SPORTS BUSINESS DAILY has a thorough rundown of reax from the media to Mark McGwire’s steroid admission yesterday. While most opinions of McGwire’s limited contrition skew negative, none I saw called it what it really was if you believe ESPN Investigative Reporter T.J. Quinn and Jose Canseco.
Quinn was the most compelling presence in the media yesterday with his eye-popping portrayal on ESPN-TV of McGwire as a serial hardcore user (horse steroids!) who enthusiastically shared his knowledge with many a major leaguer.
In addition to steroids, Quinn said McGwire was perhaps the first MLB player to use HGH, and that he introduced the drug to many other MLB players, while giving them bogus information on the effects of the hormone. Damning, ugly stuff.
Quinn’s specific claims about McGwire were based on over 10 years of reporting on the subject and hundreds of interviews with MLB players, staffers, executives and medical experts in the field of PEDs. Video of his comments after the jump.
Quinn’s comments are completely contradictory to McGwire’s claims yesterday about his steroid usage. So someone is lying. If Quinn is lying, McGwire would sue him and ESPN for defamation and/or libel. Don’t hold your breath on that.
Canseco also said that McGwire’s claim that Canseco never injected him was a lie.
So let me say what others in the media aren’t: what McGwire did on Monday was far worse than his hiding from the media. Worse than his spectacularly embarrassing testimony in front of Congress. From what Quinn and Canseco have said in the past 24 hours, McGwire lied more than he told the truth yesterday.
That doesn’t even include McGwire’s asinine assertation that steroids had nothing to do with his performance. As I said yesterday on Twitter, if steroids had nothing to do with his home runs, why did he feel the need to apologize to the Maris family?
McGwire told Costas that his admission had nothing to do with the Hall of Fame, which runs contrary to comments made by those who know McGwire best. He’s reportedly obsessed with his legacy, which of course includes Cooperstown. But from talking to BBWAA members today who vote for the baseball Hall of Fame, I was told that McGwire’s remarks actually hurt him more than his self-imposed media embargo the past few years.
McGwire said yesterday that wished there had been drug testing in baseball when he played. If that’s the case why did his player’s union, of which he was a prominent member, repeatedly refuse to allow MLB to test for steroids? Why didn’t McGwire say something at the time? #rhetorical
Along with trying to salvage his professional reputation, McGwire went public to reduce media attention on him this season as he starts a tenure as Cardinals hitting coach. If he hadn’t agreed to get back into baseball, yesterday would’ve never happened. That said, in my opinion, McGwire taking the Cards hitting coach job was related to his desire to improve his Hall of Fame candidacy. It gave him an excuse to go public with what turned out to be flaccid contrition.
After all these years of athletes hopelessly trying to damage control their personal and professional foibles, you would think that McGwire would’ve learned that the coverup is almost always worse than the crime. With over 100 MLB players who tested positive for banned substances still yet to be identified, this isn’t the last we’ll hear about McGwire’s steroid habit.
My advice to Big Mac? Keep that Maris family number current.
3:46 pm on January 12th, 2010
If the cards use Big Mac as a pinch hitter in the post-season does is 15 years of HOF elgibility reset?
3:52 pm on January 12th, 2010
what about that turkey neck? maybe he was taking some aviary roids as well!
4:01 pm on January 12th, 2010
Maybe McGwire wishes NOW that there was drug testing when he played as opposed to back then. Either way, it is clear that you still no nothing about legal issues. Even assuming that McGwire is telling the truth and Quinn is lying, McGwire would have to show that Quinn has acted/is acting with malice in order to make a claim for defamation. Roger Clemens was an idiot for suing McNamee and he is just a third party spreading allegations as opposed to Quinn who is an investigative reporter in the media. Regardless of truth, defamation actions in the United States when there is a public newsworthy event or public figure involved is a tough legal road.
4:05 pm on January 12th, 2010
Good night, lay off of the poor guy.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
4:40 pm on January 12th, 2010
“reax”? seriously?
