The New York Daily News
August 2, 2005
Mark McGwire, as bad as he looked in front of the Congress of the United States, at least had the decency to take the Fifth Amendment, even if McGwire never used the words about refusing to answer questions about steroids on the grounds that he could incriminate himself.
It doesn't get McGwire off the hook, or clear his name with baseball fans. But McGwire, on the day when he could no longer hide, on the day when he looked as if he had just taken a fastball to the ribs, didn't lie to Congress about drugs.
It doesn't make him a hero, anymore than Jason Giambi is a hero because he didn't lie to a grand jury. At least neither one of them pointed his finger at everybody the way steroid user and Viagra pitchman Rafael Palmeiro did in front of Congress, then denied steroid use the way Bill Clinton pointed his finger at the country once and denied that he'd ever had sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.
We all threw the book at McGwire that day, treated his repeated answers that he didn't want to talk about the past as a full confession. Even without a positive drug test, no one will ever believe again that McGwire didn't get help from a needle or a pill when he was hitting 70 home runs in 1998.
We've got a positive drug test on Palmeiro, though, almost before his 3000th hit in the big leagues stops rolling.
Of course Palmeiro says it was all a big mistake. That is what he was telling Major League Baseball officials the past couple of weeks, as he tried to beg and plead his way into arbitration on this and out of trouble. He didn't know what he was taking.
A teammate gave him something and he took it. Now he tells us he didn't "intentionally" use steroids. No one believes him. He is a cheat and a phony and a liar, unless you believe this trip to the chemist, after 20 years in the big leagues, was his first.
"I am against the use of steroids," he says under oath on March 17. "I don't think athletes should use steroids and I don't think our kids should use them. That point of view is one, unfortunately, that is not shared by our former colleague, Mr. Canseco."
He was talking about Jose Canseco, who named Palmeiro as a steroid user in a book. It turns out Canseco was the most honest guy in the room.
"To the degree an individual player can be helpful, perhaps as an advocate to young people about the dangers of steroids, I hope you will call on us," Palmeiro told Congress. "I, for one, am ready to heed that call."
He should have worried about the dangers steroids posed to his reputation, and his Hall of Fame chances. The idea that he gets just 10 days for this, after sitting there and lecturing everybody about the evils of drugs, is exactly why the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, sent a letter to Donald Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players (and Enablers) Association on the 25th of April saying that the policy needs dramatic strengthening.
Selig was asked the other day if he has gotten a real response from Fehr, other than a letter back.
"In terms of them doing something about this?" Selig said. "No, I have not."
Even now, you know what the real drug policy is from the leadership of the Major League Baseball Players Association? Hoping the whole thing goes away. As they keep telling us, along with the few media flacks they have left, that the current program and its system of penalties is working like a charm.
So an amazing fraud like Palmeiro gets off with 10 days when he should be gone for the season. Giambi, who apologized as a way of getting sympathy and was as evasive as McGwire as a way of protecting his contract, will never serve a day of baseball time.
Palmeiro lectures Congress about the evils of drugs and now comes up dirty for a steroid that was described to me yesterday as "severe." For that he gets a sentence that is nowhere close to what Selig was allowed to give Kenny Rogers for going after those cameramen.
Palmeiro says he has never ever intentionally used steroids, then apologizes for making a mistake, then talks about how this can be a good thing in the long run, as though this is really some kind of personal triumph. It is something only suckers believe. Well, suckers and the President of the United States.
Oh sure. A White House spokesman says that President Bush, who once was a Texas Rangers owner, considers Palmeiro a friend and believes his latest version of the truth, the one that makes Palmeiro sound like somebody apologizing for being careless enough to get his wallet stolen.
One big-league manager talked yesterday about how players used to laugh when Palmeiro, notoriously casual about conditioning, started to show up at spring training with new muscles.
"Tell him the truth will set you free," that manager said when he got the news yesterday about Palmeiro.
Palmeiro didn't tell the truth, or get set free. He got 10 days. Selig ought to be able to suspend him for the rest of the season. The commissioner ought to be able to give him that for his testimony alone. When Palmeiro pointed his finger at Congress that day, it just turns out he was pointing in the wrong direction.
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