[net-gold] SPORTS: BASEBALL: PROFESSIONAL: UNITED STATES : SPORTS: PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT DRUGS AND STEROIDS USE AND ABUSE: McGwire Confesses to Steroid Use
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- Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:30:07 -0500 (EST)
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SPORTS: BASEBALL: PROFESSIONAL: UNITED STATES :
SPORTS: PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT DRUGS AND STEROIDS USE AND ABUSE:
McGwire Confesses to Steroid Use
McGwire Confesses to Steroid Use
By Bob Hohler
Globe Staff
January 12, 2010
The Boston Globe
<http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/articles/
2010/01/12/mcgwire_confesses_to_steroid_use/>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/y9rmukp>
Ending years of stonewalling, Major League Baseballs former single-season
home run king yesterday joined the sports pantheon of
performance-enhancing drug users by admitting he spent much of his career
ingesting anabolic steroids.
Mark McGwire, conceding he used the drugs in 1998 when he became the first
major leaguer to slug 70 home runs, expressed regret for his marquee role
in baseballs steroid scandal and for concealing the truth from Congress in
2005. He acknowledged using illegal steroids throughout the 1990s, when
the games hallowed home run records began to topple like dominoes.
I wish I had never touched steroids, McGwire said in a statement to the
Associated Press. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize.
Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.
McGwire, who had avoided the public eye since he dodged direct questions
about steroid use in a 2005 congressional hearing, disclosed his
transgression as he prepares to return to baseball next month as the
hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. His 583 career home runs,
collected over 16 seasons with the Cardinals and Oakland Athletics before
he retired in 2001, place him eighth on the all-time list, tied with Alex
Rodriguez, who last year admitted using banned performance-enhancing
substances from 2001-03.
Im sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I
never taken steroids, McGwire said. I had good years when I didnt take
any, and I had bad years when I didnt take any. I had good years when I
took steroids, and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter
what, I shouldnt have done it and for that Im truly sorry.
Criticism of Major League Baseballs once-lax response to steroid use dates
in part to August 1998, when an AP reporter spotted a bottle of
testosterone-producing androstenedione in McGwires locker during his
record-setting 70-homer season. His feat eclipsed Roger Mariss home run
mark of 61, which had stood since 1961. (Barry Bonds topped McGwires
record in 2001 with 73 home runs.)
McGwire didn't exactly come clean
Gwen Knapp
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
San Francisco Chronicle
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/
2010/01/11/MNCP1BGPG1.DTL#ixzz0cOJZpmZv>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/ya9t6js>
Mark McGwire's confession to steroid use on Monday initially seemed
historic, the most thorough doping disclosure by an athlete of his
stature. Then he kept talking, and the asterisks started piling up.
Mark McGwire's confession to steroid use on Monday initially seemed
historic, the most thorough doping disclosure by an athlete of his
stature. Then he kept talking, and the asterisks started piling up.
In a 50-minute MLB Network interview with Bob Costas on Monday night,
McGwire repeatedly asserted that he had turned to the steroids, banned by
law unless prescribed for very limited purposes, only to treat injuries
that repeatedly kept him off the field in the early 1990s. "I was a
walking MASH unit," he said.
The staggering home run totals, including 70 in the magical summer of
1998, when he overtook Roger Maris? Those, he insisted several times, came
primarily through talent and mental strength he received from "the man
upstairs."
Between bouts of tears, McGwire came across as a man longing to unburden
his conscience almost five years after awkwardly dodging questions during
congressional testimony. But as much as the confession might have cleansed
his soul, the details surrounding it leaned more toward scrubbing down his
legacy and washing up Major League Baseball's reputation.
McGwire said he believed that baseball today is a new world and repeatedly
expressed his wish that there had been drug testing in his day. Read: The
instinct to cheat lay not in the heart of this erstwhile demigod, it lay
in the permissive bylaws of the era.
