Mark McGwire did steroids!
I know, I know: It’s shocking. Big Mac has admitted to doing steroids throughout his career, including during his historic race with Sammy Sosa to beat Roger Maris’ single season mark. Like I said, we’re shocked and outraged, etc.
McGwire is now, for sure, out of the Hall of Fame. He might see a slight uptick in the BBWAA voting from the 25% he’s been gathering, but nowhere near the 75% that’s required for entry — and the crusty veterans committee will never allow a *spit* cheater to join their ranks in the hallowed hall. I’m interested to see if the treatment McGwire’s getting will convince any others (coughBarryBondscough) to come forward and admit to their own peccadilloes. Because the real lesson here, I think, is that admitting that you’ve done something wrong after the writers start voting, you’ll only be despised for your self-serving weakness.
Take A-Rod, for example. By admitting to steroid use with enough time left in his career to a.) win at least one world series, probably more, and b.) prove he can crush the ball without juice, he’s left a crack in the door. Instead of stirring up fresh outrage as his time for entry nears, it’ll be old news: The blood will be far less angried up. People may not have forgotten about A-Rod’s dabbling with steroids — they may not even have forgiven him — but the rhetoric surrounding his candidacy will be far, far less vitriolic.
Which again brings me back to Bonds. The Pirates and Giants slugger has a chance — a slim one, but a chance nevertheless — to come clean and say “Hey, look, I saw the accolades that McGwire and Sosa were getting, and I was jealous; I’ve always wanted to be loved by fans and writers, but it’s not in my personality to be cute and cuddly like those two: All I could do was out-mash them. So I took performance enhancing substances. I did them when I hit 73 homers in 2001; I did them in all four of my latter MVP years. I did not do them during my first three MVP seasons, however. I didn’t do them for most of my career, in fact.”
I mean, who knows how people would react. But I assure you it’ll be far, far better to do it now than to do it 10 years from now when — as a seven-time MVP and a 14-time all star — he’s languishing with 30-35% of the vote and wondering just what went wrong.
(If you’ve noticed some ambivalence regarding the steroid issue on my part, well, you’re right. We’ve spent so much of the last half of the decade dealing with this issue that I’m just a little burnt out on it. The only guy who really ripped my guts out was Rafael Palmeiro, who, as a Baltimore Orioles fan, I always admired for his consistency and I totally believed when he went in front of the House Committee and said, emphatically, that he had never done steroids. I even still half-believe that he got screwedby Miguel Tejada. But I know that half-belief is just the last remnants of my naivete screaming out, demanding to be heard. I’m far too cynical at this point to fully believe him. As are the rest of us. As we should be.)