Come Clean, Mac

Just admit it already Mac

It’s one thing to have a trainer expose you as a fraud, it’s another when that trainer is your brother. Mark McGwire knows what it’s like to be betrayed by his own brother and I think it’s time Mark comes clean.

Jay McGwire is set to release a book later next month detailing his involvement with Big Mac’s PED use and he is going to say he got Mark to use HGH. Big Mac knew it was making his stats explode, but he didn’t care and it’s pretty damning evidence from a pretty reliable source, even if it is a deplorable way to do it.

Shame on Mark McGwire for doing it in the first place, but it’s a cold day in the world when your own brother goes Brutus on you. He is certainly not the first man to be betrayed by his brother and I’m sure he isn’t the last, but in most cases your brother isn’t looking to make money off your name in the process. And he certainly isn’t doing it in front of the whole world.
Still, a scumbag knows no etiquette.

While we may never know for sure if the Jay McGwire’s information is accurate, but we know enough to believe that Mark McGwire has been anything but honest with us. He lied about taking any PEDs, of any kind, for years, and he doped his way through a homerun chase that saved baseball.

He retired as allegations grew and suspicion mounte. He ducked the media and exiled himself from the game, and when he was forced out in 2005 to testify in front of congress, he said about as little as he had been saying.

So I say: come clean. Tell us everything. We could wait for the book to come out and read all the dirty details for ourselves, but come out and tell us now. Screw your brother in the process. We know Mac wasn’t clean like most of the players of his era, but he has a chance to be clean now where his peers have failed so miserably.

We’ve played the injury game since the Mitchell Report, and we know everyone did it to recover. It never had anything to do with the way it made them feel at the plate or on the mound, and we accepted it. At least it beats being outright lied to. Still, I can’t imagine anyone takes them seriously when they tell us it was a one shot deal.

So this is Mac’s chance to change the way players answer their accusers. This is Mac’s chance to say what everyone has known for years: that PED’s make you a better baseball player. They don’t make you a more honorable player, but a better one. and when everyone is doing it there is pressure to do it also. He can tell us for the first time what it must feel like to be an aging player who wants to still be the force he was in his early 20s.

McGwire’s best chance to get into the hall is to change his reputation now, come clean and move forward by endorsing HGH testing and opposing the players union to prove it. If he can win the fight, the world will notice his effort and that goes a long way in restoring his image. Mac knows he can’t fix his mistake, but he can work to prevent others from making the same mistake.

Regardless of how McGwire attempts to address the allegations in the upcoming weeks, the St. Louis Cardinals better reconsider their hire. As long as McGwire is in the dugout, the media will be relentless and they will be focused on your franchise man with only 2 years left on his contract. Albert Pujols has fought very hard to stay away from the PED suspicion, but with McGwire instructing him every day and allegations of Human Growth Hormones lingering (which is still not tested for in MLB) he can no longer avoid it. The Cardinals better be careful to not upset the one guy that cannot afford to lose.

Here’s hoping McGwire makes the right decision. He’s already been a liar, a cheat, and a phony, but here is his chance to be a man. This is his chance to have his retirement mean more than his career did.

Michael Cahill