Burly, red-headed slugger Mark McGwire’s spine-tingling pursuit of Roger Maris’ single-season home run record was credited by many for returning baseball to its post-strike popularity. His head-to-head battle with Slammin’ Sammy Sosa as they chased Maris through the Dog Days of 1998 was the stuff sports writers’ dreams are made of, and when he finally broke the record (on September 8, 1998 at 8:18 p.m. ET, off the Cubs’ Steve Trachsel), members of Maris’ family were there to congratulate him. Baseball lovers rejoiced that, if Maris’ record finally had to fall, the reserved-but-likeble McGwire was the one to do it.
Sadly, there was no “Happy Hollywood Ending” for Big Mac, who left the game under a cloud of PED allegations, and whose awkward testimony before Congress years later showed a man far more uncomfortable and unconvincing than he had ever seemed in the batter’s box. On Monday, McGwire released a statement that explained why he stubbornly refused to “talk about the past” that day in Congress:
I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the nineties, including during the 1998 season.
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.
For most die-hard baseball fans, Monday’s revelation came as no surprise. In recent years, many of the sport’s greatest hitters have been exposed as “juicers,” lending credence to the long-standing claims that Mark McGwire could not possibly have come by his legendary power honestly. Still, many were hurt by the disclosure, no matter how unsurprising it may have been. Reactions throughout the baseball world and beyond seemed largely critical in the early stages of the story, and dissatisfaction over the wording of his statement was expressed by many.
Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnaski was a notable exception, not so much because he defended McGwire’s statement as either sufficient or sincere, but because he focused on those hearing the statement, rather than on the man giving it:
The definition of “forgive” is to “stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw or mistake.” That’s all. Forgiveness isn’t something that someone else can take from you… it’s something you offer up for whatever reason makes sense to you. There are always reasons to not forgive. No apology is perfect. No apology comes early enough. No apology goes deep enough. No apology covers every aspect of things. And there’s a reason for this. No apology can erase the wrong in the first place.
When Mark McGwire finished with his day of apologies, I forgave him. It doesn’t mean I look at his 70-home run season the way I did in 1998. It doesn’t mean that I respect the choices he made. It doesn’t even mean that I agree with his self-scouting report. No. I just mean that if there was any anger or resentment toward him for cheating, it is gone now. He admitted and he apologized.
For most of us, justice is easier than mercy, especially when its someone else to whom justice is being meted out. I understand (and truly sympathize) with the disappointment and dissatisfaction expressed by many, and I’m deeply unhappy by the effect PED’s have had on the game and on its history. I am maddened by Bonds’ stubborn refusal to take responsibility for the benefits of the enhancers we all know he took, and saddened by the way these same supplements have irretrievably colored my opinions of my childhood sports idols, Eric Gagne and Mike Piazza.
And yet, when it comes to McGwire, I am surprised to find myself in Posnaski’s shoes. I’m sure McGwire’s quiet, almost-bumbling likability plays a role in this fact, but I am impressed by what McGwire did. I think it is far more than what the majority of his fellow “partners-in-crime” have done (or, as Ross Douthout points out, will ever have to do). And while I certainly see nothing in McGwire’s statements that feels like an iron-clad case, I find myself hoping that baseball fans will find a way to give Mark McGwire that very thing which he can never truly deamand from them: forgiveness.