Sometimes, 'Sorry' Just Isn't Enough

Sports writers.  They cannot succeed entirely on their own talent...they need help, mainly from the athletes that they cover.  Help in developing good rapport and respect around the league.  Help in setting up interviews to get the first-hand scoop on a big story.  Help in being welcomed as a 'writer' and not exiled as a member of 'the press.'  Sports writers are always asking athletes for help and let's face it, they need them.  So where does the balance come in?  Well aside from having the ability to portray their stories from a certain angle, a select few sports writers have a power that turns the tables and makes the athletes need them in return.  Long after their playing time is over and long after they have been out of the public spotlight, athletes need sports writers if they want to achieve ultimate sports glory and be inducted into the Hall of Fame (HOF).  Right there, that's it, that is the one thing that gives a sports writer any type of edge over an athlete.  With that power comes an important responsibility; for the writers to make appropriate decisions that will set the tone of their respective sport for centuries to come.

And so here we sit, two weeks after Andre Dawson was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and it's already old news.  Why?  Because just last week, Mark McGwire rocked the baseball world and admitted his use of both steroids and human growth hormone (HGH).  Did he rock the baseball world because he took performance enhancing drugs?  Haha, no, we've known that for a while now, Mark.  But he rocked the world, because he finally acted like a man and admitted it.  And now all the pressure falls off his back and onto the baseball writers with HOF votes.  In just a short 50 weeks, it will be time to vote again, and McGwire will be on the ballot - will he have convinced enough people that he deserves a spot?  I sure hope not.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that McGwire apologized.  I think it's great that he owned his mistakes.  But if anything, his confession should only solidify the fact that he should never be inducted to the Hall.  This is the National Baseball Hall of Fame we're talking about - not the National Honesty Hall of Fame, or the National Apology Hall of Fame.  Should McGwire be rewarded for admitting that he did something wrong.  If I had a HOF vote, I definitely would honor him with my respect and admiration, but not my vote.  Personally I am proud of him, but professionally, I am disgusted.  I don't know, maybe it's the country we live in - we seem to pity people if they have the guts to admit something regardless of what they did.  Our legal system is specifically designed to reward people with a plea bargain if they admit to a crime, rather than hold them accountable for the offense they committed.  So what's the message?  If you cheat - in sports, life, or business - as long as you don't get caught red-handed, and tell the truth after the fact, you get a free pass.

You know what, that's a personal choice, if the general public wants to forgive and forget, live and let live, and all those cutesy sayings...fine.  But that doesn't change what McGwire did in relation to the sport of baseball - which again, is what he hopes to be inducted to the HOF for.  McGwire claims that, "I wish I had never played during the steroid era...I can't say enough how sorry I am...It ripped my heart out."  My question to McGwire is, are you sorry that you took steroids, or sorry that you got caught?  It is often in professional sports that athletes are not sorry about the actions that they took, but the results that followed.  Well, when I was a toddler, I learned that if you do something wrong, there is a consequence - why should the rules be any different for grown men?

I took a White Collar Crime class in undergrad, and dropped it after two weeks because I couldn't handle the exams - but I learned one of my most valuable lessons in that class: the majority of people are not well behaved because they are good people, they are well behaved because they are deterred.  This illustrates the concept that in most cases, we abide by the law, or moral and ethical codes because we fear the consequences, not because we truly believe in those codes.  Obviously that cannot be an absolute concept because as lousy as this world can be, it also has the potential to be unbelievably great; there are people who help others "just because," there are people who save lives "just because," there are people who do what they love simply because they love it and they spread that passion like a brush-fire, there are people who make good choices because they believe in those choices and what they stand for.  Oddly enough, those great people, those life-changing volunteers, and momentum building mentors are not in the public spotlight very often, because they would rather spend their time making a difference instead of drawing attention to themselves.

My point is that if McGwire was sorry, truly sorry, this news would've came out five years ago.  But the fact of the matter is that the reason he couldn't tell us, the reason he had to deal with this secret "ripping his heart out," was because he couldn't get legal immunity.  Oh, so he couldn't get a free pass on the crime he committed?  If McGwire was authentic in wishing that he had "never played in the steroid era," then he would've admitted it at the get-go and accepted the consequences.  At the same time, I understand that no normal human being would openly admit something that would earn them prison time - but then he shouldn't act all noble and say "I wanted to tell everyone."

McGwire said, "If I didn't get immunity, I could face prosecution...Here I am sitting there and wanting to tell my story, but the immunity didn't come through."  He went on to say, "I did this to protect myself and my family.  Anybody in my position would have done the same thing.  I took the hits for five years.  I took the bullets to protect my family."  First of all, please do not include all of us in your cowardly acts and assume that "anybody would do the same thing."  So what I hear is, 'I wanted to tell the truth, but I would've had to face consequences, so I was forced to settle for the pain of having to not come forward with the fact that I cheated.'  Wow, what a courageous move Mark...you are such a humble man.

Ok, so now that we've established that McGwire was only willing to admit his mistakes without having to face consequences, let's look at another concerning issue - McGwire claims, and I believe he truly feels this way, that "the only reason I took steroids was for my health purposes.  I did not take steroids to get any gain for any strength purposes."  Here's the problem Mark, it is common knowledge that one of the key components of getting stronger is muscle recovery.  So by taking steroids for "health purposes" is directly correlated to gaining more strength.  You cannot have one without the other.  But, even if we took strength out of the picture, staying healthy is what enabled McGwire to break all the records he did - so whether he took steroids for strength or not, it still had a drastic impact on his numbers.

And if we want to take longevity out of the picture and operate under the assumption that he 'would've been healthy anyway,' his numbers are still inflated.  The reason for this is that - despite McGwire's claims that "I was given this gift" genetically and that he would've hit the same amount of homers despite steroids - there is no way his strength wasn't impacted.  For example, I agree that reaction speed, instinct, and bat speed are all natural talents that can't be inflated by steroids - so I'll give you that, Mark.  BUT, by turning quickly on an inside pitch and getting the bat on it, the amount of strength applied directly correlates to how far the ball goes.  So hypothetically a non-steroid hit to the gap = a steroid hit over the wall for a home run...both with the same applied bat speed.

The bottom line is that I am happy to see Mark apologize, I'm happy to see him as the batting coach for the Cardinals, and I am excited that Tony LaRussa said he might add McGwire to the playoff roster in the Fall.  Despite all that excitement, I have zero doubts that McGwire's entry to the HOF would ruin baseball.  And I don't just single out Big Mac - I say all of them should be out...all the cheaters - McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Pettitte, A-Rod, Giambi, Canseco, etc... .  They are great players, all of them.  And they all would've been great without the steroids, but they made the greedy choice to want more, and there needs to be consequences, otherwise what's the message - cheat, apologize, and it's all gravy?  If there is one person on this planet who deserves to be more angry than anyone else about the 'steroid era' it's Ken Griffey Jr.  Junior could have and would have been the best player of all time if he had a clean bill of health all the way through, but he was hampered by injuries and sat on the bench and in rehab, watching as these cheaters continued to inject themselves to points of physical longevity and added strength.

To quote the great Dick Vitale on the matter, "they all belong in the Hall of Shame."  If Pete Rose gets banned from the sport for betting - then these guys should feel lucky that they still get to be a part of the game by playing, coaching, etc... .  So please sports writers, to send the right message to young kids, to high school kids, college kids, minor league players, and to all the major league guys who played by the rules - don't let the cheaters into the Hall, it will taint the game forever...