Swing and Remiss: Big Mac's Whopper

GM,

Mark McGwire put on his ninth-best suit, looked Bob Costas straight in the eye, and called on his shrunken sack to muster the strength to say the following, paraphrased:

"Sure, I could have hit all those home runs without steroids. God gave me the ability to hit homers. You should see some of the balls I hit in little league! No pill or injection will improve your hand-eye coordination or swing mechanics, and mine started getting really good in the mid-90s because I started studying pitchers. I just used steroids to stay healthy, but I still could have hit nearly 600 bombs without them. As it turns out, Jose Canseco was telling the truth about the mere fact that I used steroids, but everything else he says is a lie. Obviously he can't be trusted; he had a book to sell. Oh, and I really wish I had never touched the stuff."

The fact that he actually said all this poses two questions:

1. How stupid is Mark McGwire?

2.How stupid does Mark McGwire think we are?

Big Mac has admitted to doing a four-week cycle after the 1998 All-Star break. He played in 155 games that year and set the single-season home-run record with 70. I, along with millions of others, watched many more regular-season baseball games than I would have otherwise watched that year. I really don't care that McGwire and many others tricked me into being interested, but having my intelligence insulted more than a decade later is difficult to ignore.

Let's go over some facts:

One, steroids do improve bat speed. Greater bat speed doesn't just increase the force exerted on a baseball; it gives the batter extra time to see a pitch before committing to a swing. Steroid use will increase bat speed, thus essentially giving the hitter a better eye. This means that steroids can help a batter get more home runs, triples, doubles, singles, and even walks.

Two, mass alone is also a factor in the force exerted in a swing--not just the mass of the bat either. Because a player is gripping the bat throughout the swing, his grip and weight are actually factored in. As we all know, steroids increase muscle mass. If Prince Fielder and David Eckstein swing a bat at the same speed, Fielder's ball will go farther.

Three, steroids are designed to expedite the body's natural recovery time. Muscles are not built through lifting weights; they are built through recovery in-between workouts. The faster an athlete recovers, the more he can work out beneficially. So McGwire's "work ethic" should not be commended by Tony LaRussa or anyone else.

Four, even if steroids did nothing but keep McGwire on the field, then we know they allowed him to hit more home runs. That's the most obvious part of all of this. More games = more at-bats = Big Mac is a fraud. To insist that his individual swings were unaffected, while wrong, is one thing. To insist his overall numbers would have been the same is pure madness.

So there it is. Mark McGwire took steroids to be a better hitter, they worked, and he cashed in. If he really regrets it, he should also regret the money and the public love affair. But he doesn't, so he doesn't. The man did steroids. His life was better for it, and it is better for it. Sorry, kids... no moral here. Cheaters can win.

The only believable thing Mac said was that Monday was the hardest day of his life. Baseball players have cushy lives in general. This guy had his ego stroked at all levels for 38 years and retired with tens of millions in the bank. Those tears were real.

Of all the major players in the steroid era, Jose Canseco is the only one who hasn't been proven a liar. And of all the lame excuses that follow apologies, the hand-eye coordination shtick is the lamest.

-JW

JW,

You know you've made something of your life when your apologies require a script. Mark McGwire followed his on Monday and is free as a result to move on to his new role as the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach and team pharmacist. As you might expect, I've got some questions. You hit the moral and technical points; I'll tackle the practical and philosophical ones:

1) Why, oh why, would the MLB and the Cardinals allow Mark McGwire anywhere near star slugger and baseball-savior-in-waiting Albert Pujols? Furthermore, if you're Pujols, are you moving to the other side of the clubhouse whenever you see this guy? Are you having somebody test your food? To the extent that Baseball needs to cleanse itself of McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds, they really, really need a squeaky-clean, beyond-reproach A-Poo. In that respect, this is a terrible hire.

2) What are the Cardinals doing making a celebrity hire, anyway? After all, their 2009 total attendance was more than 750,000 above the NL average, according to Baseball Almanac. They've got the best player in baseball and won last year's NL Central by 7.5 games. What's Mark McGwire bringing to the table that they don't already have?

3) Why did McGwire's "new" career require a fresh slate? The thinking, it seems, is that the public wouldn't have accepted an obviously-lying hitting coach, but who cares about hitting coaches? I'm a slightly-more-than-casual fan of Major League Baseball, and I couldn't name a single hitting coach in the history of the sport. Should I care that McGwire admitted what I already knew?

4) Finally, what's Sosa going to do now that McGwire's come clean? Last I heard, Sosa's admitted nothing. If Baseball's hosting a coming out party for former cheaters, let's brace ourselves for the greatest piece of mumbling and nonsense we've ever heard!

-GM