Mark McGwire Admits to Steroid Use

Apologies are never enough for cynics

By Bernie Miklasz, Sports Columnist
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
http://www.stltoday.com/sports
01/12/2010

Mark McGwire tried to come clean Monday, and in his heart he believes that he did. But understand that Big Mac was never very good at these things. A private and shy man, he's never displayed much deftness in cultivating an image. He always wanted to hit the baseball out of sight, then remain out of sight himself.

And reticence is a problem in our Dr. Phil culture. We demand full-blown confessionals, and you'd better open some old wounds and then tap into a new vein or two, and it better be messy and bloody, and by God it must be televised.


In this image from video, Mark McGwire wipes his eye during an interview with Bob Costas on MLB Network on Monday, Jan. 11, 2010. McGwire admitted earlier Monday he used steroids when he broke baseball's home run record in 1998. McGwire said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that he used steroids on and off for nearly a decade.
(AP Photo/MLB Network)

In this instance, we demanded that McGwire admit to using steroids, even if we already knew that he used steroids. It's been obvious since he ducked the question at Congress, right? Seriously: After all we have learned over the last several years, did we really need this suspicion confirmed?

I suppose all of this is beside the point. Before McGwire could be permitted to stand at the batting cage and peacefully instruct Cardinals hitters on the fine art of powdering a curveball, he had to perform the time-honored ritual ceremony of asking for forgiveness.

And this was excruciating for McGwire. I asked him questions for 20 minutes Monday, and he began crying several times. He was absolutely sincere. McGwire said he called Pat Maris (Roger's widow) to apologize, and he called his oldest (now adult) son, Matt, to apologize, and he called his parents to apologize, and he called former coaches and teammates to apologize, and he called Tony La Russa to apologize, and he called Bud Selig to apologize. He's basically been weeping off and on for 18 hours.

And the apologies were accepted. "Everybody's been fantastic," McGwire said. "Everyone has been great. I couldn't thank them enough. Then again I couldn't say sorry enough to them, too."

Of course, others will never forgive McGwire.

"It's understandable," he said.

I thought McGwire went far with this, the way he did in connecting with those belt-high fastballs in the late 1990s. But whatever he said, you just knew it wasn't going to be enough for some cynics. McGwire was more open and candid and self-lacerating than any of the baseball sluggers identified as alleged juicers over the past few years. He was more truthful than Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, David Ortiz, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro.

McGwire began this process by sending out a statement, but he didn't use it as a veil for cover. He called me to talk; I did not call him. And there were no ground rules. You could ask him anything. And he answered everything. And still: This would not be enough for some. He injected himself with steroids; now we want to inject him with a potent dose of truth serum.

You see, it's nastier than ever out there, because the American sports media got duped again, just as we did in 1998. We saw all of our literary monuments to Tiger Woods come crashing down by the stark realization that he's seriously flawed. We've been selling another false idol.

Right on time, here comes Big Mac. And as soon as his MLB Network interview with Bob Costas came to a close, the baseball pundits basically took a bat to McGwire and worked him over. Watching the early reviews of the McGwire apologia reminded me that though we say we're a forgiving people, it's not entirely true.

McGwire's explanation of his performance before Congress made sense: He wanted to tell all, but his lawyers couldn't get assurances of immunity for himself, family or friends, so McGwire clammed up. He did it to keep potential subpoenas from his front door.

"So I took the hits," he said. "But I would do anything to protect my family. And I think anybody who was in my shoes for those 48 hours would have done the same thing."

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.

"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."

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. But he honestly does not believe it's related. So what do we want from him? Should he lie and go against what he really believes to score points with the baseball writers?

And I told McGwire I was disappointed that he didn't follow through on his congressional vow to take a leadership role in warning young athletes about the danger of doing steroids. It's not too late. Now that McGwire is back in the game, shouldn't he use his public platform to make a positive difference?

"You're absolutely right," McGwire said. "And we'll take that as it comes."

We may not like all of his answers, but this was an enormous and important first stride for McGwire. Perfect, no. And he waited too long. But he set an example for other drug cheats in baseball. He went deeper than any had gone before.

I don't believe McGwire will ever be voted into the Hall of Fame, and I don't think he cares about that. This was about something else. McGwire doesn't need my forgiveness, or yours. More than anything, he wants to be able to forgive himself. And this was a start.


Big Mac holds out on the truth

From Thomas Boswell
The Washington Post
Basbeall Insider
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/baseball-insider/
January 11, 2009

Mark McGwire didn't lie to Congress.

