Not In My Hall of Fame

Five years too late, 10 years too late, doesn't matter. That was hard.

That was hard for Mark McGwire to admit yesterday that his entire career was a lie, that the glorious summer of '98 when he rescued baseball with the power of his swing was a sham.

The man was an athlete and a proud one. A cheater, as bad or worse than Canada's own Ben Johnson, quite probably.

Still, that was hard.

He has come clean and apologized, and we, as a sporting culture, should accept that apology.

Not unconditionally, mind you. The apology should be accepted, but with the condition that McGwire, other than working in the game he loves, should receive nothing more from the game he harmed so badly.

Certainly not a Hall of Fame induction, and one can only hope McGwire doesn't believe he can get a pass into the hall by coming clean.

That ship has sailed. He was a borderline case anyway, and now that he's admitted to be a desperate cheater for years, the numbers he accumulated mean nothing.

If he had a record that could be stripped, it should be. If baseball wants to invalidate the home runs he hit, that's okay with me.

See, he led the way in the steroid era. He wasn't just part of it. He was the poster boy, and he even had the temerity, the appalling judgment, to include his son and the Maris family in the entire drama, all the while knowing he was lying and cheating and lying some more.

For that, he should have his name forever stricken from the record books.

But as a man, these past years must have been a terrible time, hiding from the public eye, facing himself in the mirror day after day after day.

Anybody who can't recognize that can't recognize their own humanity.

So if he wants to work in baseball now, fine. Be the living monument to the cost of cheating, although the tens of millions of dollars earned in salary by McGwire certainly taints the quality of that monument.

Maybe he could've been a great player. Instead, he wasn't. He was just a cheater. He couldn't do it without the benefit of drugs that if not illegal in baseball, were quite clearly viewed as forbidden.

If coming clean helps him be a better man tomorrow than he was last week, then baseball's the better for it.

So forgive the poor fool. He screwed up terribly, all to feed his ego and lust for attention.

Still, McGwire now has a chance to truly make a positive contribution to the game.

That's worth something.

Comments

[Dave M]

well said

[Gareth Harland]

What disappoints me is that the real issue of steroids is not addressed again. No mention of the health dangers to those who take them. Cheating is part and parcel of baseball and has always been. There has never been a clean era and to pretend there has is pathetic. Our expectations are unrealistic and the media, who paints stars as pure saints or unadulterated sinners, can take its share of the blame.

[Vince]

Damien, there's one other thing worth noting.

Bud Selig makes $ 18 million dollars a year and for some reason, is getting away with murder beyond what any ball player is. It is repugnant and ridiculous that the MLB Commish is basically getting a free ride. There's a lot wrong with a sport where fans of franchises get no hope of contending let alone challenging for a division crown because there's no salary cap, and the awareness of all that is wrong in baseball is viewed with a blind eye. A player gets barbequed and the man in charge gets no blame. It's time the great collussionist was fired. Isn't it his responsibility that the game is kept clean ? Or did he simply use anything, including steroids, to save the national pastime after the 1994 strike. If the players go down, Selig should go with them.

[Hopebro]

In order to be a cheater, don't you have to break the rules of the game? Were steroids illegal in Baseball at the time McQwire was using them? If not, then he isn't a cheater. Baseball has always been held up as the purest sport, something the NFL is trying to emulate. The Babe and his ilk would have done anything inside the rules to get an edge. So put an asterik beside the whole "steroid era" if you want, because it could have happened in any time, any sport.

[Matt B]

Hopebro: Yes, they were illegal. Since 1991 when Giamatti said so.

What gets me is that Pete Rose is banned for life and this guy can get work. Pete made bad judgements but it never effected the game. MCGuire and co. rigged their careers and they can still work in the game. Sheesh.

[bobbyshow]

It was cheating. Pure and Simple. Sure the words weren't in print, but if every sane person knows it is cheating, it's cheating. That whole era should be torn from the record books. That's the trouble I have with this. McGuire, Bonds and Sosa will take the brunt of the heat while the cheaters (God only knows how many) will quietly count their millions from home, thanking their lucky stars that only these three (or so) lightning rods are ever spoken about.

[mravenec]

Oh, give me a break! The Hall of Fame is full of amphetamine users - not many ballplayers in the 60s and 70s would have passed an Olympic drug test. And amphetamines are arguably more performance enhancing - steroids don't do much on their own, they mostly help you train harder and recover faster.

[Hopebro]

Sorry, Matt B, but technically steroids weren't banned until 2002. Four years after the home run record was broke. I am not sticking up for McGwire, baseball climbed out of the lock out on these guys backs. And as I stated earlier if it wasn't illegal then their accomplishments should stand.

[eyebleaf]

See, he led the way in the steroid era. He wasn't just part of it. He was the poster boy, and he even had the temerity, the appalling judgment, to include his son and the Maris family in the entire drama, all the while knowing he was lying and cheating and lying some more.

Well put. A great post. My thought process was the same; living McGwire's life these past few years had to have been difficult. Everybody knew his secret. He just couldn't admit it. Good for him. It's time to move on. I'll still remember McGwire fondly, steroids and all. The summer of 1998 was magical.

[Bill Mogulsby]

Please give us all a huge breather from your sanctimonious attitude towards the participants in that multi-billion industry we call MLB or on a larger scale - North American professional sport. You're part of it Mr Cox, a beneficiary, maybe not on as grand a scale as Mr Selig, or the athletes themselves but I get the feeling you make a reasonable living and there wouldn't be much to comment on without the interest generated by the athletes themselves and their achievements. Allow me to confess something - if I were offered the opportunity to make millions of dollars, to create a legacy for my family at the ambiguous cost of taking some performance enhancing drugs that may or may not somewhere down the road cost me a couple of years I would say - yeaaaaaahhh!

[victor]

I agree stepping up was difficult. It is easy for us to judge though but if we were put in the same situation we could say we would not do it but who really knows. I don't think he will ever be voted in though because his numbers were tainted because his health would not have been there if he did not use and his arguement that it did not help is flawed and the voters know it.

[jimmy]

A bit over the top and sancatomonious. Mcguire didnt break any rules, and everyone else was doing it too, so the records arent even really tainted. Fuck, theres worse proplems in society, or even sports, than this.

[Pete]

I can safely assume that every writer who will not vote for Mark McGwire did not vote for Phil Niekro or Gaylord Perry, right? We have to keep the cheaters out of the Hall after all and they never made any secret about it. Oh, wait a minute, cheating was okay in the old days......