Did Steroids Make Mark McGwire Cry Like a Little Schoolgirl?

Mark McGwire has finally admitted to using steroids during his playing career.  He cried like a schoolgirl during an interview with Bob Costas on MLB Network as he confirmed what many baseball fans have suspected for years.

Please excuse me if I don't make a mad dash for the tissue box.  McGwire was a cheater.

He claims that he only took steroids to help recover from injuries and that the drugs had no impact on his statistics.  Hey Mark, da nile ain't just a river in Egypt.  If steroids don't help you perform on the field, then why are they called performance-enhancing drugs?  He claims to have started using steroids on a consistent basis in the winter of 1993 into 1994. 

Check out McGwire's at-bat to home run ratio before and after he started being "healthy" by taking steroids.  These statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com , and require the minimum number of at bats or plate appearances to qualify for leadership in offensive categories.

AB per HR
1987 AL	11.4
1988 AL	17.2
1989 AL	14.8
1990 AL	13.4
1992 AL	11.1
1996 AL	8.1
1998 NL	7.3
1999 NL	8.0

The steroids obviously enhanced his performance.  I think the numbers speak for themselves, but...you know how it goes...I'm not here to talk about the past.

McGwire also let us know that the steroids he took were a low dosage.  He said, "I took very, very low dosages, just 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 try and get through all these injuries, it's a very, very regrettable thing."

What is regrettable, Mark?  The injuries, pressures, or playing 162 games?  Or was it the fact that you cheated to overcome the same obstacles that thousands of baseball players deal with everyday?

He rambles on to talk about how he wanted to tell Congress about his steroid use in 2005 but didn't because his lawyers were unable to get him immunity from prosecution.  He didn't want his family, friends and teammates to be called in to testify.  He told Costas, "So you know what I did?  We agreed not to talk about the past.  And it was not enjoyable to do that, Bob."

Wow!  Mark, you are a hero.  Child please.  You did this to yourself.  Nobody forced pills down your pie hole.  I seriously doubt you were standing in the locker room when someone stuck a needle in your tookus while you were flexing in the mirror.

McGwire also called Roger Maris' widow and told her the news.  He told Costas of the conversation, saying, "I felt good...I felt that it was...that I needed to do that."  I...I...I... It's always about him.

The irony is that Maris was vilified for breaking Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in 1961 because of the schedule being 162 games, as opposed to 154 games when Ruth set the record in 1927.  The legendary asterisk debate should now be applied to McGwire 1998 season, if you want to count it at all.

I hope McGwire lives a long, healthy life.  But when the time comes for him to walk into that big clubhouse in the sky, I am counting on the M & M Boys to break out a can o' whoop ass.

Anyway, why come clean after all this time?  He says, "I'm not here doing this for the Hall of Fame.  I'm doing this for me, to get this off my chest."

I actually believe him this time because he was recently hired by the Cardinals to be the team's hitting coach.  I think Bud Selig and/or Tony LaRussa told him that he had to fess up before being allowed to put on a uniform again.

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