A Lengthy Post about Baseball, Steroids and Childhood

Today is one of those rare days at work that I have time to myself, most of which I use to read.  CNN, Gawker, blogs, whatever.  Unfortunately, this means I will be slammed on Monday as our processes are delayed but no matter.  Happy Friday.

First, I give props to my brother.  An aspiring journalist at SIU, Ryan is on the campus desk after a stint as sports editor.  He was the first one that got me thinking about my own personal experience about the McGwire issue, not so much my reaction.  We have similar views of the topic as we obviously grew up together talking about it.  At only two years apart, we were siblings and playmates and amused ourselves with endless games of catch (until one would likely get pissed at the other and stomp into the house over a bad throw).  So here is Ryan's take, where I quote the stages of "McGwire grief" later on.  Finally: The McGwire Saga.  I admire his writing, not only because it's my sisterly duty but because of his ability to form ideas in the written word.

Another read for today was my friend Steph's baseball blog, Baseball Between the Lines, as I have mentioned before in a post.  The girl breathes baseball and shares that passion online.  I read her most recent post on Mark McGwire's steroid "admittance."  She's a Cubs and Red Sox Fan (I can forgive her for one of them) and I'm a Cardinals fan so we obviously have different experiences concerning the extent of the issue.  So I started to comment on her blog post then realized it was getting pretty lengthy and, honestly, I wanted to make it my own post.  So here we are, the unabridged version.

"I went through the stages of "McGwire grief" during the congressional hearing years ago.  Only years before, I remember watching Big Mac slam number 62 and run around the bases missing first like a excited t-ball player.  I laughed and cried and updated by AOL webpage (seriously).  I viewed numerous clips of him and Sammy Sosa's hug and watched ESPN on repeat.  For God's sake, him and Sosa were said to have saved baseball! 


His image crumbled years later as I watched him cry before Congress and seemingly forget that he ever donned a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.  A uniform I thought I would never turn my back on, number 25.  I mean, my birthday was the 25th of June, total destiny!  On that day, he sat only seats over from Sosa, the pair that brought my family and the nation back to baseball after the '94 strike.  The home run race that, for the first time in baseball history, finally thrust the Cardinals and Cubs rivalry of the Midwest into the spotlight.  East Coast?  West Coast?  Nah.  The real show was somewhere on Interstate 55 with special appearances all over the country. 


Between Sammy's sudden inability to speak English and Big Mac's mutters of "I'm not here to talk about the past" some of my earliest memories of baseball cracked like a bat making contact with a 97-mph fastball.


It's sad what baseball became and, thankfully, will never become again.


For McGwire, I don't think it's so much as asking for forgiveness as rather just coming clean (pun noted).  It's easy to pin point one player, in the media spotlight for a hot second, per usual.  Unfortunately, the names on the leaked steroids list kept the ESPN ticker busy and David Stern's office even busier.

'The bigger they come, the harder they fall.'

I agree that none of these men should be in the Hall of Fame, no matter the sure potential we never saw.  The potential that was there without the steroids.  For this player in particular, I will breathe a sigh of relief.  The devil on my shoulder already told me the obvious, that the idealist image of baseball in my childhood was destroyed."