run race in '98 to help recover from the '94 strike. He and Sosa could've grown four hooves and worn a saddle. Just keep hittin' 'em out, fellas!

[ValkyrieNS]

Jan 11, 2010 21:04:07 GMT -5 CentreHice said:

What a boys' club. MLB needed that home run race in '98 to help recover from the '94 strike. He and Sosa could've grown four hooves and worn a saddle. Just keep hittin' 'em out, fellas!

Can you refresh my memory please? Do I recall hearing something recently about Sosa as well, or am I totally confused?

[Mr. Val and I were big Sosa fans back in the day, so I am not trying to cause trouble if my brain is remembering something totally different... I just have a tendency to forget things... even things *I* say]

[franko]

[roke]

I've become a bigger baseball fan over the past few years, mainly due to my discovery of Sabermatics. The statistical side of the game fascinates me, and the management/financial side is just as interesting to me as hockey. In both sports, I think I prefer the financial/management side of the game rather than watching on the field play, unless there's a team for me to root for.

My attitude toward the "steroid era", as it seems to be referred to in baseball circles, is one of apathy. Many (most? all?) players were doing them, there's no doubt about that, but I don't care. The Commissioner certainly didn't care, the owners didn't care, the baseball writers (at the time) didn't care (the journalist who wrote about McGwire having andro. in his locker was apparently shunned by his colleagues).

Yes, it's against the spirit of the game, but it wasn't precisely against baseball's rules when McGwire and Sosa were smashing home runs. I can't pretend to care about the subject when those in charge (owners, commissioner, management, players association) didn't care enough to do something about it. McGwire, Palmeiro, Bonds used performance enhancing drugs, and there wasn't a single thing done to stop or deter them. My view is that we just have to accept the steroid era for what it was (is?), just like deadball eras.

What really gets me, is the writers in the baseball writers association being on their high horse about performance enhancing drugs since, well, since a guy they didn't like at all broke McGwire's record. Where were they in the 90s when McGwire had Andro in his locker, when Brady Anderson went from a 16 homer season to a 50 homer season? They were just as complacent and complicit as the rest of baseball, and now they don't vote for guys because they probably (did) use performance enhancers? It's ridiculous. Why aren't they outraged at Babe Ruth using a corked bat? At least that was explicitly against the rules.


McGwire is certainly lying, or a buffoon about using it only for health uses, but I can certainly see how he justifies it. From the little literature I've read (mainly Game of Shadows), the value in performance enhancing drugs like steroids is that it helps the body recover quicker; from injuries, from a grinding schedule, from workouts. While Mark justifies it in his mind that he was only using it for "health reasons" (ie: having a quicker recovery from workouts), it certainly helped him build up his muscle.


Edit: sorry about it, the media thing's been bothering me since the Hall of Fame vote talk came around again this year... had to get it out.

[OopyDoopy]

Jan 11, 2010 23:08:29 GMT -5 @roke said:

My attitude toward the "steroid era", as it seems to be referred to in baseball circles, is one of apathy. Many (most? all?) players were doing them, there's no doubt about that, but I don't care. The Commissioner certainly didn't care, the owners didn't care, the baseball writers (at the time) didn't care (the journalist who wrote about McGwire having andro. in his locker was apparently shunned by his colleagues).
.

Excellent post, I especially liked this part.

If everyone or the majority were using then doesn't that in affect level the playing field? If a pitcher and a batter are both using does that not cancel out the steroids? Now I do not condone anyone using steroids but if the use of steroids is the reason to not elect a player to the Hall of Fame then how can any players be elected into the Hall of Fame in the steroid era? If the number is as high as has been reported how can anyone in that era not be suspected and thus be eliminated from being considered for the Hall of Fame.

I believe there are players in the Hall of Fame that used PED, I guarantee it to be true, and I bet that there are players that used steroids in there also. Players need to be judged on the numbers whether in the steroid era or not as I believe the playing fields were equal in the era the numbers were produced.

If steroids made that big of an impact on players performance then all of the players in the steroid era would be hall of fame players, would they not? I would be curious to see data on how many Hall of Fame quality players were produced in the steroid era compared to other eras.