Tom Boswell’s column in this morning’s Washington Post is worth reading because he makes important points about great athletes believing they will always be believed—no matter what they say—and about how often he saw Roger Clemens do good things during his long (too long as it turns out) Major League career.
I didn’t know Clemens as long or as well as Boz did but my experiences with him were similar. The very first time I met him was in the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards in Baltimore in 1992. I was working on my first baseball book and I was on crutches because I had torn my Achilles heel. A few minutes before Clemens showed up in the clubhouse, I’d been sitting on a chair up against a wall so I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way while I waited for Clemens to arrive—I’d been told he was coming on the team bus, unusual in itself for a superstar—with my crutches standing against the wall next to me.
Jody Reed, then the Red Sox second baseman, walked by, glanced at me and the crutches, and said, “You better make sure those things don’t fall and trip someone.”
Feeling fine Jody, thanks for your concern.
A few minutes later Clemens arrived and walked to his locker. I stood up, grabbed the crutches—which somehow had not fallen and created the havoc Reed envisioned—and hobbled over to introduce myself to Clemens.
“What happened to you?” he asked as we shook hands.
I told him it had been one of those fluke old guy injuries—I wasn’t THAT old at the time but what the heck—and he nodded, took a few steps to his right and grabbed an extra chair. “Sit down and tell me what you need,” he said. As I did, he took the crutches and put them behind him in his locker.
When I told him I was doing a book on baseball and wanted to chat with him at some point he shrugged and said, “sure, no problem.”
To make this long story a little shorter, we talked for a couple of hours the next day, then resumed the conversation in Boston a couple of weeks later. On that day, when it was time for the clubhouse to be close to the media, Clemens walked me outside the clubhouse and sat on the back steps for another 45 minutes so we could finish up. (I was off the crutches by then, much to Jody Reed’s relief no doubt).
I never once encountered him over the next 15 years when he wasn’t cordial or available if I asked. When he came back to the Yankees in 2007, I was working on my book on Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina and he jokingly asked if I’d chosen Mussina because he knew so many big words.
In short, like Boswell, I like Roger Clemens.
But I wasn’t the least bit surprised—nor was anyone else in baseball—when his name showed up in The Mitchell Report in 2007. To quote one of his former teammates, “if he’s not taking steroids then he must be from another planet.”
His numbers were just too outrageous to be believed—not unlike Barry Bonds, except for this: Clemens was in decline when he left Boston in 1996 at the age of 34. He’d thrown a lot of innings and dealt with a lot of injuries. That’s one reason the Red Sox let him leave. Then, as we all know, Brian McNamee came into his life and he miraculously turned his year around in 1998. In 1999—without McNamee—he had a mediocre year in New York. After that, McNamee was hired by the Yankees and the miracles began—a 20-3 record in 2001 at the age of 39 and then, most unbelievably an ERA of 1.87 in 2005 in Houston the summer he turned 43.
I watched, like everyone else, in awe and wonder. As usual, there were people who used the, “no one works out like Roger Clemens,” excuse—the same one heard about Bonds and Sosa and McGwire and other miracles of human nature. No one doubts that. But there’s a REASON why players approaching 40 can continue to push their bodies so hard and, unfortunately, it isn’t Gatorade.
The day Clemens testified before Congress along with McNamee in 2008 was painful. As committee chairman Henry Waxman said in conclusion: SOMEONE was lying. And, while you might have chosen Clemens over McNamee given McNamee’s sleazy background and the fact that he’d provided information only to stay out of jail, you weren’t going to choose Clemens over his pal Andy Pettitte. If Pettitte was ever going to lie it would have been to protect Clemens. But he didn’t. He told the committee Clemens had told him he had taken HGH.
Game, set, match.
I don’t believe Clemens will go to jail. Neither will Bonds, who seems to have found his way to a judge in San Francisco who is going to rule out any testimony that might convict him. But in the big picture it doesn’t matter. They’re both disgraced forever in the eyes of the public. In all likelihood, neither will ever be in the Hall of Fame and they will always be looked upon as cheaters. The sad thing is both had Hall of Fame careers before they got involved with steroids. They just wanted more.
In the grand scheme of things, baseball’s nightmare just goes on and on. Bud Selig and the players’ union (and the media—we aren’t innocent in this either) buried their head in the mid and late 90s when it started to become abundantly clear that players were growing at alarming rates and singles hitters were hitting opposite field home runs on a regular basis. It’s smaller ballparks, better workout regimens, better lights, lousy relief pitching. There were enough theories to fill Yankee Stadium.
