Mark McGwire Was Just Following Orders

The First Essential Scary Truth

Mark McGwire came clean.

In a statement released to the AP and a near simultaneous interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network, McGwire admitted to using steroids for over a decade. This decade includes the ‘epic’ chase of Roger Maris’s single season home run record of 61 in 1998. (Sammy Sosa, the other player involved in the chase was juicing at the same time.)

Commissioner Bud Selig gave the man a pass sighting the mea culpa for his reckless behavior.

Selig: “I am pleased that Mark McGwire has confronted his use of performance-enhancing substances as a player. Being truthful is always the correct course of action, which is why I had commissioned Senator George Mitchell to conduct his investigation. This statement of contrition, I believe, will make Mark’s reentry into the game much smoother and easier…”

Selig’s statement gives rise to rumors that this apology is simply a ploy to get McGwire into the Hall of Fame. The odd timing of the AP statement and apology would certainly cause one to wonder if this were true: both were done 5 days after McGwire received 23.7% of the vote for induction.

Baseball’s history is littered with cheaters, scoundrels, liars, thieves, drug abusers and alcoholics. Flaws and failure are an essential part of the game. If you hit fail to hit a baseball 70% of the time over 20 years and manage to collect just 3,000 hits out 10’s 0f thousands of chances, you go to the Hall of Fame where you are enshrined with the top level scumbags like Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Mantle etc. Steroids aside, Mark McGwire is a career .263 hitter and managed just 1,626 hits over 16 years.

McGwire fanned those Hall of Fame induction flames by claiming he used steroids to mitigate injuries and get back on the field faster, thus becoming baseball’s version of a Nazi.

“During the mid-’90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years,” McGwire said. “I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years, and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too.”

Since when did baseball become a fascist sport? I thought that was why we had football.