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“I'm
not one of those people who refuses to pay for
anything on the Web, and so I pay for a few things. But if I could pay for
just one thing,
it would probably be Craig Wright’s baseball writings.” Rob Neyer ________________ |
These are excerpts from a column answering email
in the wake of the broadcast of Mark McGwire’s confession about using performance
enhancing drugs. It also has a small excerpt from a previous column that
touched on the subject of PEDs and referenced McGwire. Mark
McGwire From
the mailbag: Nothing that McGwire said shocked me. What did amaze me is that
Tony LaRussa managed him most of his career and
says he didn’t know McGwire was using steroids until yesterday when Mark told
him. Come on!
I have two views on this, and one is very much
like yours. How could LaRussa believe that the
physical behemoth that McGwire became in his mid thirties was legit? But on
the other hand … I remember way back in 1988 I was on the field during the
batting practice of the visiting Oakland Athletics, and I found myself
standing between McGwire and Jose Canseco. I’m fairly tall, and the thought
went through my mind, “These guys are trees!” It wasn’t that they were just
tall (McGwire is 6-5, Canseco 6-4), but they were very solidly built as well.
And according to McGwire’s confession, this is about a year and half before
he ever touched steroids. The point is that McGwire was always unusually big
and strong. Now add to this that LaRussa
was around McGwire every day of the season and saw his great work ethic and
how hard he worked on his strength and conditioning. It gave LaRussa a reason to believe that the combination of
Mark’s hard work and his naturally strong physical base had created this
amazingly powerful physique. A lot of folks still don’t fully understand that
the key to many performance enhancing drugs (PEDs),
such as steroids, is that they enable you to do more in your workouts without
breaking down and giving you a faster recovery time. And of course, LaRussa
could be excused for not understanding that androstenedione
essentially has the same result as anabolic steroids, resulting in high
levels of testosterone which spurs the growth of muscular tissue. Today androstenedione is now legally lumped with anabolic
steroids, though technically it is not an anabolical
steroid but a steroidal precursor. But none of that is how androstenedione was seen during McGwire’s career. It
was marketed as a dietary supplement. You could buy it without a prescription
and use it without breaking any baseball rule or law of the land. From
the mailbag: I’m now hearing that McGwire wanted to come clean before
Congress, but he couldn’t because he would be incriminating himself and that
a criminal investigation could harm not just himself but friends and family.
Isn’t he now exposing himself to legal problems by admitting to his steroid
use? Didn’t he break the law? Yes, according to his confession he did break the law in the 1994-96 period, and again after the 2000 All-Star break, and one
would guess from his confession that he continued to do so up to his
retirement announcement in November of 2001. He did not break the law in the
off-season after 1989 when he says he first briefly experimented with
anabolic steroids and then stopped until 1994. Before November of 1990, the
law allowed you to possess and use anabolic steroids without a prescription
and the only crime was if you distributed
them without a valid McGwire was not breaking the law in the period when he used androstenedione. Again, while “andro” is today
banned and illegal, that is something that only
happened years after McGwire’s retirement. His recent confession did not
expose him to prosecution for his illegal use of anabolic steroids because
the statute of limitations for this kind of crime is five years, which meant
his criminal liability probably expired around November of 2006. I assume his concern for his family involved his brothers. Brother Dan
played in the NFL where the use of PEDs and particularly steroids was fairly
rampant. Younger brother Jay was a very serious competitive body builder, and
he is the real family expert on PEDs. He has been circulating a book proposal
recently in which he claims that he introduced Mark to regular use of
steroids in 1994 and later got him on the legal “andro.”