None were true. Here’s what was true and I know I’ve told this story before but it is so apt it bears repeating. Ron Darling remembers arriving in Oakland after a trade in 1991 and being struck by how different the clubhouse was after games there than it had been during his Mets days in the mid-80s.
“With the Mets we came into the clubhouse after a game and went right to the food,” he said. “Then we showered, got dressed and went out for the night. In Oakland, guys came in, changed into shorts and a T-shirt and went to the weight room. Every night. After a while it occurred to me that it was just about impossible to work out that hard, that often in-season without some kind of help.”
We all know now what kind of help those A’s, led by McGwire and Jose Canseco, were getting.
I like Roger Clemens. I like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro—and no doubt plenty of other steroid users. But they cheated the game. They damaged themselves. And they have left a taint on the sport that won’t go away anytime soon.
*****
I try to read the posts on the blog at least a couple of times a week because they are often smart, informative and funny. Sometimes I disagree with them but that’s fine too.
That said there were a few posts in response to the blog Tuesday about the fiasco at The PGA Championship that simply made no sense to me. To begin with, some people clearly didn’t READ what I wrote. I didn’t exonerate Dustin Johnson at all, I said he was ultimately responsible (for those of you who need help with vocabulary that means final) for his fate. I also said that AFTER TALKING TO OTHER RULES OFFICIALS it was clear to me that David Price should have said something to Johnson about being in a bunker. His defenders say he was not OBLIGATED to do so. They’re right.
There are two kinds of officials in sports—pro-active ones who try to prevent athletes from committing penalties or violations—simple example as mentioned by one poster when a basketball referee tells a player, “you can’t move,” before an inbounds play. Does the player know that 99 times out of 100? Of course. The official is trying to avoid the 100th time. The same is true when football officials warn players they’re close to getting called for holding. Or even when a good official—unlike short-tempered baseball umpires—says to a coach or manager, “that’s enough,” before he tees him up or tosses him from a game.
Price chose not to be pro-active as every rules official I spoke to told me they would have been: “Dustin, you know under local rule you’re in a bunker.” That simple. As one very experienced official said: “there was nothing bad that could come from him saying that.” Plenty of bad, as we know, could come from not saying it, from saying, ‘I’m not obligated to say anything.’
To the guy who wanted to lecture me on the job of USGA officials: those were PGA of America officials out there. To the guy who has played in ‘high-level,’ competition and thus knows more golf than I do—call me when you’re in the last group of a major. In the meantime, ask real rules officials what they would have done in that situation. They’ve done it in a lot higher competition than you’ve played in. And finally to the guy who says I’m a ‘disgrace to sportswriting,’ for taking Price to task—really? Are you his brother, dad, son—or wife? If thinking David Price screwed up Sunday is the most disgraceful thing I ever do as a sportswriter I will have had one hell of a career.
And for those who want to write in today and say, ‘gee John, aren’t you being sensitive today,’—maybe. I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me or with pointing out when I’m wrong—which is often. But at least read what I’ve written before you go off.
Showing posts with label Mark McGwire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark McGwire. Show all posts
Friday, August 20, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
PED’s back in the forefront -- Tiger, Armstrong, Moss –- and no one can be certain of the truth
During my weekly appearance on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show yesterday, Tony asked me if I thought Tiger Woods had used performance enhancing drugs. My answer was direct: “I don’t know.”
I’m well aware of the circumstantial evidence, or as some people call it, the “PED checklist,” that seems to fit Woods in many ways. I’m also aware of his categorical denials and the fact that he was one of the more outspoken golfers in favor of drug-testing when the subject first became an issue on The PGA Tour. Since neither Woods nor anyone in his inner circle confides in me very often the only honest answer was that I simply don’t know.
After I’d finished my segment, Tony, as he was going to break, said dismissively: “’I don’t know,’ that’s a really good radio answer.”
That, to be honest, annoyed me. Tony and I make fun of one another all the time and it is almost always good-spirited. I called him during the break and asked him if he would have preferred I pretend to have inside information or that I just rip Tiger and declare him guilty of all sins—something I’ve been accused of doing (incorrectly in my humble opinion) by Tony and others in the past. Tony conceded the point and that was that.
Maybe I was sensitive to the situation because the night before, while watching TV, I heard a golf writer say this: “I know Tiger pretty good and I’m sure he never took PED’s.”
Really? If there’s one thing we know for sure about Tiger since November 27th it is that those who thought they, ‘knew him pretty good,’ were fooling themselves. I used to joke about it when Tiger would call guys by nicknames during press conferences—Tiger’s like a hockey player, he loves adding Y’s to people’s names or shortening them—and you could almost see the guys blow up with pride at the recognition.
No one—let me repeat this NO ONE—in the media knows Tiger, ‘pretty good,’ and none of us have a clue as to whether he has used PED’s or not.