4:41 pm on January 12th, 2010
Yeah this is just piling on. The media acts like we are stupid or something. He took steroids, got huge, hit homeruns because of it and got caught. End of story. Stop beating this dead horse. No one at all believed he was ever clean so why does any of the bs in this article even matter.
6:05 pm on January 12th, 2010
I don’t understand what all these writers want out of this. For years they’re clamoring for these athletes to “come clean” about what they did. So when arguably the most prominent face of the “steroid era” comes clean and admits it, these same writers are bashing him for the manner in which he does it. He admitted he took steroids throughout his career. What else is going to come out? He had bionic arms attached to his body? Whether it was himself or canseco injecting him, what is the difference?
6:57 pm on January 12th, 2010
What do I want out of this? To not be lied to. Is that unreasonable?
7:15 pm on January 12th, 2010
Quite frankly, I don’t believe McGwire belongs in the HOF. And neither do Sosa, Clemens, or Bonds to name a few others. We’ve all seen the low percentage of the Baseball Writers that voted for McGwire when his name appeared on the ballot. I’m just wondering if they’ll have the spine to do the same to other players of that era, especially Bonds. I believe most of the records set during the so called Steroid era are tainted. Maybe baseball should bring back the handy, dandy asterisk…
8:31 pm on January 12th, 2010
I don’t think the issue here is a legal one or a common sense one, it’s simply a moral one. Anyone able to put 2 and 2 together realized that McGwire was on the juice. The issue here is that after staying quiet for years, he’s “coming clean” by more than likely spouting half truths in a vain attempt to salvage a legacy that has already crashed, burned, and mulched. As much as I don’t like Jose Canseco, he’s actually been shown to be correct about what was in his book - at this point (sad as it is to say), he has the benefit of the doubt and not McGwire. “Coming clean” is telling the whole truth.
12:04 am on January 13th, 2010
I don’t get why some baseball fans bend over for these roid freaks, siding with them when the players deny taking PEDs, then in the aftermath claim it doesn’t matter since everyone knew all along they were doping. Show some respect for the game and its history by not letting these jerkoffs get away with their BS.
2:14 am on January 13th, 2010
This is hilarious. If McGuire had been black there would be a torrent of hate comments on this site. People calling him a slimeball and a cheater…but I’m reading a lot of “benefit of the doubt” and “lay off” the guy type stuff…hilarious. This guy was one of the biggest cheaters the game has ever known and if TJ Quinn’s investigation is accurate, he was a primary facilitator of the Roid era.
I can’t remember anytime when a black athlete was handled this gently. McGuire helped take down an entire era in baseball…if this was Bonds who did all these things and then gave a bs, lie-filled apology so he could make it into the Hall, he would be absolutely crucified. Thankfully, I don’t think Barry would ever be stupid enough to open himself up to that kind of vitriol.
9:41 am on January 13th, 2010
In my opinion this is a little like a shamed husband telling his wife that he cheated on her. Does he have to explain the positions he used with the women he cheated? What motel they went to? What brand of condom? Isn’t the admission that they cheated enough?
11:39 am on January 13th, 2010
Coming Clean—You’re a dumbass. To apply your analogy, this would be like Tiger admitting to Elin that he had sec with one woman, once. And that was it. That’s not what it’s about at all. McGwire needed to come out completely clean. We already knew that he cheated. Him saying that gives us nothing new. I don’t buy all of this confession crap 5 years later, but if you’re going to do it, might as well not lie more while you’re doing it.
12:46 pm on January 13th, 2010
Another day, another bullsh*t article. I think I need to stop reading this site.
1) Who cares what kind of steriods he took? He said he took them, and he said he took them during most of his career.
2) Who cares whether he spoke with others about steriods? He clearly doesn’t want to “out” other players.
3) Why doesn’t somebody look into the positive affects of steroids. I take prescription nasal steroids and they help my allergies. It seems to me that under a doctor’s supervision, steroids could be a good thing. They obviously enhance performance. Player’s from the old days didn’t lift weights, then started to later. The weights are performance enhancing. Are weights bad?
4) You don’t “take a pill” and get huge. You take a pill, lift your ass off, and get huge. Everyone seems to leave out the hard work part.