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August 05, 2006
Big Mac Has No Sac
I fell 100% hook, line and sinker back in 1998 for the great McGwire/Sosa home run chase. I, like many other baseball fans and Major League Baseball itself, either was ignorant of the potential or symptoms of steroid abuse or simply remained willfully blind to it. Big Mac was making me fall in love with baseball again -- even though I'd never fallen out of love -- and I loved every second of that magical run.
Fast forward a few years. We know now what we know now. McGwire, with an opportunity to one more time be a hero, instead chooses to issue weak, cowardly non-denial denials to the House Committee when it investigated steroid use in MLB in March of 2005. "I'm not here to talk about the past," Big Mac said, and what we all understood that to mean was, "I'm as guilty as OJ, but I the 'roids seem to have shrunken my stones, and I don't have any left to actually be a man and own up to the mistakes I made and the wrongs I may have committed upon the game. My legacy is more important to me than my integrity."
McGwire may have been trying to protect the reputation of his 70 home run season in 1998, and the 583 he hit over his career, but he ironically did more to damage it than any needle or chemical. His "testimony" was widely seen as cowardice, and even those who'd up to that point been willing to cut him a break suddenly found themselves with far less sympathy for him than they'd had. McGwire's statement was ridiculed mercilessly for weeks, and what was left of his reputation quickly disintegrated.
You'd think McGwire would have learned from that PR debacle. Unfortunately, it appears that just like Barry Bonds, McGwire is too arrogant and too cowardly to simply admit the truth and own up to his own behavior. He's refusing to cooperate with the Mitchell investigation into baseball's steroid past. In fact, he's flat out avoiding them, like a deadbeat would avoid a bill collector.
"They're getting no cooperation from McGwire," the source told the newspaper. "He wants nothing to do with this. He doesn't want to talk to them. He doesn't want his people to talk to them."
You know, with McGwire coming up for his first Hall of Fame ballot in the next few months, there's been a lot of talk about whether Big Mac will make it to the Hall -- ever, much less on the first ballot. And there've been some compelling arguments from people like Buster Olney and Jayson Stark over at ESPN, who point out that a) steroid use was far more widespread than we naive fans realized, so taking them didn't give as distinct an advantage over everyone else as it might seem, and b) that Major League Baseball was complicit in the scandal, so it seems unfair to punish McGwire for his role in a practice that MLB tacitly, if not explicity encouraged. As Olney wrote, "The only difference between McGwire and many other stars from the generation is that McGwire hit more homers, and got the congressional subpoena."
Theoretically, he's right. But you know what? I will forever hold Barry Bonds' character -- or lack thereof -- against him; he would never, ever get my Hall of Fame vote, because he's arrogantly continued to act as if it is his divine right to cheat, and that no one had dare tell him otherwise; he's been a coward all along, refusing to simply acknowledge that he'd done wrong in pursuit of excellence... which could at least be understood if not condoned. Bonds' conduct disqualifies him from ever being a Hall of Famer, in my book -- not that he took steroids, but what he's done since the curtain was raised on his conduct.
Now Mark McGwire, with his continued avoidance of investigations and questioning, and his refusal to own up to what he did in the 90s, have begun to turn into simply a less prickish version of Bonds. I wanted to like Big Mac, I really did. I wanted to forgive him his transgressions and say everything was all right. All he had to do was admit to me what he'd done, and say "I'm sorry." That's all it would have taken. Instead, he chose to obfuscate and duck -- and even after getting absolutely pilloried for it, he's now doing it again. That tells me that he's either incredibly stupid, or incredibly arrogant; I believe the latter. I believe that there's something in his wiring that is telling him that somehow, some way, he's still going to find a way to get out of this, because he's Mark McGwire. He doesn't have to face consequences like everybody else. That's Bondsian levels of arrogance, intransigence, and cowardice.
And if I'm going to hold a lack of character against Barry Bonds, then I have to hold it against Mark McGwire, too. Bonds will never be a Hall of Famer to me; now, neither will McGwire. You've permanently lost my vote, Big Mac. Not because you took steroids, but because you're simply not man enough to admit it and say you're sorry. Real heroes -- and Hall of Famers -- are stand-up guys who own up to their mistakes. You're neither.
Comments
You may not agree with him, but I thought this was one of the best columns on steroids, McGwire, Bonds, the Hall of Fame, etc. Check it out.
MML
Posted by: MML at August 6, 2006 10:32 AM
I never quite understood tht statement anyway.
If he wasn't there to talk about the past, why was he there at all? Having long since retired, did he think they subpoenaed him to ask him his opinion of the current pennant race?
I guess I could understand his not wanting to be the one who blew the whistle, as you mentioned he was certainly not alone. But your right, he has taken an arrogant, selfish stance on the issue.
Mac was one of the guys I used to pray I would pop out of card packs, he was one of my favs. Oh, what a tangled web was woven...
Posted by: Cuzin Jose at August 7, 2006 05:19 PM