All of which brings me in a long-winded way to today’s drug-accusations: Floyd Landis, four years after being stripped of his Tour de France title and vehemently denying he did any blood-doping, now says he systematically doped his blood for at least four years. He also says that Lance Armstrong and just about every American who ever rode a bike—and I think Paul Revere in prepping for his midnight ride on a horse—was involved in blood doping.
There’s also the story about Santana Moss of The Washington Redskins receiving HGH from Dr. HGH himself, Anthony Galea—who also treated Woods in this six degrees of Everyone’s on Drugs World—and everyone here in Washington being in a tizzy over that.
You know what: Santana Moss doesn’t matter. Oh he matters to the Redskins and their fans who want him on the field September 13th against the Cowboys but there’s no moral issue here for most people. The only real question on Moss isn’t so much did he do it but if he did it how big a penalty will Commissioner Roger Goodell slap on him for the transgression. Moss issued a non-denial, denial a couple days ago—a weak one at that—and Coach Mike Shanahan reverted to the, “just because he saw a doctor (who hands out HGH like jelly beans) doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”
Fine. As with all athletes in team sports, Moss may be an HGH user but he’s WASHINGTON’s HGH user and people will stand behind him—as long as they believe he can get deep on the Cowboys secondary.
Lance Armstrong is an entirely different story. Armstrong is a genuine American hero: a guy who not only recovered from cancer to win The Tour de France seven times, but has used his fame to raise millions and millions of dollars for cancer research. You can call him cocky and arrogant and a lousy husband/boyfriend or any other name you want but there’s no getting away from what the guy has done and from the people he has inspired.
On Thursday, the fifth graders at my daughter’s school put on a ‘wax museum,’ exhibition in which each kid picked an American hero and dressed up like them as if they were part of a wax museum. You pressed a button on the kid and they read you that person’s biography. My daughter was Lance Armstrong.
Which is yet another reason on a long list why I don’t want to believe Armstrong was a cheater. Landis has now become another voice claiming he was, giving details about—among other things—storing blood for Armstrong in an apartment in 2002. Armstrong has already pointed out that the race Landis claims he was in while this was going on took place in 2001, that Landis doesn’t even have his dates correct and has denied Landis’s charges. So have the other American riders accused by Landis. We’re still waiting for comment from Paul Revere.
I am skeptical of just about every person accused of using PED’s who denies using them because history shows that in almost all cases, the denier becomes the confessor at some point in time. How much would you like to bet that some time in the future Barry Bonds will write a book copping to everything, saying the pressure got to him after Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke all the home run records in 1998.
Of course there’s a big difference between being skeptical and KNOWING. I can’t have it both ways can I? I can’t say, yeah, Moss is probably guilty because I don’t have any feelings for him at all and he plays for a team owned by a bad guy and then turn around and say that Armstrong is innocent because he’s a truly heroic figure and my daughter chose him as her subject for the wax museum exhibition.
If only life were that easy. If only I could sit on a TV set somewhere and say, ‘I know (fill-in-the-blank) pretty good and he would never use PED’s.’ I knew Mark McGwire, if not pretty good at least a little bit and I didn’t know he was using steroids. I wondered, but I didn’t know. I DO know a lot of college basketball coaches pretty good and I can’t swear to you that any of them cheat or any of them don’t cheat. I have my suspicions but, as with Armstrong and Moss and Paul Revere, I certainly don’t know one way or the other.
What’s saddest about this is that, know-it-alls aside, none of us DOES know and therefore we end up having to wonder about just about everyone. That’s really a terrible way to have to approach sports isn’t it?
Here’s the one and only thing I THINK I know for sure about sports right now: When they run The Presidents Race tonight at Nationals Park after the top of the fourth inning, Teddy Roosevelt will lose. Then again, someone said to me last night that word is Teddy’s going to break his five year losing streak the night Stephen Strasburg makes his debut.
If that happens then there is NOTHING I know for certain about sports.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
I’m well aware of the circumstantial evidence, or as some people call it, the “PED checklist,” that seems to fit Woods in many ways. I’m also aware of his categorical denials and the fact that he was one of the more outspoken golfers in favor of drug-testing when the subject first became an issue on The PGA Tour. Since neither Woods nor anyone in his inner circle confides in me very often the only honest answer was that I simply don’t know.
After I’d finished my segment, Tony, as he was going to break, said dismissively: “’I don’t know,’ that’s a really good radio answer.”
