Say It Aint So, Mac.

Mark McGwire finally gets it off his chest. Today Big Mac came clean and admitted that he used steroids throughout his career and in his home run record setting season in 1998. I guess it’s been looming. We all knew he did it, we all knew he was avoiding it. When the St. Louis Cardinals hired Mac on as their new hitting coach this year we thought it just may come out, and today was the day. In a prepared statement McGwire admitted to using steroids off and on for about 10 years, claiming that he used the drugs to recover from injury quicker and get back on the field. Much like Andy Pettitte’s excuse.

I always had a soft spot for The Big Mac. I think most baseball fans my age could relate to this. The man saved baseball. When the players came back from the 1994 strike, the fans didn’t get the memo. Parks were deserted across the country. Mark McGwire’s home run race with fellow outed steroid user Slammin Sammy Sosa brought the attention back to the game. Fans packed in by the thousands to see these two freaks blast 500 footers by the dozen. That’s what we wanted to see. We all know now, looking back, it was pretty obvious what was going on. They weren’t fooling anyone. We just didn’t care. So are they really the bad guys? We loved it at the time. But it just became too much. When steroids became a widespread epidemic it changed the game, in my eyes for the worse. Sure people dig the long ball, and attendances were booming. But I’m a baseball fan. I love the game, I respect the game, and I can’t condone cheating. There were no more great pitchers, tiny guys got bloated and started jacking 40+ homers a year. It wasn’t the same game. It’s kind of sad when you think about it, what could have been the best baseball story ever turned out to be a sham.

So this is the final nail in Mark McGwire’s Hall Of Fame hopes. If there was ever a shot that he’d get in down the road, it’s certainly gone now. No admitted steroid user belongs in Cooperstown. No way. I almost feel bad for the guy. He was the face of baseball for a decade. We loved him. We were blind, dumb, or naive to think he wasn’t using any drugs. We let it slide. We took him for all he was worth, chewed him up, and spit him out. Made a villain of him. Granted, he did it. He broke the rules, and now he has to live with the consequences. But the man kept baseball afloat until we could find a new hero in Alex Rodriguez, and look how great that turned out…

I’ll curse any proven or admitted user of a performance enhancing drug, but I will always have a place in my heart for what Mark McGwire did in the late 90s. He brought the fans back to the parks. He became somewhat of a martyr for us, for baseball, for the fans, and baseball is indebted to him for that.

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