So Mark McGwire told Bob Costas in their interview last night.
Costas: “On the 98-99-2000 seasons…”
McGwire: “I learned to hit.”
Costas: “Could hit 70 home runs without steroids.”
McGwire: “Absolutely. I was given this gift by the man upstairs.”
Oh, dude, come on.
McGwire’s suggestion that he wasn’t helped much by steroids is not playing too well with baseball writers — even in St. Louis:
This was not a man who was hauled reluctantly into the wicked current of the steroid era. He was in fact the well-documented drum major leading the parade.
This wasn’t some accidental faux pas that McGwire entered into with little or no forethought. It was done by an intelligent design. He stacked and he cycled hard-core body-building drugs. He wasn’t merely dabbling with stuff to get healthy. He was doing it to get bigger, stronger, richer and more heralded in his profession.