Mark McGwire*

Over the past two decades, Mark McGwire has broken our records and our hearts. Now, after five years of isolation, the slugger has finally broken his silence. Emerging from exile, McGwire released a statement to the AP yesterday admitting that he took steroids throughout the 90’s—including the 1998 season—officially turning the question mark after his records into an asterisk.

For most of us, the news comes as no surprise. After years of watching homerun balls leave the park faster than a Pirates fan in August, we pretty much figured that both McGwire’s numbers and his hulk-like frame were artificially inflated. McGwire may as well have released a statement saying Santa wasn’t real. After all, anyone older than 12 probably figured out for themselves that the big man in the red suit was a fraud five years ago.

So why confess now? Why not confess at the 2005 congressional hearing on steroids in baseball? Why not in the ensuing years? Instead at the hearings, Big Mac responded to each question with, “I will not talk about the past.” And after the hearing, McGwire went into hiding.

According McGuire’s statement, the slugger wanted to come clean at the time, but couldn’t because he wasn’t granted immunity and feared potential legal backlash. He says now that he is rejoining the Cardinals as a hitting coach he finally has an opportunity to own up to his mistakes. But I’m not buying that one, not now.

I might have been a bit more gullible back in 1998. Hypnotized by the magical homerun chase, I followed McGwire’s moonballs and counted along with the rest of the country all the way up to 70. But I’m not eight years old anymore and won’t be so easily duped.

If you ask me, McGwire’s admission has less to do with conscience than with Cooperstown. I think Big Mac remained silent for all these years because he was hoping Hall of Fame voters would immortalize him alongside the folkloric homerun heroes he tainted. McGwire hoped that without proof that voters would look at his 583 career homeruns (eighth all-time) and ignore the speculations. But when that strategy failed for the fourth time on January 6th with McGwire receiving 128 votes (23.7 percent), the slugger decided to change streams.

Maybe McGwire thought a public statement and a couple tears on TV would make it all go away like it did for Manny, Big Papi, and Alex Rodriguez. Heck, it worked for A-Rod. Last winter, he was exposed for steroid use and deemed A-Fraud in a bestselling book by the same title. But after powering the Yankees to their 27th World Series championship, the nation is calling him a hero again.

Likewise, Yankees pitcher Andy Petite was exposed in the 2007 Mitchell investigation but owned up. The lefty said he used Human Growth Hormone twice in 2002 to recover from elbow surgery and the national quickly forgave him.

McGwire echoed Petite’s medical defense for using PEDs and was looking for the same forgiveness. In his statement to the AP McGwire said, “During the mid-'90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a ribcage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries, too”

In Petite’s case, I don’t overlook his drug use, but I believe his story. But McGwire’s latest lie proves this is the new go-to deflection technique, replacing the old excuses that the accused never “willingly or knowingly used steroids” and the “everyone was doing it” claims. It ranks right up there with “My dog ate my homework” and “I was just holding it for a friend.”

The only part of McGuire’s statement I agree with is, “I wish I had never played during the steroid era.”

Looking back, I wish you wouldn’t have played during the steroid era as well Big Mac. In fact, I wish you— along with Bonds and Palmeiro and Sosa and Conseco— would have never played at all.