So, now, he can tell the truth: "I used steroids during my playing career, and I apologize."

When he came to Capitol Hill in '05, the slugger created his own version of the Fifth Amendment, answering repeatedly, "I don't want to talk about the past."

That day, his strategy didn't look too smart. But now it does.

Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro listen to testimony during the House Committee hearing investigating steroid use in baseball on Capital Hill in Washington in this March 17, 2005 file photo. McGwire admitted on January 11, 2010 that he used steroids during his Major League Baseball (MLB) playing career, including in 1998 when he broke the single-season home run record, Major League Baseball website mlb.com reported. Picture taken march 17, 2005. REUTERS/Win McNamee/Files


Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens might wish, in hindsight, that they had the option to do what McGwire did Monday. But when you've sworn to a grand jury, or to Congress, that you're clean, you can't take it back. Both are still under investigation.

McGwire, by contrast, will be heading to spring training next month as the hitting instructor for his former St. Louis Cardinals.

The sun is always warm in St. Petersburg. There will be slaps on the Big Mac back.

Even though he has admitted that he cheated for a decade, he'll be welcomed. Almost a recluse in recent years, McGwire will have his life -- in baseball -- back at last.

Why will a confessed cheater find his return so relatively smooth? If nobody in baseball ever spoke to anybody suspected of using steroids in the '90s, the whole game would fall silent. At least McGwire finally told truth. And he didn't do it to sell a book, like Jose Canseco, or as damage control in response to a national magazine, like Alex Rodriguez.

Like our parents said, when you do something wrong, don't lie about it. It makes it worse. Sometimes worse than what you did.

McGwire will even regain some portion of his lost respect in the sport because he knows what price he'll pay. With his decision Monday "to come clean," McGwire almost certainly incinerates any chance he may have had to reach the Hall of Fame.

In recent years, he has only gotten about 25 percent of the Hall vote, far short of the 75 percent that's needed. And that's just when he was overwhelmingly suspected of using steroids because of his testimony before Congress. Now, he's detailed the years in which he used steroids and given his rationalization -- to help recover from injuries more quickly and prevent injuries.

While McGwire may never now have dinner on the veranda of the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown on the eve of induction ceremonies, he'll once again have all the invitations he can handle to grab a steak after a Cards game all around the big-league circuit.

What a no-brainer of a choice: Do you want to tough it out and hope that, someday, mores change and you make the Hall of Fame? Or do you want to have your normal human life back, albeit with a slightly larger blotch on your record? Perhaps what's surprising is that it took McGwire this long to decide.

"I always knew this day would come," said McGwire, who said that part of his delay until now was because of legal advice he had received. "It's time for me to confirm what people have suspected.

"I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era."

Since he earned $74,688,354 in salary, plus endorsements, pension and other benefits, he's probably not totally sorry. This is certainly a day to encourage honesty and practice forgiveness. But it shouldn't be forgotten that even though baseball did not have drug testing during much of McGwire's career, the sport explicitly stated that taking steroids was cheating. Mac knew exactly what he was doing and new it was against the rules -- tests or no tests.

As a truth-teller, McGwire probably still only deserves a passing grade, not an "A." Baseball cheats always want to maintain the illusion that using performance-enhancing drugs doesn't really enhance their own performance all that much. And they love to maintain the fiction that they only did it to recover from injuries or to prevent them. You know, sorta to help the team.

Mac, who's not ratting anybody else out, has stuck to the PED users company line in his statement. "I'm sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids," said McGwire.

He couldn't. He'd have hit less. How many less? Nobody knows. Oh, sorry to interrupt.

"I had good years when I didn't take any, and I had bad years when I didn't take any. I had good years when I took steroids, and I had bad years when I took steroids."

Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge. Oh, that's right: Mac will never have to tell it to a judge because, in the clutch, he decided it wasn't in him to lie to his country's highest legislative body.

"I remember trying steroids very briefly in the '89-90 off-season," said McGwire of his first such experience. "During the mid-'90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years," added McGwire. "it was definitely a miserable bunch of years, and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster and prevent injuries, too."

Some in the game, when McGwire's injuries were mentioned, wondered if steroids might actually be a contributing cause. That was one reason why, during his great home run chase with Sammy Sosa in '98, there was periodic attention paid to what body-building stuff might be in McGwire's locker. Was it legit?

Until now, we didn't know for sure. So, with his confession, McGwire helps baseball move one step further along its lugubrious trek toward a post-steroid period.

