Should McGwire’s Acknowledgment Be Chided or Respected?
Many fans of baseball were surprised by Mark McGwire’s recent confession. The slugger had used steroids for the greater part of his baseball career, as this gave him an unfair edge and contributed to the mammoth seasons that we as fans witnessed.
What may have been more interesting is the fact that McGwire claims to have used these drugs not simply as a means of getting ahead. McGwire says he took steroids because he believed that they would help him heal from injuries more quickly.
This would make sense in McGwire’s case, as injuries seriously slowed down the pace of what would have been an otherwise torrid career. He was one of the best power hitters in the game, but his potential was always cut short due to injury.
His strategy seemingly paid off. During the 1990s, McGwire experienced fewer injuries than he had in the prior years, despite the fact that he was older. He also saw a significant boost in his home run total.
Everything came together in 1998, a year in which McGwire set baseball history. Having broken a seemingly unbreakable record held by Roger Maris, the St. Louis Cardinal hit an astounding 70 home runs during the course of the year.
It was a matter of a few seasons before people realized that there had to be some means of artificial help creating seasons once thought to be impossible for older players like McGwire, Barry Bonds, and many others. There had to be steroids involved.
In retrospect, it should have been obvious that McGwire and others were using illegal substances. There was no other way to explain the unprecedented jumps in production, and the baseball world should have been keen to this.
McGwire violated the trust of the baseball world and cheated his way to a record. Despite this all, he deserves a bit of respect for having the courage to come out with a secret that hundreds of players from that era still likely hold.
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