Don't hate the player. Don't hate the game. Hate the collective-bargaining
agreements, pre-2002.
Selig's self-congratulations
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig greeted the confession with a
self-congratulatory statement: "The so-called 'steroid era' - a reference
that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never
touched the substances - is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark's
admission today is another step in the right direction."
Posted: Jan. 12, 2010
The ticker
Reaction to McGwire's mea culpa runs gamut
By Steve Schrader
Free Press Sports Writer
Detroit Free Press
<http://www.freep.com/article/20100112/SPORTS02/
1120373/1050/Reaction-to-McGwires-mea-culpa-runs-gamut>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/y9srhrp>
So the reaction runs the gamut.
It might be a long summer for McGwire, back in the glare of the public eye
as the Cardinals' hitting coach, and not at all like that Summer of '98.
Or maybe not. Maybe confession will be good for the soul, if not actually
getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame -- didn't help Pete Rose a whole
lot, did it?
But since McGwire came clean, can we now expect to hear from others, like,
say Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens, to name a
few, assuming they have something they'd like to share with the class,
too?
Mark McGwire's steroid confessions rings true
By Cam Inman
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 01/11/2010 09:59:50 PM PST
Updated: 01/11/2010 10:48:27 PM PST
San Jose Mercury
<http://www.mercurynews.com/sports-headlines/ci_14169987>
Just as we suspected, he took health-enhancing drugs during his home-run
smashing days with the A's and St. Louis Cardinals.
Health-enhancing drugs? Well, that's how he envisions those steroids he
took, preferably in oral fashion rather than ol' Mr. Needle, please.
He insisted Monday, eight years after he retired to peaceful Southern
California, that he could have hit 70 home runs in a single season without
steroids. A key flaw in that logic: He did admit taking steroids en route
to surpassing Roger Maris' fabled record with 70 home runs in 1998.
"The only reason I took steroids was for my health purposes. I did not
take steroids to get any gain for any strength purposes," McGwire told MLB
Network's Bob Costas on Monday after releasing a written statement (or
confession) earlier in the day.
That stance will hurt McGwire in the already biased court of public
opinion. It's a shame. It overshadows all the good that should come from
Monday's long-awaited revelations.
It's up to each of us to weigh whether he's earned safe passage back to
the game he loves. By accepting an invitation from manager Tony La Russa
to become the Cardinals hitting coach, Big Mac set in motion a
stuck-in-the-mud wheel and cleared his conscience.
Despite new confession, McGwire faces no perjury threat from 2005
<http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/
michael_mccann/01/12/mcgwire.fallout/>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/yg7mqak>
Mark McGwire testified before the Committee on Government Reform of the
House of Representatives on March 17, 2005. During the hearing he declined
to answer questions about whether he used steroids. On Monday, McGwire
admitted that he did use steroids. SI.com's Michael McCann discusses the
legal fallout.
1) Did McGwire perjure himself when he testified before Congress?
No. Perjury requires knowingly lying while under oath. McGwire followed
his lawyer's advice by neither confirming nor denying that he used
steroids. His opening statement set the tone: "My lawyers have advised me
that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my
family and myself. I intend to follow their advice." He also repeatedly
remarked, "I'm not here to talk about the past," even when that statement
seemed unrelated to questions posed by members of Congress. McGwire's
evasive performance may have been a public relations disaster, but he
avoided committing perjury or any other crime.
2) If McGwire had a deal with Congressmen Henry Waxman and Tom Davis "not
to talk about the past" why did they keep asking him about it?
McGwire originally sought immunity from criminal prosecution as a
condition to testify. The immunity would have enabled him to implicate
himself in criminal activity related to steroids without the threat of
prosecution for that activity. The request, however, was denied by then
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. The granting of immunity typically
involves a balancing of several factors, including the likely probative
value of the witness's testimony and the types of criminal acts
potentially committed by the witness; Gonzalez concluded immunity was not
justified.
