My Hero Fallen from Grace, but Forgiven...

September 8, 1998. I was 16 years old, and I can still remember it like it was yesterday. At 9:18pm, my hero broke the most cherished record in sports. He connected for #62 on the first pitch in his 4th inning at-bat off Steve Traschel. He missed 1B, and first base coach Dave McKay pointed a jubilated McGwire back to touch the bag. He rounded the bases slapping the hands of Mark Grace and hugging Gary Gaetti. With his 10 year old son Matt waiting for him at home plate, Big Mac picked him up in his arms and held him up and shared this beautiful moment. Next, McGwire did what was probably the most gracious act anyone could have ever done; he walked over and hopped into the stands and embraced the Maris family. At that moment, Mark McGwire was God-like to all baseball fans, all the writers, teammates, coaches, opponents etc… everyone rooted for this big teddy bear. He could do no wrong.

March 17, 2005. I was 23 years old. Not even a year removed from college, sitting in my friend’s apartment in New York City, I waited all morning to watch the testimonies of the likes of Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas. The testimony before Congress that I was most eager to watch was Mark McGwire’s. I wanted him to throw Jose Canseco, who was also present, under the bus and tell the nation that they were all lies, just as the other ball players had done. McGwire didn’t do it. I wanted to believe that he was clean, that he didn’t cheat himself, his teammates, his coaches or his fans. But his testimony and silence spoke volumes. Even though he never said, or denied taking steroids, it was embarrassing. Not matter what, I still supported him and still wanted myself to believe that he never did anything wrong, even though deep down, I knew the truth.

January 11, 2010. Here I am, 28 years old. Still an admirer and biggest McGwire apologist you will ever find. When I first received an email on my phone yesterday with the subject line saying: “MLB Breaking News: Mark McGwire Admits Using Steroids During Record Breaking Season”, it took the wind out of my sails.

Shocked? If I said yes, I would be lying. Disappointed? Absolutely.

Look, I was expecting it at some point. Ever since McGwire was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals as their new hitting coach, ownership has stated that McGwire would come out and speak about his past. But I was expecting to see on Rotoworld.com or ESPN.com or even news from the San Francisco Chronicle or St. Louis Post-Dispatch stating that Mark McGwire will be addressing the media on such-and-such date. Not an email from Bleacher Report saying McGwire made an impromptu confession.

I stopped what I was doing at work, and logged into numerous sites to read what had happened, what he had said, and how it all played out. I had mixed emotions; angry, sad and relieved, but no matter what, I knew I would support him. I was glad to read that he didn’t hold back. That he told the truth during the phone conversation with the Associated Press. I knew even before reading it from sports writers that this would be emotional and very hard for McGwire. He is an emotional person. We’ve seen it before. He’s a proud person, has an ego, and cares about how he’ll be remembered.

During his emotional interview with Bob Costas, which had no parameters, I felt for him. He was hurt and I believe he really regrets taking PEDs and HGH. I have read many articles and comments from people who don’t believe him. They feel it was a hoax and a lie. Mike Francesca called him selfish because of the timing of the interview. How does the timing of the interview make him selfish? He had to come out and speak up about it at some point. He had to address the media and explain what happened before heading off to Florida for Spring Training. How is that selfish? I’m still trying to figure that out.

I do not think the entire interview came off well, and wish some of it had gone differently. I wish he came out and said that steroids did in fact help his performance. After all, they are called Performance Enhancing Drugs for a reason. He didn’t, and for this I was angry, but also felt sorry. He said that he only took them because he was riddled with injuries and wanted to get back on the field.

I agree with the majority of people with the fact that even taking steroids to get healthy is cheating, otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten back on the field as quickly to perform like he did. But what eats at me is the fact that people are calling him a liar for saying that. Why? Because he truly believes in his head and in his heart that he could have performed at the same level if he hadn’t taken the steroids? If you actually believe something, it’s not a lie. And that is the one thing he hasn’t done this whole time is lie about taking steroids. No, he never admitted to it, but not once has he ever lied about it.