That, to be honest, annoyed me. Tony and I make fun of one another all the time and it is almost always good-spirited. I called him during the break and asked him if he would have preferred I pretend to have inside information or that I just rip Tiger and declare him guilty of all sins—something I’ve been accused of doing (incorrectly in my humble opinion) by Tony and others in the past. Tony conceded the point and that was that.
Maybe I was sensitive to the situation because the night before, while watching TV, I heard a golf writer say this: “I know Tiger pretty good and I’m sure he never took PED’s.”
Really? If there’s one thing we know for sure about Tiger since November 27th it is that those who thought they, ‘knew him pretty good,’ were fooling themselves. I used to joke about it when Tiger would call guys by nicknames during press conferences—Tiger’s like a hockey player, he loves adding Y’s to people’s names or shortening them—and you could almost see the guys blow up with pride at the recognition.
No one—let me repeat this NO ONE—in the media knows Tiger, ‘pretty good,’ and none of us have a clue as to whether he has used PED’s or not.
All of which brings me in a long-winded way to today’s drug-accusations: Floyd Landis, four years after being stripped of his Tour de France title and vehemently denying he did any blood-doping, now says he systematically doped his blood for at least four years. He also says that Lance Armstrong and just about every American who ever rode a bike—and I think Paul Revere in prepping for his midnight ride on a horse—was involved in blood doping.
There’s also the story about Santana Moss of The Washington Redskins receiving HGH from Dr. HGH himself, Anthony Galea—who also treated Woods in this six degrees of Everyone’s on Drugs World—and everyone here in Washington being in a tizzy over that.
You know what: Santana Moss doesn’t matter. Oh he matters to the Redskins and their fans who want him on the field September 13th against the Cowboys but there’s no moral issue here for most people. The only real question on Moss isn’t so much did he do it but if he did it how big a penalty will Commissioner Roger Goodell slap on him for the transgression. Moss issued a non-denial, denial a couple days ago—a weak one at that—and Coach Mike Shanahan reverted to the, “just because he saw a doctor (who hands out HGH like jelly beans) doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”
Fine. As with all athletes in team sports, Moss may be an HGH user but he’s WASHINGTON’s HGH user and people will stand behind him—as long as they believe he can get deep on the Cowboys secondary.
Lance Armstrong is an entirely different story. Armstrong is a genuine American hero: a guy who not only recovered from cancer to win The Tour de France seven times, but has used his fame to raise millions and millions of dollars for cancer research. You can call him cocky and arrogant and a lousy husband/boyfriend or any other name you want but there’s no getting away from what the guy has done and from the people he has inspired.
On Thursday, the fifth graders at my daughter’s school put on a ‘wax museum,’ exhibition in which each kid picked an American hero and dressed up like them as if they were part of a wax museum. You pressed a button on the kid and they read you that person’s biography. My daughter was Lance Armstrong.
Which is yet another reason on a long list why I don’t want to believe Armstrong was a cheater. Landis has now become another voice claiming he was, giving details about—among other things—storing blood for Armstrong in an apartment in 2002. Armstrong has already pointed out that the race Landis claims he was in while this was going on took place in 2001, that Landis doesn’t even have his dates correct and has denied Landis’s charges. So have the other American riders accused by Landis. We’re still waiting for comment from Paul Revere.
I am skeptical of just about every person accused of using PED’s who denies using them because history shows that in almost all cases, the denier becomes the confessor at some point in time. How much would you like to bet that some time in the future Barry Bonds will write a book copping to everything, saying the pressure got to him after Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke all the home run records in 1998.
Of course there’s a big difference between being skeptical and KNOWING. I can’t have it both ways can I? I can’t say, yeah, Moss is probably guilty because I don’t have any feelings for him at all and he plays for a team owned by a bad guy and then turn around and say that Armstrong is innocent because he’s a truly heroic figure and my daughter chose him as her subject for the wax museum exhibition.
If only life were that easy. If only I could sit on a TV set somewhere and say, ‘I know (fill-in-the-blank) pretty good and he would never use PED’s.’ I knew Mark McGwire, if not pretty good at least a little bit and I didn’t know he was using steroids. I wondered, but I didn’t know. I DO know a lot of college basketball coaches pretty good and I can’t swear to you that any of them cheat or any of them don’t cheat. I have my suspicions but, as with Armstrong and Moss and Paul Revere, I certainly don’t know one way or the other.
What’s saddest about this is that, know-it-alls aside, none of us DOES know and therefore we end up having to wonder about just about everyone. That’s really a terrible way to have to approach sports isn’t it?
Here’s the one and only thing I THINK I know for sure about sports right now: When they run The Presidents Race tonight at Nationals Park after the top of the fourth inning, Teddy Roosevelt will lose. Then again, someone said to me last night that word is Teddy’s going to break his five year losing streak the night Stephen Strasburg makes his debut.
