Yesterday was a big day for people who enjoy the phrase I told you so, as Mark McGwire finally admitted one of the world's worst kept secrets since how they get the caramilk in the caramilk bar. McGwire reported that throughout his career there were periods of time when he used steroids, one of these periods just happened to be when he broke the homerun record, and somewhere Hank Aaron could be heard laughing uncontrobally. Reaction through baseball has been widespread, calls to ban him from the Hall of Fame, to take away the record, or put an asterisk next to it; seriously, between McGwire and Barry Bonds the hall of fame record is gonna have more stars then Gigli. When asked for his comments, Roger Clemens said he had a statement prepared but he mis-remembered it, and Sammy Sosa when asked totally forgot how to speak English again.
McGwire's press conference was short, he managed to duck most questions by instead asking if the reporters wanted to see him hit some dingers, the universal answer was yes, yes they would like to see him hit some dingers. I assume his confession will mean once again looking into players from that time, and I assume the answers will be the same. Rafeal Palmeiro will deny again using steriods, saying he only used Viagara, and that was to get more then his stats up. Barry Bonds will deny ever using steroids, get angry at the reporters for not leaving him alone, rip up a phone book, and then go back to training his muscular 6'9 240 lb 11 year old how to swing properly.
McGwire confessed now because he is to be the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals and to paraphrase he "always knew it would come out eventually." I'd say it was bound to come out, suspicion likely arose when half your home runs came when you were trying to bunt, or the fact that your arms blocked out the umpire, or the infamous time after a bad call you turned Green, yelled "MARK SMASH" and destroyed a dugout. In a somewhat eerie conicidence immediately after the press conference was over, Jose Canseco came out with a new book titled "I told you so, now where's my money."
Amongst the Cardinals, reaction was mixed. Pitcher Chris Carpenter said McGwire should be ashamed and was promptly traded to the Pirates. Albert Pujols(hehehe, if you don't get it say his name slowly, and the J is silent) said he didn't need steroids to be a better hitter and that his diet of Mcdonalds and Slurpee's would do just fine. Matt Holiday said he didn't care, Mark already worked with him and gave him all the nee.....uhm tips that he could. Everybody wondered why David Eckstein was there, to which he explained that he wanted to be "big and strong like Mark."
Back in the days of Roger Maris and Hank Aaron, there was no talk of steriods or asterisks or scandal. That's why I will always think that the feats of those two men will be most impressive. Its not to say that what McGwire and Sosa and Bonds did was not impressive, as both McGwire and Bonds were pretty broken down, I think Bonds had to be carried around the bases at the end. I did not forget Sosa, he worked hard too, managing to hide all the cork in his bat, and struggling with the side effects of steriods, most devastatingly losing his ability to speak and understand English at the baseball hearings. Its just that with every record today seemingly being tainted, trying to find something bad about Roger Maris or Hank Aaron is like trying to find a needle in a clubhouse.
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