Big Mac Should Be In the
Hall...Eventually
It was not the greatest moment of the 20th century in sports. It was not
one of the top 100 individual achievements or top 100 individual seasons
of the century. He is not one of the top 100 athletes of the century.
He can no longer be our generation's Babe Ruth. Why? Because he cheated.
Plain and simple. Mark McGwire all but admitted to using steroids during
his career by refusing to answer any questions about his past in front
of Congress. Imagine if it came out that Houston threw the game against
NC State? If it was found out that Bobby Thompson and Hank Aaron corked
their bats? McGwire retired a living legend; a lock for the hall of fame
on the first ballot; a member of the all-century team. Now, four years later
he's simply a punchline; a huge part of the biggest black eye in baseball
since the Black Sox scandal.
He used to be compared to Babe Ruth and Paul Bunyan. In front of Congress,
he was compared to Enron. And in the future, he will likely be compared
to Gaylord Perry. A couple of months after his former Bash Brother,
Jose Canseco, wrote a tell-all book admitting steroid use and accusing
McGwire and others, and one week after a report came out linking McGwire
to an FBI investigation on steroids, McGwire was subpoened to testify
in front of Congress along with Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro,
and Curt Schilling. Palmeiro vehemently denied ever using steroids.
Sosa's lawyer read a carefully prepared statement saying that he never
used any illegal performance enhancing substances. Sandwiched in between
the two, Mark McGwire for all intents and purposes plead the 5th, choosing
not to incriminate himself. He consistently refused to talk about the
past and, even more telling, when asked if he thought using steroids was
cheating, he responded "that's not for me to decide." Big Mac even refused
to discuss his motivation for including Andro, a legal supplement at the time,
in his workout regiment back in 1998. He constantly said that he wants to
do everything he can do to "turn this from a negative thing into a positive
thing" and even pledged to turn some of the focus of his foundation for
abused children to preventing steroid use in teens after hearing the
earlier testimony of several parents whose sons had committed steroid-induced
suicides. Yet no matter how he tried to frame it, the lasting impression
of the Congressional hearings was the shocking revelation that the one time
home run king had been juicing during his career.
I believe Palmeiro when he denies steroid use. Canseco admitted that he
used steroids and wouldn't have been an all-star without them. But then,
there were rumours of Canseco juicing as early as 15 years ago. Despite
all appearances, Sosa claimed to have never used steroids, but then again
his statement was very carefully worded by his lawyer...for instance he
could easily have used substances legal in the Dominican Republic or Haiti
while out of the country in the offseason and still not have perjured himself.
Whether he did or not is irrelevant though; he was caught corking his bat
and is thus a cheater as well. Combined with Barry Bonds's leaked grand
jury testimony, this means that every season of more than 61 home runs was
achieved through cheating, including McGwire's top two home run seasons of
1998 and 1999. It is so sad to see a living legend fall so far so fast;
to see an American hero, an icon for a generation reduced to a joke in a
matter of hours.
So, its clear-cut, right? McGwire cheated. He wouldn't have gotten the
home run record without the juice. He wouldn't be in the 500 club without
a little chemical help. Wrong. It's anything but clear-cut, in either
direction. Yes, Mark McGwire cheated. But so did Gaylord Perry, a
known spit-baller, who is currently in the Hall of Fame. How can you elect
Perry and leave out such icons as McGwire and Bonds? Furthermore, yes,
again McGwire cheated, but so did between 20 and 50% of all major leaguers
in his era, the steroid era. How do you separate out which ones did and
which didn't? How do you calculate just how many homers that roids added
to McGwire's totals? If they added 30 feet to his HRs in 1998, he would still
have hit around 65 probably. The bottom line is that a large percentage
of players were using steroids during that time, but McGwire was the only one
(aside from Bonds 3 years later) to hit 70 home runs. McGwire and Bonds
were among the best players in baseball as cheaters, but they would still
have been among the best if no one was cheating.
Clearly, McGwire wasn't using steroids when he set the PAC-10 record for
HRs while at USC. Neither was he on steroids as a 6'5 225 lb ROY, blasting
49 HRs in 1987 and shattering the rookie record by 11. We really don't know
when he started juicing. He started his career by becoming the first
player in major league history to hit 30 or more HRs in his first four
seasons (Albert Pujols has since become the 2nd). Did he start using
after his career low point in 1991, a season in which he batted .201 while
hitting only 22 HRs and sat out the last game of the season to avoid finishing
below the Mendoza line? Or maybe while rehabing after his injury-plagued
1993 and '94 seasons? The main point is though, that McGwire was a great
HR hitter before he used steroids and would have been certainly in the 400
HR club and maybe the 500 HR club even without steroids. Take out his
injury problems and he would have easily hit 600 HR even without steroids.
Like Bonds, McGwire was a Hall of Famer even without juicing. Which makes
it that much sadder and that much more nonsensical that he did use steroids.
Why would you resort to cheating when you're already one of the best?
