Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Tell Us Something We Don't Know




Mark McGwire finally admitted he used steroids. That's something we already knew. He went from skinny rookie to a massive behemoth that broke Roger Maris' home run record. Like I said initially, no one is surprised.
I give McGwire small amount of credit. He did call the Maris family and apologize, and he finally admitted he was wrong. Apparently, he wanted to come clean at the Congressional Hearings but was told by his lawyer not to do so since they weren't granted immunity.
What I don't understand is Tony LaRussa. He killed Jose Canseco for accusing people and protected McGwire. Now that McGwire has come out with this, he acts like there was no way he could have known. He talks about the weight program in Oakland and that's how he thought McGwire bulked up. Just tuck tail now LaRussa and admit you blew it. You tried to hide it for your slugger and he finally came clean. The least you can do is the same.
I know many of us have the feeling that we're more surprised by those who haven't used drugs than by those who have. I have two questions: who would surprise you the most if you found out they used steroids? And how should MLB denote that Maris' record is the clean record?

5 comments:

TheInspiredHousewife said...

I would be suprised if Griffey, Jr did steroids. But I guess I can't say anyone would really shock me anymore.

The second question is a tough one - how do you qualify the records? The infamous asterisk? I have no idea.

Don said...

it's shocking to me that this actually made the news. i thought everyone had already concluded that Mark and probably every other HR slugging baseball star went the steroid route?

good point on the record book, but i think they'd have to erase the entire numbers from this unfortunate era.

Unknown said...

49 Home runs and 118 RBI's is pretty awesome for a rookie. Even with steroids this game requires a tremendous amount of skill and ability.
Chipper Jones would surprise me.
As for the second question. They can't. Just keep them out of the Hall.
Hope all is well Nate.
Matt Dye

Nate said...

Always good to hear from an old friend Matt.

One thing I've heard is to put the asterisk on Maris' record and denote, "clean record." I don't like it but what do you think?

Unknown said...

you cant really do anything to denote a "clean record." once you start with home runs you have to continue through the whole record book and you have to hit up every spot from 1-100. then you have to revisit every record from every year and check to make sure that guy wasn't juicing when he broke the record. you would also have to decide which how to deliniate between the clean HR's and the dirty HR's...the clean stolen bases and the dirty bases...that each player had.

baseball got themselves into this mess by looking the other way for so many years. the players union got themselves into this mess by resisiting testing for so many years. I'd just pinpoint the beginning and the end of the Steriod Era and let it be - becuase NO ONE would surprise me.