"Baseball is really different now -- it's been cleaned up," McGwire said. "The commissioner and the players' association implemented testing and cracked down, and I'm glad they did."

Just for the record, let's clean up that last thought. Baseball's testing is probably now no more inadequate and no easier to beat than every other major sport. Faint praise, indeed, especially since no major sport has any testing for human growth hormone. You could take it by the gallon standing at home plate or in the huddle.

Despite all our sensible reservations and a cynicism we've earned over the last 20-some years, this was a fine day for McGwire and a good one for baseball, too.

Honesty may be the best policy. But, as Mark McGwire has shown us once more, refusing to lie is often just as important.

By washingtonpost.com Sports Editor January 11, 2010; 7:22 PM ET


Finally, McGwire in the cleanup spot

By Bob Ryan
Boston Globe Columnist
http://www.boston.com/sports/
January 12, 2010

Who can imagine what it must have been like for Mark McGwire, who by every other measure is a fine American, to be walking around for more than 4 1/2 years carrying the burden of a colossal lie?

At that infamous Congressional hearing on March 17, 2005, Mark McGwire shied away from questioning about his use of steroids as he was smashing home runs from here to Venus in the years 1995 through 1999 (when he began to break down, from, we now can properly assume, steroid abuse) by saying, “I’m not here to talk about the past.’’ It was a foolish non-denial denial, admitting nothing and everything at the same time. It branded him as a coward. We knew what he had done, and he knew that we knew.

On that day he became the first American citizen to invoke the Fourth-and-a-half Amendment.

Now all that foolishness is over. Mark McGwire has agreed to explore his past. “I wish I had never touched steroids,’’ he told the Associated Press yesterday. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.’’

This stunning and welcome admission is a direct byproduct of McGwire’s desire to re-enter the baseball world as batting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, the team that benefited from McGwire’s historic explosion as a power hitter. It was widely speculated that McGwire simply would have to submit himself to questioning once spring training began, but yesterday he seized the initiative by ’fessing up to his transgression.

“I never knew when,’’ he said, “but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and confirm what people have suspected.’’

The ramifications are enormous. Now that McGwire has admitted to the use of performance- enhancing drugs and human growth hormone, will that inspire other suspected marquee users such as Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, and the sneeringly defiant Barry Bonds to offer similar confessions and apologies? Will Tony La Russa, who managed McGwire both in Oakland (when Jose Canseco says he injected McGwire in the rear end) and St. Louis, surprise us by saying he knew the truth all along? And how will this affect McGwire’s standing with Hall of Fame voters, who thus far have rejected his candidacy by a margin of better than 4 to 1 in the four years of his placement on the ballot?

Most of all, how will the sporting public receive McGwire, who had established himself as a man of honor by the gracious way he included the family of Roger Maris in his march to demolish Maris’s 1961 record of 61 home runs? Now that he finally has come clean, will people re-embrace a man who was enormously popular as a player and who has done exemplary work in his private life for abused children?

He’ll be off to a good start if he stresses the fact that his sorry performance before Congress was because of advice offered by his attorneys. “First, let’s kill the lawyers’’ has always been a viable rallying cry in our society. I really wonder what those lawyers could have been thinking. How could anyone have believed that allowing their client to come off before the country as a gutless, sniveling wimp could be of any benefit in either the short or long term? McGwire has been an object of public derision ever since. Great legal call that was.

“After all this time, I want to come clean,’’ he said. “I was not put in a position to do that five years ago in my Congressional testimony, but now I feel an obligation to discuss this and to answer questions about it. I’ll do that, and then I just want to help my team.’’

So why did he do it?

He says it was for the reason so many others have - to heal faster.

“During the ’90s I went to the DL [disabled list] seven times and missed 228 games over five years,’’ he explained in his statement. “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.’’

The cause and effect are perfectly obvious. After hitting nine home runs in 47 games and 135 at-bats in 1994, he broke out in 1995 with 39 home runs in 317 at-bats, a dazzling rate of one homer for every 8.1 at-bats. The following year he smashed 52 homers in 423 at-bats, a rate of 1 every 7.1 at-bats. That was the start of a four-year run in which he hit 245 home runs in 1,993 at-bats, an average of 1 every 8.1 at-bats. So forget the business about “healing faster.’’ He was now hitting the baseballs farther.

