As a lifelong baseball fan, I was interested to hear the Mitchell Report yesterday. Surprise, surprise... 70 to 80 major league baseball players were listed as having used steroids at some point in their career. One of the names mentioned in the report is "Big Mac" -- Mark McGwire.
Like everyone else, I was enthralled with the McGwire-Sosa homerun chase of '98. When McGwire hit number 62, I was watching it in the lobby of my dorm with a hundred other guys. When the ball just did clear the leftfield wall, we all started jumping and screaming like a bunch of little girls. What a great moment! That summer, Mark McGwire was bigger than life.
I've been disappointed in recent years as a cloud of suspicion has come over Big Mac. In retrospect, it should have been easy to see he was using something to achieve his Paul Bunyan body. However, does that mean his accomplishments should be totally discounted? Should he be locked out of the Hall of Fame forever? Here's a couple things to think about...
1) While we all think athletes should seek to get better through practice and natural conditioning (and not drugs) I do think there is something to bear in mind here... The drugs McGwire was allegedly using in the 90's were not banned substances at the time. Did McGwire do something unethical by using them?... Perhaps. Did McGwire break the rules by using them?... No.
2) With the Mitchell report, it has become clear that it wasn't just a couple isolated sluggers using performance enhancing drugs. It was in fact a "steroids era" in baseball. The 70-80 players the Mitchell report names probably just represents the tip of the iceburg. Included on that list are a bunch of pitchers. Bearing these things in mind, did McGwire really have an unfair advantage over the rest of his competition? While this does not make McGwire's alleged drug use right, it does (in a sense) reestablish his greatness, as it becomes increasingly clear that it was a pretty level playing field after-all.
Bottom line... It's a shame we're even having this conversation. I really think the impact of steroids on McGwire's career was minimal. He didn't need them. He very well could've broken Maris' record without them. What's happening to him now is of his own doing. Nevertheless, Big Mac was a modern-day Babe Ruth... A special talent... And I will always be grateful for the memories.