If that happens then there is NOTHING I know for certain about sports.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Updated -- This week's radio segments (Sports Reporters, The Gas Man, Tony Kornheiser Show):
I made my regular appearance on The Sports Reporters with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) this evening. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a variety of topics, including the Mark McGwire confession and the story lines of the college basketball season.
Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters
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I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke about the college basketball season and the greatness of conference games and rivalries, preferences of doing analysis of games on radio vs. tv, and the Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin moves.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
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Once again, I was on Tony Kornheiser's newest radio show this morning (Thursday) at 11:05am. It was as fun as always as we talked Gilbert Arenas, Mark McGwire, the college basketball season and the football coaching mess.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show
Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters
-------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke about the college basketball season and the greatness of conference games and rivalries, preferences of doing analysis of games on radio vs. tv, and the Pete Carroll and Lane Kiffin moves.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
------------
Once again, I was on Tony Kornheiser's newest radio show this morning (Thursday) at 11:05am. It was as fun as always as we talked Gilbert Arenas, Mark McGwire, the college basketball season and the football coaching mess.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
For now, let’s give Mark McGwire credit for finally making an admission
I always liked Mark McGwire. I can’t claim to know him well but I did interview him and talk to him on a number of occasions during the 1990s, beginning in 1992 when I wrote, “Play Ball.” He was still in Oakland then and while he would never be described as outgoing he was smart, thoughtful and—unlike his then-teammate Jose Canseco—when he said he was going to talk to you at 3:30 on Tuesday he showed up at 3:30 on Tuesday.
(Not that no-showing for a scheduled interview, even on multiple occasions, made Canseco unique by any means. The all-timer was Kevin Mitchell who told me to meet him in the clubhouse at 2 o’clock one afternoon. I asked him if he really planned to get there that early for a 7:30 game. Absolutely, he said, 2 o’clock. I was there at 2 o’clock and had to sit outside the clubhouse in a drafty hallway because there was no one inside at that hour. Mitchell showed up at 5 o’clock—ten minutes before he had to be on the field to stretch before batting practice. No apology, no explanation. “I can give you five minutes,” he said. I told him not to bother).
I wrote about McGwire—with no discussion of steroids because it really hadn’t become an issue at that time—in ‘Play Ball.’ In 1995, after the players strike ended, I walked into the A’s clubhouse in Baltimore one afternoon and heard McGwire calling my name across the room. I went over to say hello and, as we shook hands, he said, “Why are you just about the only guy who understood what the strike was about?”
Needless to say I REALLY liked him at that point. We talked at length about the strike and about my testimony before Congress when I had more or less gone head-to-head with Bud Selig, testifying at the same time he did.
Three years later when McGwire and Sammy Sosa lit up the summer with their home run duel I was as enthralled as anybody else. By then though there were whispers—about BOTH of them, more Sosa than McGwire to be honest because McGwire had always been a big guy and had hit 49 home runs as a rookie in Oakland. Sosa had gone from flat out skinny to flat out muscular. McGwire was huge. I remember thinking one day when I was in the Cardinals clubhouse, that his arms were about as big as any I’d seen on anyone who wasn’t a bodybuilder.
Still, like a lot of others, I didn’t get it. Maybe I didn’t want to get it. As time went by and more and more evidence came out there wasn’t much doubt that a lot of guys had been using steroids.
Then came Canseco’s book—which has thus far proven to be almost completely accurate—and the embarrassing Congressional hearing when McGwire took the fifth; Rafael Palmeiro lied and Sosa forgot how to speak English. There was never much doubt after that about what steroids were doing to baseball.
When I wrote, “Living on the Black,” in 2007 I talked at length with both Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina about steroid use. Their educated guesses were that at least 25 percent of Major Leaguers had used on a regular basis before steroid testing finally came into play in 2003 and that at least 50 percent had at least experimented at some time. On the day the Mitchell report came out I was wrapping up the research on the book and called them both. The most telling comment came from Glavine: “I’m more surprised by the names NOT in the report than by the names that are in it.”
No one was surprised on Monday when McGwire finally admitted he had used steroids. Most people I know reacted with the famous line from Inspector Renaud in ‘Casablanca,’: “I’m shocked, SHOCKED that McGwire used steroids.’ Once McGwire signed on with the St. Louis Cardinals to be their hitting coach everyone knew he was going to have to address the issue because if he didn’t spring training would become a circus and Tony LaRussa didn’t want that.
So, McGwire made his confession in a day carefully orchestrated by former Bush (2) White House press secretary Ari Fleisher, who is making a very good living these days based on his reputation for defending indefensible positions. (He’s also on the BCS payroll).