Incidentally, a retired FBI agent has just come forward to say that 1994 is
also the year that they discovered McGwire was a customer of a steroids
distributor that they were investigating. It has been confirmed that McGwire wanted to come clean when he was
called to testify before the House Government Reform Committee. The chair of
the committee at that time, Tom Davis, says that McGwire discussed with him
before the hearing his desire to talk about his use of steroids but that
McGwire was “worried he would face legal trouble,” and Davis asked Attorney
General Alberto Gonzalez to “grant McGwire immunity in exchange for honest
testimony to Congress.” The Attorney General refused, and McGwire refused to
answer questions from the committee about his steroid use. From the mailbag: How ridiculous of McGwire to
say that he took steroids just for his health and doesn’t think it helped his
performance. Yes, that’s unfortunate, and that’s what will
probably haunt him from his interview with Bob Costas, just as his dodging
line of “I’m not here to talk about the past” has haunted him from the
congressional hearing. He would do well to correct himself and say what I
think he actually believes. He might say, “I suspect it did help my performance,
but I don’t know by how much. I personally don’t believe it was nearly as big
a factor as many people are suggesting. I had great natural ability; I worked
hard, I studied hard, and I believe that was the real core of my success.” His reasons for taking steroids are muddied a bit
by the confusion of perceptions about andro, then
and now. Even though McGwire now seems to understand -- at least to some
degree -- that taking andro was essentially the
same as taking anabolic steroids, keep in mind that this is not likely how he
looked at it during the time he was taking it. When McGwire looks back and examines his
motivations, he distinguishes his use of illegal anabolic steroids from andro, and that makes perfect sense in the context of the
general perception of andro back then. One was
illegal; one was not. One was called a steroid; the other was called a
dietary supplement. What made it a difficult decision for McGwire to
use anabolic steroids in 1994-96 is that it was illegal. He convinced himself
that for the purpose of recovering from his slew of back and foot problems,
it was okay. As he told Tim Kurkjian of ESPN: “From 1993 to 1996, I was a walking M.A.S.H. unit. My
body was beat up. When I was approached about steroids and HGH, I just wanted
to feel normal again. I took such a low dose. I never went over 250 pounds. I
didn't want to look like Lou Ferrigno. I didn't
abuse it. I just couldn't get over the [injury] hump.” It certainly didn’t make it right to cheat to get
over that hump, but it is reasonable to at least accept that was his
motivation, and when he turned to illegal anabolic steroids again after the
2000 All-Star break, the circumstances certainly supported the same
motivation. He was hampered by a back problem and a knee problem so severe
that it soon forced his retirement. But note in that same interview that when McGwire looks back at his
decision to again try illegal steroids to regain his health, that he
distinguishes clearly between andro and illegal anabolic
steroids, as would be reasonable in the normal context of that era. He
expresses regret for the latter but not the former.
There is probably a part of McGwire that still sees androstenedione as a dietary supplement and not a significant
performance enhancing drug, and that makes it easier for him to deny its
impact on his performance, and lets him focus instead on the health issues
that were his mitigating motivation for his use of illegal anabolic steroids.
From
the mailbag: … if you had had a Hall of Fame ballot, you would have voted
for McGwire. I assume this is partly based on what you wrote earlier this
year, that you suspect McGwire had steroid-related injuries that probably
hurt his career more than steroids helped his career. Now McGwire is saying
he used steroids just to help him recover from injuries. Any of these recent revelations
from McGwire changing your mind about him as a HOF [Hall of Famer]? It seems
to me that we now have a timeline that helps establish that he would not have
had Hall of Fame numbers without cheating, … he’d
have no 70-homer season, and no claim as baseball’s most efficient HR hitter.
Yours was among several emails asking what my
views are now about McGwire as a Hall of Famer. Let me address first your
thoughtful note on the injury question. Jay McGwire appears to be the one who
convinced Mark that steroids could help him recover from some injuries, or at
least this is Jay’s claim. And the steroids might have helped to some extent,
and it might have helped even more if a doctor had been advising and
supervising, but I suspect a lot of this was self-medicating nonsense. McGwire’s use of whatever steroids he took in the
winter prior to the 1989 season may have contributed to some of the eventual
physical problems that plagued him in the early 1990s, but that seems less
likely now that we have reason to believe his use of steroids was quite
minimal at that point. But his use of steroids from 1994 to 2001 possibly did
contribute to his foot problems worsening and requiring surgery in October of
1994, and the foot problems that disabled him once each in 1995 and 1996. And
it almost certainly was a factor, and perhaps the key factor, in the chronic
patella tendinitis in his right knee that prematurely ended his career. But
that being said, because of McGwire’s confession I now have less reason to
believe that his early injury history was possibly related to steroids, so I
would be more reluctant to write, “Mark McGwire is a good example of a
player whose career may have suffered from the use of PEDs more than it was
helped.” As to a change in my views of Mark McGwire as a
Hall of Famer, the details of his confession certainly do not lessen my view
that the totality of his career is worthy of the Hall. I already was under
