Mark McGwire
Couple comments on some of Mark’s statements in his Interview with Bob Costas yesterday.
Mark: : …”I believe I was given this gift. The only reason I took steroids was for my health purposes. I did not take steroids to get any gain for any strength purposes.”
Ok, but you did gain strength from them. It might not have been much, but it might have been the difference between hitting a line drive 395 feet vs hitting it 415 feet. That could be the difference between a ball getting caught on the warning track for an out and sailing into the first row of bleachers.
Mark: “…There is not a pill or an injection that is going to give me the hand-eye – or give any athlete – the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball. A pill or an injection will not hit a baseball.”
No one is disputing that. What we are saying is that steroids allow you to hit the ball further, turns outs into home runs. It allows you to play more and longer than you normally would have. They are called performance enhancing drugs, not performance creating drugs.
Mark: “It was the era that we played in. I wish I never played in that era. I wish we had drug testing. If we had testing when I was playing, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation today. I guarantee you that.”
You mean you wish that you that the intestinal fortitude to say no to drugs. If we’d had testing, that conversation wouldn’t have happened because you wouldn’t have hit nearly 600 HRs and broken Maris’ record and no one would know who you were. People would remember you as the guy in Oakland who cheated if we had testing. Locks only keep the honest people honest. Testing only keeps honest players honest. You telling me that you would have been honest had we been testing for steroids? What have you done to prove that to me? Lied with asked about it during the single season HR race and lied about it under oath.
This statement is what bothers me the most, “I wish I’d never played in the steroid era.” That is not “I’m sorry I did it,” that’s “I’m sorry I played when I did.” Big difference. He’s trying to defer the blame to the time when he played, and indicate that it’s not his fault. But it is his fault, he still could have played during this era and not taken steroids.
Mark: “I took very very low dosages because I wanted my body to feel normal. The wear and tear of 162 ballgames and the status of where I was at and the pressures that I had to perform and what I had to go through to get through all these injuries is a very very regrettable thing. I wish it never came into my life. But we’re sitting here talking about it. I wish I didn’t have to.”
That’s still cheating and wear and tear of the game is part of the game. You are still taking something to try and be above the game.
Whats absurd is that Mark thinks that he could have broken the single season record and hit nearly 600 HRs without steroids. Well, Mark might have had a lot of HRs, but he couldn’t have broken those records being injured every season. But even if the drug only gives you 10-15 ft on the end of every line drive distance wise, it kept him healthy. How many extra games, or even seasons, did he get to play that he might not have had he not taken steroids. Injury is part of the game. Think about Ken Griffey. If Griffey takes drugs and stays healthy, he sets the career home run record easily. And he’s a far better defender and steals tons of bases. We might be talking about him as one of the best players ever if there was a drug that could have kept him healthy and he took it.
From baseball-reference.com, his pre-steroids batting average was .249, slugging percentage is .510 and he had 238 HRs at age 30 in 8 years as a pro. After steroids, he was hitting .278, slugging percentage of .677, and 345 HRs in 7 years. So in less years, he hit 107 more HRs and he was older. And he still thinks steroids had nothing to do with that.
I hope he never gets in the Hall of Fame, but Pete Rose does. Pete Rose may have bet on baseball, but he didn’t prolong his career or boost his numbers by taking performance enhancing drugs.
All Star Games
With the MLB All Star game today, it got me thinking about how little I care for the All Star games. And I think that’s true for most people these days. Maybe not, maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like they don’t matter nearly as much as they used to. I feel like even as a kid, back then the build up was bigger and they were more anticipated then they are now. I have a couple reasons for why I think the importance and significance of the all star games (for all sports, not just baseball) is down. The first is just access to games. 15 years ago, heck, 10 years ago, not every game was on TV. Not every game was streamed live on the Internet. The guy that sits in front of me in class watches the gamecast for every Braves game during class. We have Baseball Tonight, Sportscenter, Inside the NBA, a dozen NFL and NCAAF telecasts. We are surrounded by sports coverage now. I think that takes away from it some because we are exposed to both leagues and all teams now. Back in the day, you got coverage of your local and sometimes regional teams, but beyond that, you didn’t get to see the everyone play. So, the All Star game was a big deal. 20 years ago, if you were a Red Sox fan, that was probably the first TV coverage you caught of any NL players that year. Another factor is interleague play. We are seeing AL teams, AFC teams, Western conf teams, play against the the NL, NFC, Eastern conf. So, it isn’t as special. Also, I don’t think the conferences mean as much as they used to. Some of this probably goes back to the vast amount of sports coverage we get now. Divisions still matter, but outside of your division, I just don’t feel like AFC vs. NFC, etc doesn’t have as much weight to it. Again, these are just ramblings and I’m probably off in left field here. But, I can tell you one guy who won’t be watching the All Star game tonight and won’t regret my decision at all. I just don’t have the motivation to watch a meaningless game whose stats don’t even help me out fantasy-wise. Maybe that’s how we can get people to watch it: 1) fantasy all star challenge? or 2) legalized gambling on all star games. The game doesn’t count anyway, why can’t we gamble on it?