Seems like it was bound to happen eventually. Word is that Mark McGwire has finally admitted to using steroids during his baseball career, including during his famous battle with Sammy Sosa for slugging supremacy during the 1998 season.
[McGwire] told Costas that studying pitchers and making his swing shorter led to his increase in home runs and that he could have hit them without PEDs.
“I truly believe so,” McGwire said. “I believe I was given this gift. The only reason I took steroids was for health purposes.”
McGwire, who will be serving as the St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach during the upcoming season, garnered praise from Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, as well as from baseball commissioner Bud Selig.
“I’m really encouraged that he would step forward,” La Russa told ESPN. “As we go along his explanations will be well received.”
“I am pleased that Mark McGwire has confronted his use of performance-enhancing substances as a player. Being truthful is always the correct course of action [...] This statement of contrition, I believe, will make Mark’s re-entry into the game much smoother and easier,” Selig said.
McGwire also said that he knew he would have to face the music at some point.
“I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come,” McGwire said. “It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected.”
Despite using steroids and human growth hormone, McGwire contends that he would have and could have performed just as well without the drugs.
“There’s not a pill or an injection that’s going to give me, going to give any player the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball,” McGwire told Costas.
True, that. But at the same time, if he took enough to build up greater strength, then that could have added the extra “oomph” to drive those long balls out of the park. Truth is, now that he’s admitted to using the drugs, there will always be an asterisk and some debate as to whether or not it was the `roids that gave him the home run record in 1998. That’s a debate, I’m afraid, that will never truly be settled. But good for McGwire that he came clean. I wonder how many other former major-league players will follow in his footsteps.
ESPN.com, which is where the quotes above come from, has a wide-ranging story about McGwire’s admission. No doubt other media outlets do, too. And if they don’t, they soon will.
For Mark McGwire the easiest part — coming clean about his steroid use — is over with. Now comes the harder parts. Dealing with the fans’ reactions. And once he’s got a handle on that, there’s the matter of feeding the beast which is the 24-hour news cycle.
No doubt there will be more stories over the coming days and weeks. McGwire is to be commended to owning up to what he did, but if he thinks that today’s story will be the end of it, then I’m afraid he’s in for a rude awakening.