the impression that he had used PEDs more extensively than his confession
brings out. Based on these recent revelations by McGwire, I
cannot agree with you that he would not have had a Hall of Fame career
without cheating. Mark
came into the game a very talented player, a first round pick who had already
shown great potential as a power hitter. The season he was drafted, Mark
McGwire was an All-American who had simply destroyed the HR record at Look, from his rookie season and on through 1993,
McGwire says his use of steroids was limited to a “brief experiment” in one
off-season. That period includes some of the most difficult injuries of his
career and also his disastrous 1991 season -- the worst of his career -- when
he went through a painful divorce and was so distracted and depressed he
began regularly seeing a therapist. And yet in that period he …
And he did all that with a home park that
distinctly favored the pitcher. (That was mitigated to some extent in later
years when they shortened the fences.) McGwire’s 1987 season remains one of the best
ever by a 23-year-old. His 1992 season was quite amazing for that era. He hit
42 homers in 467 at-bats, and that was more efficient relative to the league HR rate than Sammy Sosa in his 63-homer
season in 1999 or Ryan Howard’s 58-homer season in 2006. And it is not as if
McGwire did not play well when he was able to take the field in his injury
plagued 1993 season. He just missed a ton of games. His OPS was the highest
of any major leaguer that year with as many plate appearances. The truth is that McGwire actually did have a
70-homer season without “cheating.” In 1998 it had been years since McGwire
had used a substance that was illegal or even vaguely came under baseball’s
drug policy. It is also very likely that if McGwire had never cheated in his
career, he still would still have retired with the highest HR rate in
history. Throw out the 1989 season because he did
experiment with steroids the winter before. Although this was not illegal,
baseball’s toothless drug policy at that time did not allow using a
prescription drug without a prescription. Now throw out the 1994-96 seasons.
And finish by throwing out the second half of 2000 and the 2001 season. What
you will find is that McGwire’s HR rate is still the best in history. Understand that I am not saying that I
consider McGwire as legitimately the most efficient home run hitter, nor do I
consider his 70 home runs a greater feat than, say, the 61 homers hit by
Roger Maris in 1961. Even when he wasn’t cheating, his performance was
clearly chemically enhanced, and he almost certainly would not have achieved
either feat without that chemical enhancement. By the luck of his era, a brother who was savvy
about PEDs, and his own willingness to risk endangering his health, McGwire
got to have 3 ˝ really spectacular seasons with the legal aid of a powerful
drug that was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (regulates Olympic
athletes), and in 2004 would be considered so dangerous and unnecessary that
the FDA banned its manufacture, and which in 2005 became a controlled
substance under the Anabolic Steroid Control Act. And of course it is banned
in baseball today. But the question was not about chemical
enhancement, or even about the spirit of those records, it is about to what
degree Mark McGwire cheated, and should he have a place in the Hall of Fame.
So, strictly as a moral issue, I cut McGwire the same kind
of slack I cut the past users of amphetamines. That doesn’t mean either
offense by current players should be treated in that same light. We are now
in an era where baseball is actively trying to balance the playing field and
make things right. A line has been drawn; the players know where it is, and
they really need to toe it. Manny Ramirez has a much darker mark against him
in my book than Mark McGwire. It is my view of the moral question as a minor issue that
causes me to differ so much from the vast majority of Hall of Fame voters,
who 4 to 1 do not believe McGwire is a Hall of Famer. I sometimes think they
are just taking the easy way out, because if they get off their high horses,
then they face the really messy question of just how much should we discount
McGwire’s performance. That’s the tough call in today’s world where modern
drugs can have a greater influence on performance than ever before. But that’s the call that I think the voters should be
making, instead of letting it turn so completely on this moral issue. You
don’t have to have a 70-homer season or be the most efficient home run hitter
to be a Hall of Famer. My decision is that the contextual adjustment I apply
to Mark McGwire’s performance still leaves him above my standard for the Hall
of Fame, and by enough of a margin that it outweighs the burden I assign to
his cheating ways. From the mailbag: Do you think McGwire will
ever be elected to the Hall of Fame? No, I expect not, though I would be glad to be
wrong, and I know some argue that well down the road folks will lighten up.
One of the few things I like about the current setup for Hall of Fame voters
is that they are in a business where they can easily share their thoughts
with us on how they view things. What I hear and read leads me to believe
that the BBWAA is never going to elect McGwire to the Hall. To make the Hall on the BBWAA’s ballot, McGwire
has to more than triple his current level of support. I don’t believe he has
enough years left on the ballot for a sufficient amount of the moral outrage
to fade. So the question is would the Veterans Committee put him in? I think
the odds are even more discouraging in that venue. The most powerful group
under the current voting system is the Hall of Fame players themselves. Very
few have indicated they would vote for McGwire, and several have flatly
indicated that they would not.
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The Diamond Appraised baseball column is dedicated to
Eddie Robinson |
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