Mark McGwire Need Not Apologize

I am 39 Years old. I have watched sports my entire life and as most guys I had hero's who I emulated.  Some of my first memories are watching the Montreal Canadians win Stanley Cups.  I cheered for Jack Nicklaus, marvelled at Wayne Gretzky and Kirk Gibson was the man.  Then things just started changing.

     I don't remember exactly when it was I first noticed athletes on TV were getting bigger but I remember seeing the biggest human being of all time.  I was watching Rocky III and this gigantic blond dude came out of my TV.  Yes ladies and gentleman it was Hulk Hogan.  At that time I thought Rocky was huge!  That was 1984 I was 14 years old.  Immediately I started to watch wrestling just to see this guy.  Then one night at a hockey tournament in Buffalo I watched this movie "Commando"  Well wholly crap look at this guy! ARNOLD was even bigger!  As time crept along I paid less attention to the Jacks, Wayne's, Kirks...I wanted to be jacked up like these guys.  Then the A's came on the scene and Jose and Mark. Sports were getting really cool to a 15-18 year old male.  Life was great and having these guys as my new hero's was even better.  How could anything ever change.

   I'll never forget when the world changed. It was the summer of 1988.  I had just gotten home from the hospital surviving the Wayne Gretzky trade to LA ( no hospital time actually but I was an outpatient at home on the couch) Then on a 73 degree night in southern Ontario I watched Ben Johnson run like a drag car and mop up the track with Carl Lewis.  I was on top of the world again.  24 hours later the announcement would change the way I looked at sports for the rest of my life.  The positive test from Ben Johnson transformed me from a hero worshiper to a practical young man.  I from that day forward read, studied, researched and dug deep into the world of drugs in sports.  Not just what they were but the psychological uses and our cultures need for them.  What I found out that they were around well before 1988.  In fact in speaking with my father who played hockey for Canada over against eastern block team they had been around heavily in the early 70's.  My father describes today a defense man for the Czech national team who looked identical to Ivan Draggo From Rocky 4.  My dad had never seen anything like him playing in the OHL or semi pro. Lets fast forward to 2010....

   Last week I watched one of my boyhood idols cry on TV about his use of steroids.  I couldn't help wonder what is he crying for?  He never let me down?  Could people in America really be disappointed?  What for? Half the women have fake breasts ( not complaining) everyone uses botox, face lifts, erectile pills, sleeping pills, booze, energy drinks heck the entire world is trying to performance enhance!!  80 percent of guys who go to the gym take something or are pushing it as far to the line as possible.  GEESH you get paid performance bonuses at work!  We seriously cant be that hypocritical as a human race to be disappointed in someone trying to be the best at something and using a pill to do it.  If that is the case we need not look far for why we are in some of the messes we are in.  As taxpayers we are mad at banks for giving us loans to buy houses we damn well knew we couldn't afford.  Besides if things got tough we just would default...shame on the banks eh.  Ill save that for another day though.  Fact is the only reason why guys from the 70's are mad at the steroid era is because they never thought of it first.  The best example of this was Ferguson Jenkins saying Mark McGwire should apologize to the pitchers he batted against.  Yes the same Ferguson Jenkins who used Cocaine regularly.  Talk about standing on a soap box.  Maybe Ferguson could of said something like "nobody is perfect and every man and woman has a skeleton in their closet." Mark don't cry and don't apologize.

   If there was one thing I wish we could all learn from this "steroid era" is that there will be more "era's" to come.  The reason is the stuff works. It does make you a better hitter it does make you perform better longer and it does make you stronger. The one area is was angry at Mr McGwire for.  He outright lied when he said he didn't take it to get bigger or stronger. I have news for you Mark...you did get waaaaay bigger and stronger so can it.   Something better will be discovered thats humanity, thats evolution and thats progress like it or not.  I just wish we as a people would stop calling athletes cheaters for it and the athletes would stop apologizing.  They are just acting like everybody else.