McGwire's Admission Leaves A Generation With Juiced Memories

    You can't grow up listening to Tupac and then be told real rap should sound like Little John. You can't eat filet mignon for ten years then make the switch to salisbury steak. You can't grow up watching Mark McGwire and then get pumped about Rajai Davis. But such is the plight for a whole generation of Bay Area baseball fans. 
    Here's a list of my favorite baseball players in chronological order "Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada." I was raised watching the most impressive run of power hitters in history. Sure they were more juiced-up then the cast of Jersey Shore, but they still produced amazing moments that shaped my childhood.
    The people most upset by the steroid era are aging baseball fans. Your grandfather who grew up idolizing Ted Williams, your uncle who saw Hank Aaron hit number 755, your dad who caught a foul ball from Willie Mays. These fans have seen the memory of their heroes besmirched by these steroid using cheats. So it's understandable that they would welcome the return of the defensive second baseman and the pitchers duel. If you try real hard you can almost forget about the twenty years of inflated numbers and equally inflated hat sizes. Focus instead on that warm summer day, cold soda pop in hand, Harey Carey's voice crackling through the radio. 

    But lost in this rush to bury baseball's black eye and return to the Golden Age are all of us born in the 1980's. I've got a different image of baseball, one where my shortstop hits 40 home runs and my first baseman is built like a middle linebacker. I'm a Moneyball baby, let's have two guys walk and then hit a 500 foot jack. The Bash-Brothers, splash hits, and big biceps. That's my kind of baseball. That's what I remember. 
    The most telling excerpt from McGwire's confession letter reads: "Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era."  Well, I wish I wasn't born during it. I wish I could erase Bonds' 73 and Tejada's MVP.  Wipe out that A's 20 game win streak and the Giants NL Pennant. I wish instead I could excited about Kurt Suzuki's OPS stats and Brian Wilson's haircut. 
    But the truth is I can't. I remain irreparably damaged from a decade spent in the epicenter of the steroid storm. Take away my juiced memories and you leave me with nothing. Big Mac's confession does little to change any of that. It only serves to remind me why I like football season.