He always had been a big man (remember the Bash Brothers?), but now he was positively Brobdingnagian. Yet it wasn’t until AP writer Steve Wilstein noticed a strange bottle of what turned out to be androstenedione (andro for short) in McGwire’s locker during the 1998 season that any eyebrows were raised. Andro is a testosterone-producing steroid that enables someone to work out longer and more efficiently. It was banned by some entities (the IOC, for example), but not in baseball. Well, life went on. Did we in the media drop the ball? Absolutely. But the story was so darn good, you know?

Now we know. If you recall, a disproportionate percentage of McGwire’s 70 homers in 1998 were prodigious wallops. He wasn’t just clearing fences. He was leaving time zones. And guess what?

“I used them on occasion throughout the ’90s, including the 1998 season,’’ he now tells us.

The excrement didn’t hit the fan until after McGwire retired with a broken-down body at age 37 following the 2001 season, and it culminated with the aforementioned fiasco of an appearance before Congress in 2005. McGwire went back to his gated California community and out of public view, his reputation shredded. Once again, nice advice, you bozo lawyers.

Some naive people wanted to believe McGwire was clean, and many others don’t care. But for those who do, Mark McGwire needed to confess. They wanted him to stop insulting their intelligence.

Yesterday was the first day of the rest of Mark McGwire’s life. I’m going to guess he slept better last night than he has in 4 1/2 years.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist and host of Globe 10.0 on Boston.com. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.


Ex-St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire's attempt to come clean covers up real dirt

By Mike Lupica
The Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/index.html
Tuesday, January 12th 2010, 4:00 AM

This is what Mark McGwire said at the end of a hard day, hardest of his life he said, the day when he finally admitted to using steroids:

"At least I've finally come clean."

No, he didn't.

McGwire did a lot of good for himself Monday, he did. But he did not come clean, not all the way, not the way he could have, no matter how long and hard this day and night were for him, no matter how difficult it was to make this confession to his wife and children and parents and former manager, and to the country.

He didn't have to change his story Monday, because he was smart enough not to deny everything under oath the way Roger Clemens did when he went in front of Congress. But McGwire didn't tell nearly enough of the truth, not to The Associated Press, not to Bob Costas in a riveting interview on the Major League Baseball Network. And certainly not to us.

"I wasn't gonna lie," McGwire said of his own appearance in front of Congress, that famous appearance when they asked him about steroids and he said he wasn't there to talk about the past.

Now it is nearly five years later and in a series of interviews, including one with Costas that lasted an hour, McGwire admits that he did take steroids, for a long time. Most of this was painful to watch, as McGwire broke down again and again.

But it was almost as painful to see how much he is still in denial about the drugs he took and what they did for him. McGwire was not in front of Congress or under oath yesterday. He chose to do this, now that he is the hitting coach for the Cardinals. He wasn't caught by Sports Illustrated the way Alex Rodriguez was. He picked this moment to admit to using steroids.

In the past, McGwire never officially denied that he was a steroids user. But he sure is in denial now. He says that he never took steroids for strength, just for health reasons.

"I wanted to feel normal," he said to Costas.

When Costas asked him if he thought he hit better because of steroids he said, "It never crossed my mind."

Really? Alex Rodriguez said he didn't know what he was taking and didn't know what the drugs did for him and yet kept taking them for three years in Texas. His version. McGwire said his use of steroids went on longer.

"I was tired of rehab and getting beat up," he said.

So he didn't think he was cheating, he didn't think that his home run records had anything to do with the drugs he was taking. Says he wasn't a big juicer, he was just using those low dosages, and when Costas asked him about his records being "authentic," McGwire said this:

"Completely legit."

So he was the guy who hit 70 home runs and wasn't taking muscle-building steroids, he was only taking the body-healing steroids. This is Andy Pettitte's version of why he used human growth hormone, which actually can be a healing drug. But when Costas asked McGwire if he used HGH he said, "I tried it once, twice maybe."

So McGwire's story, and he's sticking to it, is that all the home runs he hit at the end of his career were about shortening his stroke and the power of his mind, not performance-enhancing drugs. Come on. If McGwire can get by with this, Barry Bonds should book himself on Oprah next week.

McGwire says he thought at the time that "low dosages would make me feel normal." He can't remember what drugs he was taking, just that the dosages were low. Now he says taking drugs was the "stupidest thing I've ever done." He kept breaking down on television. He called the Maris family to apologize.

Again: This from a guy who says he only did what he did because he was trying to heal faster, not because he wanted to get bigger and hit more home runs in a season - at the time - than anybody ever had in baseball.

"I'm here to be honest," McGwire kept saying.

