The Angry Czeck

“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.”

Mark McGwire, in the end, had to talk about the past.

He didn’t want to. He raised his right hand and told a pile of Senators that he didn’t want to. But as Faulkner said, The past is not even past. It follows you around like a drunken hobo.

Mark McGwire abused steroids. He said he did it to recover from injury and to live up to his contract (a message he could have plucked from any steroids apologist on the Internet). He claimed he had good years on steroids and good years when he wasn’t on steroids. He said he took steroids in 1998, the year he clubbed 70 home runs. The same year a reporter found a bottle of andro (a steroid catalyst) in plain view on his locker.

That always intrigued me, that carelessly placed bottle of androstenedione . It was almost like McGwire was reaching out; like he wanted to be caught. Like he was saying, “You know…I’m breaking Maris’ record by using steroids. You do know that, right?”

We knew. Of course we knew! You didn’t have to be Encyclopedia Brown to piece it together.

I remember watching your Oakland Athletics take on the Cincinnati Reds in 1990 World Series. Jesus Christ! You looked huge! You all looked huge – Jose Canseco, Dave Parker, Dave Henderson, even Terry Steinbeck and yes, Rickey Henderson. You all had forearms the size of Geo Prisms. Eric Davis, the biggest slugger on the Reds, looked like an Oompa-Loompa compared to the smallest of you.

And yet, we knew nothing, right? The Oakland Athletics looked more like the Oakland Raiders, and that seemed normal to us. With a straight face, we talked about training, diet, and natural supplements. We lied as easily to ourselves as McGwire would lie to Congress  a decade and a half later.

When McGwire was summoned to Washington D.C. to respond to Jose Canseco’s charges of PED abuse, we were pulling for Mark to come clean. We wanted him to say, “Yes, I took steroids. At the time, it was legal, if frowned upon. But a ton of cash was at stake. A ton! Without it, I’m barely better than Ray Lankford, and quite frankly I didn’t want to make Lankford bucks.”

We would have pretended to be outraged, but really we would have been relieved. Finally, we would no longer have to maintain our counterfeit ignorance. McGwire’s admission might have created a culture of forgiveness in which all the creatures of steroids could find acceptance. Best of all, we would cease all our phony righteous indignation.

Instead, Mark didn’t want to talk about the past. Sosa pretended that he couldn’t speak English. Palmeiro wagged his finger at a panel of Congressman. Even the loudmouthed Curt Schilling was suddenly at a loss for words. Only Jose Canseco, the human cartoon, had the shrunken testicles to talk.

Mark is talking now, and quite frankly, late is better than never. Most of us will accept the apology because forgiving him means forgiving ourselves. Some won’t accept his apology. Some will be pompous blowhards who continue to pretend that they had nothing to do with the steroid era. Here are words from ESPN’s baseball writer, Jayson Stark:

Stark: And to all the folks who got caught up in that special summer (of 1998), let down their guard and basked in one of the most compelling sports stories of our lifetimes.

Does (McGwire) really understand what he did to them? I don’t think he does.

Nobody had their “guard down,” Stark. Nothing was done to us. We knew, we cheered and we didn’t care. We still don’t care. Where are your arrogant words for David Ortiz, Mr. Stark? He made the same denial and then the same confession as McGwire.

Let’s look at the NFL this year, where star wide receive Dwayne Bowe was suspended four games for testing positive for PEDs. Outside from some fantasy football owners, there was no outrage. No demand for explanations or apologies. No accusations that the game of football had been tarnished.

Here are the words of fellow ESPN blowhard, Gene Wojciechowski:

Wojciechowski: McGwire cheated the game, the fans, the memory of Roger Maris and himself. It is admirable that he stepped forward and admitted his wrongdoing, but it does nothing to change the essential facts. His accomplishments are forever scarred by scandal.

If Mr. Bowe should score 50 touchdowns next year, neither Stark nor Wojchiechowski would even remember Bowe’s suspension. Yes, McGwire did cheat the game, Roger Maris, and himself. He did not cheat the fans who screamed for more. He did not cheat the sportswriters who wrote glowingly about his deeds, the owners who paid him handsomely for selling seats and jerseys, or the managers who won games thanks to the 550-ft home runs he artificially muscled out of the ballparks.

We got our money’s worth.

Related posts:

1. I’m on Steroids, Little Man!
2. Tom Hicks Likes Muscles