Mark McGwire Should Be Forgiven, Time for Everyone To Move On

We all know what the hot topic of this week has been in the baseball world.

Nope, it's not a major free agent signing or trade. It's back to steroids, because what else is there to talk about?

This week, Mark McGwire finally came clean and admitted he did steroids when he was a member of the Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals.

So in other news, the sun came out today. Meaning: this wasn't exactly earth shattering.

We as fans pretty much knew all along, starting in 2005 when McGwire didn't testify before Congress when asked about his past steroid use.

After five years, McGwire finally told us what we already knew, and what Jose Canseco blabbed about five years earlier.

So now, everyone is taking their shots, mocking McGwire, ridiculing him and in every sense, bashing the former Bash Brother for what he did.

So now, I'm going to take a stance. I'm going to be one of the few on here with this stance, and frankly, I don't care, because it's how I feel and have felt, even back in 2005.

McGwire did steroids. SO WHAT?!

The truth is, so were anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of the league. There was not any mandatory testing, and if anyone got caught, nobody was being ratted out for it.

And why was nobody ratted out? Great question.

Here's the answer, because in 1994, there was the MLB strike that ended the season, cancelled a World Series and continued into 1995, causing fans to be downright furious and for a while, not come to the ballpark.

The home run sells tickets. People love home run hitters. At the time, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were the two biggest names and home run hitters in the game.

In the summer of 1998, McGwire and Sosa's chase of Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 home runs was the thing to watch every night. Whether it be on ESPN, Sportscenter or the games on FOX, it was truly amazing to watch.

On Tuesday night, September 8, 1998, most of America and the baseball world saw McGwire hit a line drive over the left field wall off Steve Trachsel for his 62nd home run, surpassing Maris' 37 year old record.

We all remember the game being stopped, the fans cheering, the embrace between McGwire and the Maris family and also between McGwire and Sosa. It was one of those nights that for the next seven years, was a moment in baseball history.

Deep down, we probably knew McGwire, Sosa, Barry Bonds and who knows who else were taking something to hit that many home runs. But we just didn't say anything, and we didn't really care either. Home runs were flying out of ballparks and at the time, if McGwire or Sosa's team were coming into our city, we tried to get a ticket.

Then Canseco, McGwire's former teammate and fellow Bash Brother, decided to write a tell-all book on how most of Major League Baseball was doing steroids.

Now, why did Canseco write a book? To be a role model? No. To do the right thing? Hell no.

No, Canseco wanted to make money and he had the smoking gun of information that guaranteed book sales and publicity.

So basically, he took every friendship and acquaintance he had with guys in the past, and flushed it down the toiled when he wrote "Juiced". He also made some money and was back in the spotlight.

Why?

Canseco felt he was being blackballed out of baseball because he was deemed the unofficial "Godfather of Steroids" and MLB wanted to rid themselves of that type of image, so he felt what better way was to convince the owners not to sign Canseco.

All Canseco wanted to do was get to 500 home runs and have a shot at the Hall of Fame. Canseco finished his career in 2001 with 462, just 38 short, which could have taken Canseco one or two years to reach, depending on his health.

But Canseco felt that MLB made sure to get rid of him and keep him away from his goal, so he decided to twist the knife in baseball's back, and the one who felt it the hardest was McGwire.

From 2002-2005, McGwire was enjoying his retirement and was very quiet being away from the spotlight after his 2001 retirement. Then Canseco decided to drag him back in because Canseco's book did the dirty work.

Now, in March of 2005, McGwire did make the mistake of not owning up to the truth about his past and decided not to talk, which all but cemented his guilt and has cost McGwire four chances into Cooperstown after being a certified lock earlier in his career.

McGwire made a major mistake. He's human. And he's apologized. Time to move on, people.

Want to know why? Because if it weren't for McGwire and what he did in 1998, a lot of fans might not have come back to the sport of baseball.

That's right, I'm saying it, Mark McGwire helped save baseball by putting fans in the seats every night and made the owners and ball clubs very rich. And he also gave fans a lot of memories and great baseball to watch.

Now, let me ask all of you fans this. Have you ever made a mistake in your life? Did you come clean about it when first asked? I'm sure there are a lot of you nodding when reading that to yourself, so lets try not acting holier than thou by judging McGwire for his mistakes.

After all, he did fess up.

It did take him five years. But he still did it. Do you honestly ever think Barry Bonds is going to give himself up and tell the truth that we all know? Probably not, and he can continue that vow of innocence to himself when he eventually sits in jail for lying.

It's 2010, many years have gone by, and we all know the truth. So lets move on from it and let this guy breathe. He is coming back to baseball you know.

McGwire will begin the 2010 season as the Cardinals hitting coach, so we'll see the number 25 jersey donned in St. Louis one more time. Are you really going to give a non-player and coach a hard time at games? If so, that's rather childish.

His Hall of Fame induction is still up in the air and it may be for a while longer. Many Hall of Famers have gone either way with McGwire, supporting and not supporting him in that issue. Right now, McGwire just needs to fix an image that was once strong and now, has been broken.

He was one of the many that did what was natural at the time of the sport, he took a substance that other were too for athletic purposes.

Would McGwire have hit all those home runs without steroids. Who knows, and doesn't matter, because he still hit those 583 career home runs.

Did it make McGwire stronger? Probably. Did it improve McGwire's hand and eye coordination. Probably not.

But did it also keep him off the disabled list for as much as possible? Probably. But at the time, the owners wanted McGwire out there, healthy or not, injured or healthy, taking swings at baseballs.

In 1998, that's all that mattered. Not if the guy was on steroids or not. But because some big mouth wrote a book, we as fans and the league also all of a sudden care now. You really want to talk about being hypocrites.

Personally, I'd still vote McGwire in, but that's just me. Steroids or not, McGwire changed the game that season and brought fans back to baseball and made a lot of fans feel like kids again watching their game.

Now, at this point, McGwire doesn't care about being inducted into Cooperstown, he just wants his life back. He's allowed to have it back, even if it's one step at a time.

Just like what Alex Rodriguez went through early on in the season, McGwire will have to take this bashing, but then can try to move on.

It's time to take any anger we might have had, and let it all go. McGwire is a human who made a mistake and has paid for it.

Canseco said he has suffered more, how?

He profited by being a rat, twice.

Hall of Fame of no Hall of Fame, I'm still on McGw're's side, still grateful for that 1998 season and hope he can live the next few years with some peace, because he looks like a guy that needs a little peace in his life.

It's time for a lot of the fans to start slowly forgiving McGwire, and maybe even forgetting about the past and like hoped that day in Congress, concentrate on the future.

We're forgiving people by nature. We've forgiven a lot of people in the past. McGwire can be one that we forgive as well.