Remember 1998. Remember how magical it was at the time. McGwire was
expected to break the record that season after hitting 58 the season
before. He homered in his first four games and had 37 by the all-star
break. He had 55 going into September and hit two in a game twice in a row
on September 1st and 2nd against the Marlins to reach 59. He hit #60 with
the ball marked #3, Ruth's number. That home run traveled 381 feet. On the
next business day, the Dow Jones went up a record 381 points. He hit #61
on his Dad's 61st birthday. You just can't make this stuff up! He was born
on October 1st, the same day Maris had hit #61 two years earlier. And then
#62 came on that magical night of September 8, 1998 against arch-rivals
Sammy Sosa and the Cubs, on the last home game before an extended road trip,
in front of his parents, his son, and the Maris family!
Sosa would later hit #66 on the last Friday of the season, passing
McGwire...for about 45 minutes. McGwire responded by homering his next time
up and added two more on Saturday. He hit #69 in the 3rd inning of the last
game of the season, by then assuring that he would finish with the record.
And then he came up again in the 7th inning, in what everyone knew would
be his last at bat of the season, and drove #70 over the left field wall!
Remember 1998. Not just the home runs and eerie storybook timing, but the
way it captivated a nation. Mark McGwire was on the front page of the
newspaper, not the sports section, every day. He was the top news story
every night. Every at bat, thousands of flash bulbs would light up all over
the stadium. Fans got to the ballpark hours before the game just to watch
the spectacle that was McGwire taking BP: the greatest show on Earth.
Said Tom Pagnozzi, "I saw something like this on TV when I was a kid.
They called themselves the Beatles." Fans
held up "hit it here, Mark" signs
at football games! When he hit
#69, the fans picked up the cheer two blocks away at the football stadium
and were so loud they caused a delay of game penalty
on their own team!
As Big Mac entered the stretch run in September, every single Cardinals game
was on national TV. It was so big that it replaced Bill Clinton and Monica
Lewinsky as the top story. Bruce Springsteen came to see McGwire hit #60.
The prime minister of Japan wrote McGwire a fan letter. The president of
the Czech Republic talked about him in a visit to the White House.
According to teammate John Mabry, more reporters converged on him "than if
Elvis found Jimmy Hoffa's body." He invented the road curtain-call! He
got a standing ovation for grounding out to end a 7-6 loss...in a game
in which he had homered twice earlier. Opposing fans would boo their own
pitchers if McGwire was thrown a ball. And when he hit the ball, he crushed
it! His home runs traveled so far that they caused Sandy Alomar Jr. to
speculate that one blast off the scoreboard in Cleveland would have hit
him on the back of the head if it hadn't hit the scoreboard: "If it hadn't
hit the scoreboard," Alomar said, "it would have traveled all the way around
the world -- and hit me on the back of the head." After #62, that most
magical of moments, McGwire leaped into the stands to embrace the children
of Maris, the man whose record he had broken. He seemed a legend come to
life, a truly Ruthian persona, larger than Jordan, larger than Bonds, larger
than Gretzky, larger than Tiger Woods, as he broke the most revered and
cherished record in all of sports.
Remember 1998. And then remember that all of those great memories are now
forever tarnished by steroids. The magic is gone, the thrills we thought
would last a lifetime shattered by the realization that McGwire cheated.
At least Bonds has always been upfront about being a prick. Remember
1998 and feel bad for
the fans that caught HR balls #54-61. They were all caught up in McGwire
fever and returned the home run balls to McGwire, when they could have sold
them for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least. #70 went for
$3.2 million!
Nevertheless, McGwire and Bonds have both earned a place in Cooperstown.
We always knew they'd end
up there. We just always figured they'd end up next to the Babe. Instead,
they're next to Gaylord Perry and maybe someday Pete Rose. They're no
longer sure-thing, first ballot hall of famers. In fact, they don't
deserve to get in on the first ballot. They should be let in eventually,
but not in the first year of eligibility. That honor is reserved for
players that achieved Ruthian careers without resorting to cheating. Should
they then be let in on the second try? The third? Try if and when they
avoid the mistake Pete Rose made; if they come clean and admit steroid use
instead of denying it as Rose denied betting on baseball for so long. They
saved baseball, but they also gave it its biggest black eye since the Black
Sox scandal in the process. And what of the man whose record they broke?
What of Roger Maris? His accomplishment looms even greater than ever in
the wake of McGwire-gate. How can you now let McGwire and Bonds in the
Hall of Fame and deny the last man to legitimately hold the record? The
reasons for keeping Maris out have been repeated ad nauseam: he only played
12 years, didn't have a long period of sustained greatness, only batted .260.
However, any man that is still an icon of his sport 37 years after his
retirement, 20 years after his death, certainly deserves to be in the Hall.
In fact the Hall needs Maris. He has meant so much to this game, asterisk
or not. His record stood the true test of time, lasting three years longer
than Ruth's, and if not for a trio of cheaters, could still be standing.
Maris was a 2-time MVP, won 3 World Series rings (2 with the Yankees and
1 with the Cardinals), and had three straight 30-HR, 100-RBI seasons in
a time when that meant something more than you'd taken your pills and shots
every day. He got penalized throughout his career because he wasn't Ruth
or Mantle. He can never be Ruth. No one can. But he was the man that
broke Ruth's record. He was no Mickey Mantle either, but he was the man who
beat out the Mick two straight years for the MVP.
Yes, McGwire and Bonds deserve to be in the Hall of Fame,
eventually. But they'll be next to Gaylord Perry. Maris deserves to be
next to Ruth and Mantle.
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