here is a good story, by mike lupica. about yesterday's circus.
Mac appears to be biggest fool on the Hill
Maybe Bud Selig should have said he didn't want to talk about the past in front of Congress last night, the way Mark McGwire did in the afternoon. Maybe then, some of the congressmen who were laying for Selig and Donald Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players Association would have gone as easy on them as they did on McGwire, who cried yesterday afternoon, who got more emotional than on the night he broke Roger Maris' record, but never denied that he was using steroids when he became the home run king of baseball.
People think baseball lost yesterday? It will take more than the members of the House Committee on Government Reform to do that. If you watched, you know. McGwire lost.
Still, maybe Selig could have adopted the outrageous position that McGwire did, instead of having to be lectured late in the evening by Rep. Henry Waxman, whoever he is, about how baseball needs new leadership.
"I'm not here to talk about the past," McGwire said to the Congress of the United States, as if that closed the books on everything.
What did McGwire think he was there for, to tell us how much of his own money he spent on establishing a foundation for abused children?
Sammy Sosa said yesterday he'd never used steroids. Under oath. So did Rafael Palmeiro, who should never have been anywhere near this joke of a hearing, one that was like some National Steroids Awareness Day. McGwire had the chance to say he'd always been clean. Did not.
He wasn't worried about incriminating himself in a court of law. Just the court of public opinion. He really was like Jason Giambi yesterday. He wanted to be given a congressional Medal of Honor because he seemed to feel real bad. And the people asking the questions seemed to go out of their way not to make him feel any worse.
No kidding, there was so much time during baseball's longest day, during the day when our elected officials, from both sides of the aisle, sounded like a bunch of groupies hanging around outside Yankee Stadium looking for autographs. I mean, memo to our Rep. Jose Serrano: Nobody cares about your baseball card collection, and which relative might inherit your McGwire rookie card.
So these congressmen, who discovered baseball might have a drug problem the day Jose Canseco's book came out, saved their greatest passion and their toughest questions for Selig and Fehr and Selig's lieutenants, Sandy Alderson and Rob Manfred. But when they had a chance to get after McGwire in a similar fashion, most of the people asking the questions, and even the ones like Rep. John Sweeney from upstate New York who actually tried to ask a tough question, acted as if they were reaching for their handkerchiefs every time McGwire got a lump in his throat.
When they asked him how he knew steroids were bad for him, on this day when he decided to come forward and join the fight to clean up the sport, McGwire took a full pass. Under advice of counsel. This was the day when "I'm not here to talk about the past" became the new Fifth the way gray used to be the new black.
Mark McGwire, who wants to play golf now and live a quiet life as a husband and father, is clearly a good man. He seemed quite sincere when he talked about that foundation of his, and about the parents of children who had committed suicide because of steroids.
"My heart goes out to them," he said, choking back tears.
Then he said: "I applaud the work of this committee in exposing this problem." It was another time when he sounded like a complete fraud, actually expecting anyone to believe that this committee had exposed anything other than an ability to turn the power of Congress into a baseball bully pulpit.
All we want to know from McGwire is this: Was he on the juice when he was hitting all those home runs for the Cardinals? He had the chance to clear the record about his home run records once and for all. He sure did not. Instead, he threw himself on the mercy of everyone watching him. The suggestion that he could not give straight answers to questions about steroids "without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself," sounded dumber than Jose Canseco's dumbest day.
"I would never say anything about my teammates that would hurt them," McGwire said, as if this really was the old House Un-American Activities Committee and McGwire was being asked to name names. Except that no one was asking him to name names. This really was a performance that was a crying shame.
Davis and Waxman and their committee members, their baseball-card collectors and their former female softball players, they had their big moment yesterday. They had it at a time when baseball, both the commissioner's office and the union, finally agree on something, and that is this new drug policy. Congress seems to think it is some kind of sham, and so might you. It isn't perfect, by a long shot. But it has to be given a chance to work.
If it had been in place seven years ago, maybe things would have been different for Mark McGwire. Maybe there wouldn't have been these hearings yesterday. Maybe the guy who once hit 70 home runs in a season wouldn't have come up looking guiltier than ever in Washington yesterday, unwilling to talk about a past that is now changed forever
