He came in as the larger-than-life slugger who hit home runs that traveled higher and farther and more frequently than the Washington-New York shuttle. He left as a puny and whiny figure, a man whose only defense or explanation for some of the most celebrated moments in baseball was that he didn’t want to talk about it.
He could not have done more damage to himself had he admitted he took steroids because there was no rule saying he couldn’t. And because they made him stronger and helped him wreck a sacred record for home runs in a season.
That, at least, would have been honest, and even in this day and age, honesty is an admired trait. We’ll forgive pretty much anyone, as long as they’re honest about what they did and sincere about making things better.
But McGwire didn’t make the admission. Instead, he turned into the Mark McGwire talking doll. Push the button and the microchip spits out, “I don’t want to talk about the past.” Push it again and it says, “I’m a former ballplayer.”
He said he wants to help convince kids not to take steroids. But he did nothing to establish any credibility on the subject. They’re bad, he said, but he refused to say why, because, as he made abundantly clear, he doesn’t want to talk about the past. (That, by the way, is going to make for a very awkward acceptance speech at his Hall of Fame induction.)
REALLY. Funny how this situation reminds me EXACTLY of our fearless Preisdent on the recently released tapes of him talking about doing drugs in his own past, and stating explicity that he would never talk about it publicly, or own up to it.
McGwire talked about how he wants to help kids, but it’s hard to talk to kids about being honest and honorable and courageous when you display none of those qualities yourself. Kids are pretty trusting of adults, up to a certain age, at which point they become very skeptical of their elders.
The skepticism grows from seeing adults act hypocritically, from hearing them say one thing and watching them do another. If a kid thinks you’re a phony, you’re finished.
And McGwire came off as a phony. For him, it wasn’t about saying anything that could incriminate himself. It was about talking about things that could damage his reputation.
We’ve all got things in our past we’d rather not have to revisit. Usually, we don’t have to. But sometimes they come back to bite us in the buns. At that point, there’s nothing to do but make a clean breast of it, absorb the fallout, and move on.
We don’t even know for sure what McGwire took, and still it’s impossible to forgive him for it. He can not move forward unless he at least acknowledges the past. The longer he hides behind “I don’t want to talk about the past,” the longer he will remain trapped in that same past.
Obviously our professional athletes need to be held to a higher standard than any single one of our lawmakers.
Or at least the editor who allowed this article to be published thinks so.