Updated: January 11, 2010, 10:17 PM ET
FBI knew of McGwire's steroid use
By Mike Fish
ESPN.com
Archive
<http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4817722>
Greg Stejskal didn't need Mark McGwire coming clean Monday about his
nearly decade-long steroid usage to know the real story. Stejskal, a
retired FBI agent, uncovered the details of McGwire's doping regimen from
informants almost two decades ago and, in retrospect, Big Mac is fortunate
he wasn't nabbed back then in the federal investigation.
Stejskal, who helped lead the first major federal investigation into
illegal steroid distribution called Operation Equine, confirmed that
McGwire and his then-Oakland A's teammate, Jose Canseco, were among those
identified as steroid users during the probe. The investigation ran from
1989-1993 and led to more than 70 steroid-related convictions, though
authorities targeted only suppliers and not users like pumped-up
ballplayers.
Federal authorities never considered bringing charges against McGwire,
though Stejskal laments that nabbing a big-name athlete might have brought
earlier focus to the issue of illegal steroids. That came a decade later
with the BALCO scandal and the laundry list of prominent athletes topped
by Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.
"With all those 70 some defendants, not one of them was just a user,"
Stejskal said of the operation. "They were all distributors. Some were
distributors and users. We didn't have the resources. We wanted the
biggest bang for our buck. We wanted to shut down the black market. We
worked the suppliers and there was no reason to go after low-level
people."
All these years, Stejskal simply rolled his eyes as Big Mac avoided the
steroid question. So he was surprised Monday upon learning of McGuire's
admission, which came as he prepares to return to the game as hitting
coach with the St. Louis Cardinals.
"I figured that he would either continue to try and finesse the question
or back out of the whole coaching thing and say, 'Fine, I'm not going to
do this. I don't need this,'" Stejskal said. "It is too bad he waited so
long to do it, but I am glad he finally stood up.
Woody Paige
Paige: Even baseball's confessed shame shouldn't open Hall of Fame
By Woody Paige
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/12/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
<http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_14169783>
After the 1994 major-league baseball strike, which caused the cancellation
of the World Series for the first time in 90 years, and carried over until
the next season, the national pastime, like a ship that struck an iceberg,
was listing badly.
The owners and the players were accused of ravenous greed by the public
and the press. Attendance dropped 20 percent overall; television ratings
declined, and young people lost interest.
Then, in the late summer of 1998, McGwire and Sosa chased Ruth and Maris.
Baseball became the Hope Diamond again because of the mighty home run
hitters. In a game between the Cardinals and the Cubs on Sept. 8 at Busch
Stadium, 43,688 baseball fanatics and I watched as McGwire lined the
record-breaking 62nd home run and was greeted at home plate by Sosa, who
had 58 home runs.
McGwire finished with 70 homers, Sosa 66, and there was a baseball
revival. Take us out to the ballgame.
But McGwire and Sosa were cheaters.
Immortality was replaced by immorality.
On March 17, 2005, the Great Bamboozlers cheated once more when they
testified at congressional hearings investigating steroids in baseball.
McGwire refused to answer the question: "Did you take steroids?" Instead,
he replied: "I'm not here to talk about the past." He might as well have
been speaking Swahili. Sosa was just as evasive, acting as if he didn't
understand English (even though the Dominican speaks the language
clearly). In an opening statement
Mark McGwire is sworn in during a House Committee session investigating
steroid use on March 17, 2005, in Washington. (Mark Wilson, Getty Images
file photo)read by his lawyer, Sosa claimed that all he knew was that
"steroids are very bad for you."
Another star player, Rafael Palmeiro, pointed his finger and stated
emphatically: "I have never used steroids. Period."
Their suspicious, farcical testimony led to more scrutiny of the sport,
and more stringent testing of the players in professional baseball. With
their bad, McGwire and Sosa had done some good.
==============================================
The complete articles may be read at the URLs provided for each.
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Temple University
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