Mark McGwire Big Mac, Fillet O' Fish, Quarter Pounder, French Fry?

Mark McGwire is trying to take us for fools once again.  In his interview with Bob Costas about his steroid use Mark McGwire said "I did this for health reasons. I didn't do this because I needed strength. I've always been able to hit home runs."  Right, because we all know that hitting home runs doesn't require strength and steroids don't help you build strength.

Is this guy serious?  I can hit a baseball too, even one traveling at 90 MPH. I may foul it off, ground out, pop up or even miss it entirely more often than he would but yes, he is a major league baseball player for a reason. Most major league ballplayers have the same ability as he does to hit a baseball more frequently than most people. What separates prolific home run hitters from the rest is their ability to hit it farther and that requires strength. Sure he was 6'5" but so was Willie McCovey. There are a lot of major league baseball players who have had great home run years and/or careers but would he really have us believe it's a coincidence that he just happened to hit seventy home runs (in a season) and five hundred eighty three home runs (in his career) after admitting to taking steroids throughout that entire time? Come on, what does he think we are, fools?

It shows just how little respect Mark McGwire has for the intelligence of baseball fans and people in general. But that should come as a shock to no one. After all, he lied and took us all for fools once, so why not again?  In my opinion the hand-eye coordination argument is an insult to our intelligence and proof that he is not genuinely sorry for what he has done. Incidentally, did anyone notice he never apologized to the fans?  I hope it was an oversight on my part and I will check it again but I don't recall him saying sorry to the fans.  You'd think those would be the first people he'd want to apologize to.  I guess we have no bearing on whether or not he can work in baseball but he made sure he got the Selig apology in though.

"I took steroids in 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 to get through all these injuries."  He never even finished his thought but rather rambled on about what a mistake he'd made and how he'd wished he never played in the steroid era.  I couldn't believe the fodder coming out of this mans mouth as I watched this interview.  Fame, pressure and injury are the same things that every major league baseball player that has ever played the game has had to deal with throughout their careers and the majority of them never used steroids!  What a sorry excuse.

You wonder if he didn't take steroids how many of those home runs would not have gone far enough? We'll never know. If he didn't take steroids how many less home runs would he have hit in 1998? In his career? We'll never know. No, the answer is that Mark McGwire has himself tarnished everyone's ability to effectively measure just how good of a baseball player he was against all the other baseball players to ever have played the game.  I'm confident he will never be voted into the Hall of Fame and in the end he will have no one to blame but himself.  Don't shed a tear for this fillet o' fish.  Turn on the burners and let's french fry this quarter pounder!