I don’t think there was anything fake about McGwire’s emotions in his interviews with Bob Costas and others. What’s more, I think he truly believes that the steroids he took weren’t a factor in the 70 home runs he hit in 1998 or the remarkable numbers he put up during the last eight years of his career. Athletes often rationalize their actions to the point where they actually believe they didn’t do anything wrong if only because that’s how they live with the deed. I think McGwire is a good enough guy that knowing, deep down, what he did, really bothers him now. I’m sure the phone call he made to Pat Maris (Roger’s widow) to confess was probably the toughest thing in this whole process.
That said, he’d be a lot better off if he said simply, “I have no idea how much my steroid use affected my power,”—because he doesn’t know. None of us do. Most of us believe it did have an affect and it certainly gave him an advantage over home run hitters of past eras even if you totally believe McGwire’s version of events because it allowed his body to recover from both injuries AND fatigue much faster. There’s also a chicken-and-egg thing going on here: steroids often make players susceptible to injuries. So, how much did McGwire’s early steroid use break his body down and “force,” him (at least in his mind) to continue taking them? Again, we’ll never know.
What we do know is this: he cheated. Steroids, remember WERE banned by Fay Vincent in 1991 when they were declared illegal by the government. There was just no testing because the union stonewalled and the owners liked all the home runs being hit. He also lied in spite of LaRussa’s claim that by not answering questions to Congress he didn’t lie. It’s what’s called a lie of omission, whether talking to Congress or hiding out for most of the last eight years. LaRussa should also stop acting as if McGwire is Mother Theresa: loyalty is an admirable trait but it can go too far. Just say, ‘yeah, Mark screwed up and I’m glad he finally admitted it so he can move on,’ and leave it at that.
Finally, there is the omnipresent Hall of Fame question. I don’t think there’s any doubt that confessing—even though it wasn’t a full confession—will make McGwire’s case much stronger for the Hall in future years. A number of baseball writers, including smart guys like The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin and ESPN’s Buster Olney have said that they think voters should go ahead and vote for ALL the steroid-era players because no doubt there are some who cheated who simply haven’t been caught or have flown under the radar enough to not be accused.
Personally, I think that’s a cop out. The damage all these guys have done to baseball is incalculable. This isn’t a court of law where one is innocent until proven guilty. This is the court of public opinion. Did anyone think before Monday that McGwire was clean? Does anyone think Barry Bonds is clean? Roger Clemens? Sosa? I don’t think anyone should vote for them.
Olney also raised the very legitimate question this morning about whether writers should be deciding who goes into the Hall of Fame—in any sport. I’m not sure he’s wrong about that and, in fact, The Post doesn’t let any of us vote for any Hall of Fame. That said, the most corrupt and worst Hall of Fame process is The Basketball Hall of Fame, which doesn’t even allow the public to know WHO the voters are which makes the process far more political than others Halls of Fame.
For now, let’s give McGwire credit for finally making an admission—I’m not going to go so far as to say he came clean—and let him move on with his life. No doubt he will be embraced in St. Louis and that’s fine. But if I still had a vote for the Hall of Fame, even though I like the guy, I couldn’t vote for him.
(Not that no-showing for a scheduled interview, even on multiple occasions, made Canseco unique by any means. The all-timer was Kevin Mitchell who told me to meet him in the clubhouse at 2 o’clock one afternoon. I asked him if he really planned to get there that early for a 7:30 game. Absolutely, he said, 2 o’clock. I was there at 2 o’clock and had to sit outside the clubhouse in a drafty hallway because there was no one inside at that hour. Mitchell showed up at 5 o’clock—ten minutes before he had to be on the field to stretch before batting practice. No apology, no explanation. “I can give you five minutes,” he said. I told him not to bother).
I wrote about McGwire—with no discussion of steroids because it really hadn’t become an issue at that time—in ‘Play Ball.’ In 1995, after the players strike ended, I walked into the A’s clubhouse in Baltimore one afternoon and heard McGwire calling my name across the room. I went over to say hello and, as we shook hands, he said, “Why are you just about the only guy who understood what the strike was about?”
Needless to say I REALLY liked him at that point. We talked at length about the strike and about my testimony before Congress when I had more or less gone head-to-head with Bud Selig, testifying at the same time he did.
Three years later when McGwire and Sammy Sosa lit up the summer with their home run duel I was as enthralled as anybody else. By then though there were whispers—about BOTH of them, more Sosa than McGwire to be honest because McGwire had always been a big guy and had hit 49 home runs as a rookie in Oakland. Sosa had gone from flat out skinny to flat out muscular. McGwire was huge. I remember thinking one day when I was in the Cardinals clubhouse, that his arms were about as big as any I’d seen on anyone who wasn’t a bodybuilder.