As he stated, he has always been a homerun hitter. He held the all-time PAC 10 homerun record while at USC. He was a star on the US Olympic Baseball team. He set the ML Rookie single season record with 49 HR’s. He went on to hit 32, 33, 39, 22 and 42 HR’s during the ages of 24-28. He did that clean. Yes, I know he admitted that he tried steroids once in the 89 off season, but that wouldn’t affect his performances for the 3 years after he took the low dosage that he claims to have taken. Think about this; he had 220 career HR's thru the 1992 season. 217 of those HR’s were over the period of 6 seasons (he hit 3 in a brief stint with the A’s in 1986). That is an average of 36 HR’s per season. During that time, in all of baseball, (yes between both AL and NL) McGwire finished in the top 3 in HR’s three times, 7th once and out of the top 10 in 1991. He was a natural homerun hitter. That’s what he did. He punished baseballs. As a professional athlete, if you want to succeed and perform consistently, you have to have that mindset that you are great at what you do and be confident in yourself and believe you can be one of the best. So no matter what, he believed he could only get better as he got older.

He took PEDs during his injury riddled seasons in 1993 and 1994 to get back on the field. Not to hit bigger and better homeruns. He feels he didn’t need PEDs to hit homeruns. He says he needed them to get back on the field. What he needed in his mind to become a better hitter was to study hitting as a science. Cut down on his stroke, study pitchers, and understand the mindset of pitchers. Once he did that and started performing again, HE believes that that is the reason he was able to do things he did on the field.

We all know that the PEDs helped, but right now, he doesn’t. He doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to believe, that PEDs made him a better player because he was able to get back on the field quicker, help his body feel normal during the season, which attributes to performing better. He has to come around and realize it on his own. But that doesn’t make him a liar. That doesn’t make him a bad person. Still, people are crucifying him.

McGwire has always been revered as a great teammate, a great father, a great philanthropist. I followed his career closely from start to finish. I don’t know him personally, but I do know he cares about his ego and his reputation. If he could let go of his ego, then he will finally realize and accept that PEDs helped him. And this is the sad part about it. If and when he does that, will he be viewed in a better light?

I can understand where McGwire is coming from. Although the PEDs helped him, I believe that he still would have been one of the greatest homerun hitter’s of all-time. Call me blind or naive if you want. He played in an age where many, many ballplayers were cheating, both hitters and pitchers. He dwarfed most of the competition. Imagine if there weren’t any PEDs in the game, and it was in fact a level playing field. McGwire probably would have been one of the best. Not at the level in which he finished his career. Instead of hitting 52, 58, 70 and 65 homeruns during the mid to late 90’s, maybe he would have hit 35, 40, 48 and 42 instead, and he would still be considered one of the greatest homerun hitters of his generation. He would have been on the cusp of 500 HR’s (if not more) and would be considered for the Hall of Fame.

I won’t get into why I believe he should be in the Hall of Fame. That’s not what I’m writing about, or want to talk about. I will write about that in the coming days. This is about getting back to and remembering McGwire bashing homeruns and the enjoyment and thrill I got out of it, especially out of the ’98 season. And I know every baseball fan out there enjoyed it as well.

Think about when you were younger. Did you ever look up to someone, whether it is a family member, an actor, an entertainer or a professional athlete? If you did, I’m sure to this day you have admiration for that person because when you are a child you want to be like them, you think the world of that person. You study their stats, you read everything about them, and you feel like you know them. And when you’re older and think back on those times, you feel young again and those memories resurface and can very easily put a smile on your face.

I showcase my McGwire memorabilia proudly. I still have great, great memories of watching him play. My friends still get on me and make fun of me for my passion of baseball, the Oakland A’s, and for McGwire. I’m a kid at heart, just trapped in a 28 year old body, and to this day, I get just as much enjoyment (if not more) out of baseball as I did when I was a kid. And that’s what hurts about the truth, learning that your hero had cheated the game and cheated you as a fan.

But that doesn’t make them a bad person. People make mistakes. Some mistakes are bigger than others. He’s still human and he regrets what he has done. I do not condone him, or the other players that cheated in this game, but it happened. PEDs are now part of the game, whether we like it not. And I understand why people are angry with him and can’t forgive him, but I can. Every time I think about my childhood and think about all the great times I had watching baseball and going to Yankee Stadium to see the A’s play, especially the last 3 games he played as an Oakland A. I will always remember the joy he provided me as a child. I will never lose that and he will always remain my child hero.

I’m looking forward to McGwire coming back to the game and sharing his knowledge with two of the best hitters in the game today, Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday. McGwire deserves to be back in the game. He isn’t the only person that disgraced the game, but he is one of the few that have confronted it and wants to move forward. Now, what is so wrong with that?