Mark McGwire Admits to Steroid Use, Refuses to Admit Wrongdoing

Mark McGwire finally admitted this week to what we all knew, that he used steroids during his MLB career including during the 1998 season in which he broke the single season home run record. McGwire had been a long time member of the club of MLB stars, including Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who was fooling nobody, but still denied every using steroids. He refuses to acknowledge, however, that either steroids or growth hormones (which he also admitted to using) gave him any advantage when it came to home runs. "I believe I was given this gift. The only reason I took steroids was for health purposes." McGwire claims that he was motivated only to avoid injuries and maintain his strength for the full 162 games of the season and that they had no affect on his home run hitting abilities.

This is the same asinine argument many dopers have taken when confronted with the reality of their fraudulent careers. Oh it didn't affect my ability to hit the ball, blah blah blah. Really the only reason McGwire came out was in an attempt to justify his career for the hall of fame voters. What these players have done to baseball is deplorable. Is steroids against the rules? Yes? Then it's cheating. Period. It doesn't matter if everyone does it, it doesn't matter if you don't think it helps, it's still cheating!! To knowingly break the rules in order to gain an advantage for yourself is cheating. Bud Selig hasn't helped either. Rather than crack down on the league in which all the best players of the last 10, perhaps even 20 years are known cheaters, he has tried to sweep this under the rug. As a result it keeps getting worse.

McGwire also subscribes to the belief that "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." So while it didn't help him at all, he still did it and he's still sorry for it. What? Who does he think he's fooling? First, if it didn't help, then why are so many players doing it? If it offers no real advantage then why risk tarnishing your career? The simple answer is that it does help and they know it. What they are sorry about is getting caught. Even if the only thing it does was help keep him healthy for the full season, that's still an unfair advantage. Why? Because Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, all the old stars didn't have that advantage. I don't understand how McGwire can think he broke Roger Maris' record when he did it with performance enhancing drugs that are, by rule, illegal. Is that fair? How can baseball players delude themselves into thinking this is ok?

If Bud Selig refuses to fix this, the only people who can still help turn baseball around are the hall of fame voters. McGwire obviously really wants to get into the hall and if the last few years are anything to go on, he won't come close. Let's hope a similar fate awaits Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Bonds, and all the other cheaters out there; all of whom supposedly either didn't know what they were doing, or didn't gain any advantage from it.