Still, like a lot of others, I didn’t get it. Maybe I didn’t want to get it. As time went by and more and more evidence came out there wasn’t much doubt that a lot of guys had been using steroids.
Then came Canseco’s book—which has thus far proven to be almost completely accurate—and the embarrassing Congressional hearing when McGwire took the fifth; Rafael Palmeiro lied and Sosa forgot how to speak English. There was never much doubt after that about what steroids were doing to baseball.
When I wrote, “Living on the Black,” in 2007 I talked at length with both Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina about steroid use. Their educated guesses were that at least 25 percent of Major Leaguers had used on a regular basis before steroid testing finally came into play in 2003 and that at least 50 percent had at least experimented at some time. On the day the Mitchell report came out I was wrapping up the research on the book and called them both. The most telling comment came from Glavine: “I’m more surprised by the names NOT in the report than by the names that are in it.”
No one was surprised on Monday when McGwire finally admitted he had used steroids. Most people I know reacted with the famous line from Inspector Renaud in ‘Casablanca,’: “I’m shocked, SHOCKED that McGwire used steroids.’ Once McGwire signed on with the St. Louis Cardinals to be their hitting coach everyone knew he was going to have to address the issue because if he didn’t spring training would become a circus and Tony LaRussa didn’t want that.
So, McGwire made his confession in a day carefully orchestrated by former Bush (2) White House press secretary Ari Fleisher, who is making a very good living these days based on his reputation for defending indefensible positions. (He’s also on the BCS payroll).
I don’t think there was anything fake about McGwire’s emotions in his interviews with Bob Costas and others. What’s more, I think he truly believes that the steroids he took weren’t a factor in the 70 home runs he hit in 1998 or the remarkable numbers he put up during the last eight years of his career. Athletes often rationalize their actions to the point where they actually believe they didn’t do anything wrong if only because that’s how they live with the deed. I think McGwire is a good enough guy that knowing, deep down, what he did, really bothers him now. I’m sure the phone call he made to Pat Maris (Roger’s widow) to confess was probably the toughest thing in this whole process.
That said, he’d be a lot better off if he said simply, “I have no idea how much my steroid use affected my power,”—because he doesn’t know. None of us do. Most of us believe it did have an affect and it certainly gave him an advantage over home run hitters of past eras even if you totally believe McGwire’s version of events because it allowed his body to recover from both injuries AND fatigue much faster. There’s also a chicken-and-egg thing going on here: steroids often make players susceptible to injuries. So, how much did McGwire’s early steroid use break his body down and “force,” him (at least in his mind) to continue taking them? Again, we’ll never know.
What we do know is this: he cheated. Steroids, remember WERE banned by Fay Vincent in 1991 when they were declared illegal by the government. There was just no testing because the union stonewalled and the owners liked all the home runs being hit. He also lied in spite of LaRussa’s claim that by not answering questions to Congress he didn’t lie. It’s what’s called a lie of omission, whether talking to Congress or hiding out for most of the last eight years. LaRussa should also stop acting as if McGwire is Mother Theresa: loyalty is an admirable trait but it can go too far. Just say, ‘yeah, Mark screwed up and I’m glad he finally admitted it so he can move on,’ and leave it at that.
Finally, there is the omnipresent Hall of Fame question. I don’t think there’s any doubt that confessing—even though it wasn’t a full confession—will make McGwire’s case much stronger for the Hall in future years. A number of baseball writers, including smart guys like The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin and ESPN’s Buster Olney have said that they think voters should go ahead and vote for ALL the steroid-era players because no doubt there are some who cheated who simply haven’t been caught or have flown under the radar enough to not be accused.
Personally, I think that’s a cop out. The damage all these guys have done to baseball is incalculable. This isn’t a court of law where one is innocent until proven guilty. This is the court of public opinion. Did anyone think before Monday that McGwire was clean? Does anyone think Barry Bonds is clean? Roger Clemens? Sosa? I don’t think anyone should vote for them.
Olney also raised the very legitimate question this morning about whether writers should be deciding who goes into the Hall of Fame—in any sport. I’m not sure he’s wrong about that and, in fact, The Post doesn’t let any of us vote for any Hall of Fame. That said, the most corrupt and worst Hall of Fame process is The Basketball Hall of Fame, which doesn’t even allow the public to know WHO the voters are which makes the process far more political than others Halls of Fame.
