At this point, I'm sure that everyone has already heard about Mark McGwire's confession - not that it was a surprise to anyone - but here's some of my thoughts about the matter. Way to go McGwire finally coming clean! I wish that more players, specifically Barry Bonds and Roger Clemmons, would follow his example. However, a confession ten years later doesn't excuse his previous actions. The New York Times reported that he called his Father, his manager Tony LaRussa, Roger Maris' widow, and Bud Selig to come clean. He agreed to an interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network and told his story and seemed extremely apologetic. He said that steroids were one of his biggest regrets because he believed he would have broken Roger Maris' record even without the steroids. I was impressed he would call Roger Maris' widow. In the New York Times article he said he felt like it was something that he had to do and that she was disappointed that her husbands record was broken by cheating.
Bud Selig and Bob Costas both said they believed the steroid era is coming to an end! This is great news for baseball and hopefully the record books will start coming clean now. Some people say that the baseball commissioner is just keeping his head in the sand, but the steroid tests are not coming back positive so before too long the integrity of America's pastime will be restored.
CNN.com reporter Steve Wilstein believes that McGwire should be banned from baseball. At first I was shocked when I read the story, but as I read the article, it made more and more sense. He said that McGwire's actions were even worse than Pete Rose betting on baseball and rather than becomming the Cardinal's new batting coach, he should be banned from he game. I partly agree with this because Pete Rose did not destroy the integrity of the record books like the steroid era has, but it would not be fair to just ban Mark McGwire when so many other players are guilty of the same crime. I think that maybe an asterisk is in order for this though. After all, Barry Bonds got an asterisk on his ball (not MLB approved), but maybe the asterisk was a good idea after all.
Here are some links to good articles about McGwire:
Alison good article, and way to go on the new blog. I think Mcgwire is going to be the hitting coach not the bench coach.
ReplyDelete