And somehow that was the real shame of this, of even more human drama than we witnessed when he sat in front of Congress that day, looking like somebody repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment rights.

The truth is that he was a great home run hitter, and he was liked and respected by his teammates and by his opponents and by baseball fans, even before he hit 70 home runs in 1998. The truth, clearly, is that he does love baseball and that he did miss it and that he clearly embraces the opportunity to return to the game now. He was clearly telling the truth last night when he said this:

"I've let a lot of people down. It doesn't feel good ... I've been waiting to come clean since 2005."

But he did not last night, even as he insisted that the numbers that helped poison baseball's record books in the late 1990s came from "the Man Upstairs." McGwire seemed more comfortable talking about the Man Upstairs than he did about the guy at the gym helping him get the juice.

Again and again, as he talked about his abnormal home run numbers in the late '90s he said, "I wanted my body to feel normal." He also talked about the pressure to perform, the same way Rodriguez did last spring in Tampa. A lot of guys deal with that without ever going to pills, or the needle.

You walked away feeling sorry for McGwire Monday night, 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?


Despite steroid admission, it's way too late to pump up Mark McGwire's bid for Hall of Fame

By Bill Madden
The Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/index.html
Tuesday, January 12th 2010, 4:00 AM


At long last, Mark McGwire has elected to talk about the past - a past that isn't very pretty for baseball - and now the Hall of Fame voters are going to have to decide whether being an admitted cheater makes him any more worthy of a plaque in Cooperstown than a suspected cheater.


Wilson/Getty

Former St. Louis Cardinals Mark McGwire is sworn in during a House Committee session investigating steroids in Major League Baseball in 2005.


It's a little unclear as to why McGwire chose now to issue his mea culpa for having used steroids as he inflated his home run numbers to record-setting proportions in the '90s, other than his desire to return to baseball as the St. Louis Cardinals' batting coach cleansed of guilt. Undoubtedly, he'll attain sympathy in some quarters as Jason Giambi did when he was the only one of the players caught up in the BALCO probe who admitted to the grand jury in San Francisco about having used steroids. But I highly doubt if it's going to make any appreciable difference in the 23-24% he's been getting in the Hall of Fame balloting.

If anything, when the voters reflect on what an absolute sham McGwire was, publicly embracing the Maris family in 1998 as he went about annihilating Roger Maris' longstanding single-season home record with the help of performance-enhancing drugs, they should be even more dismissive of him as a person deserving of any honor in baseball. In his statement Monday, McGwire said: "I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroids era."

It seems to me the most important people he needs to apologize to are Roger Maris' two sons. After all, he robbed them of their father's legacy, as did Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds, although I'm not holding my breath for either of them to admit their cheating ways. (For what it's worth, Maris still has a place in the record books as the American League one-season home run record-holder.)

And when McGwire says he wishes he never played during the steroids era, I have to laugh. After all, he was the steroids era. Is he trying to suggest that he just happened to come along and get caught up in this web of performance-enhancing drugs that had been festering in baseball for years?

And whether he wants to admit it or not, McGwire's admission yesterday, along with Jose Canseco's past lurid tales of steroids use, has taken a big chunk out of Tony La Russa's legacy, as the "Bash Brothers" 1989 world championship with the Oakland A's is forever tainted. La Russa was still saying yesterday that he believed McGwire's home run prowess for him in Oakland and St. Louis was primarily the product of hard work in the weight room. It remains a weak defense from someone who has lived by the credo "respect the game."

McGwire cited the 228 games he missed over five years due to seven trips on the disabled list as his incentive to see if steroids could help him heal faster, and I suppose that's going to be the standard excuse used by all the other cheats who either come clean or get caught. And if the residual effect of taking steroids was being healthy and strong enough to make a mockery of the record book and enhance their salaries tenfold, well, who could help that?

I do believe McGwire's primary motivation for coming clean now was his desire to get back on the major league field with the Cardinals and teach hitting - which couldn't happen until he addressed the issue - and not necessarily an attempt to improve his image with the Hall of Fame voters. He has to know that finally talking about the past can never eradicate the past. Rather, it has served to further illuminate it and remind everyone, the players and their union, the media and, yes, the commissioner of baseball, that we were all complicit in looking the other way as all these cheats tarnished the game forever.

Admission of steroid use should never be construed as some form of healing process for baseball, either. There is no healing from this. But it's a whole lot better than the lying and denying.

Are you listening, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa? Or are you content to wait for your turn on the Hall of Fame ballot to see exactly how well you really fooled everyone?

bmadden@nydailynews.com