For now, let’s give McGwire credit for finally making an admission—I’m not going to go so far as to say he came clean—and let him move on with his life. No doubt he will be embraced in St. Louis and that’s fine. But if I still had a vote for the Hall of Fame, even though I like the guy, I couldn’t vote for him.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
John's Monday Washington Post Column:
Here is this weeks Washington Post column, this one focusing on the football programs at Maryland and Virginia -----
Football fans aren't restless at Maryland and Virginia; they're relentless. And that means both Ralph Friedgen and Al Groh are spending this week preparing to coach games that could very well be their lasts in charge of their alma maters.
The Post has reported that Maryland is prepared to swallow a considerable financial burden if it decides a change is necessary. That would entail about $4.5 million to buy out the remaining two years on Friedgen's contract and another $1 million if it wants to get rid of designated successor James Franklin as well. That's before spending a penny to hire a new coach and, presumably a new and better-paid staff.
At Virginia, Al Groh is in his ninth year (like Friedgen) and apparently on his ninth life because Cavaliers fans have been calling for his dismissal since a 5-7 season in 2006 ended a run of four straight bowl games. Groh saved himself by going 9-4 and getting to the Gator Bowl in 2007, but last year's 5-7 record followed by this year's 3-8 will probably mean the end.
Life as a major college football coach is very simple: Win and you're the toast of the town; lose and everyone wants you out of it.
Click here for the rest of the column: In College Park and Charlottesville, football fans lack a sense of place
Football fans aren't restless at Maryland and Virginia; they're relentless. And that means both Ralph Friedgen and Al Groh are spending this week preparing to coach games that could very well be their lasts in charge of their alma maters.
The Post has reported that Maryland is prepared to swallow a considerable financial burden if it decides a change is necessary. That would entail about $4.5 million to buy out the remaining two years on Friedgen's contract and another $1 million if it wants to get rid of designated successor James Franklin as well. That's before spending a penny to hire a new coach and, presumably a new and better-paid staff.
At Virginia, Al Groh is in his ninth year (like Friedgen) and apparently on his ninth life because Cavaliers fans have been calling for his dismissal since a 5-7 season in 2006 ended a run of four straight bowl games. Groh saved himself by going 9-4 and getting to the Gator Bowl in 2007, but last year's 5-7 record followed by this year's 3-8 will probably mean the end.
Life as a major college football coach is very simple: Win and you're the toast of the town; lose and everyone wants you out of it.
Click here for the rest of the column: In College Park and Charlottesville, football fans lack a sense of place
Monday, October 26, 2009
John's Monday Washington Post column:
Here is this weeks column for The Washington Post -----
During perhaps the busiest time in the sports calendar, two mostly overshadowed baseball hires in the past week are worthy of attention.
The first is Manny Acta being named manager of the Cleveland Indians. If Acta succeeds in Cleveland, plenty of people no doubt will say the Washington Nationals made a mistake when they fired him in July. They'll be wrong. Acta is a bright young manager who almost certainly has a serious future, but the Nationals had no choice. They were in a position no team wants to be in: having to make a change for the sake of change.
The Nationals' mediocre starting pitching and their awful bullpen weren't Acta's fault. Their horrific defense was, at least to some degree: Basics and hustle can be taught; range and a good arm can't be. The Nationals failed mentally in the field as often as they failed physically, and Acta's calm demeanor probably wasn't right for a team that continued to make fundamental mistakes.
Plenty of managers have failed in their first job before finding success. When Casey Stengel was managing the Boston Braves, he was hit by a taxi during the 1943 season. A local columnist suggested naming the cab driver as the team's MVP. Everyone knows what happened to Stengel when he got to New York in 1949.
Click here for the rest of the column: Acta, McGwire get shots at redemption
During perhaps the busiest time in the sports calendar, two mostly overshadowed baseball hires in the past week are worthy of attention.
The first is Manny Acta being named manager of the Cleveland Indians. If Acta succeeds in Cleveland, plenty of people no doubt will say the Washington Nationals made a mistake when they fired him in July. They'll be wrong. Acta is a bright young manager who almost certainly has a serious future, but the Nationals had no choice. They were in a position no team wants to be in: having to make a change for the sake of change.
The Nationals' mediocre starting pitching and their awful bullpen weren't Acta's fault. Their horrific defense was, at least to some degree: Basics and hustle can be taught; range and a good arm can't be. The Nationals failed mentally in the field as often as they failed physically, and Acta's calm demeanor probably wasn't right for a team that continued to make fundamental mistakes.
Plenty of managers have failed in their first job before finding success. When Casey Stengel was managing the Boston Braves, he was hit by a taxi during the 1943 season. A local columnist suggested naming the cab driver as the team's MVP. Everyone knows what happened to Stengel when he got to New York in 1949.
Click here for the rest of the column: Acta, McGwire get shots at redemption
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