Mark McGwire Has One More Apology To Make

Mark McGwire has (finally) admitted to using steroids.
And you act as if I'm supposed to give a damn.  As if I'm supposed to be surprised.

McGwire apologized, though I am not sure for what exactly he is apologizing for or who he is apologizing to.  He took steroids as he tried to heal quicker from his injuries and make his team better.  Do you blame him?  Maybe had he shared the wealth with the likes of Delino DeShields, Eli Marrero and Royce Clayton, the Cardinals would have been better off.

Is he apologizing to his family, who benefited significantly thanks to the paychecks McGwire received from the Cardinals and the endorsement money he received elsewhere.  I don't know anyone that would not do anything in his or her problem to give their family everything they wanted.

This, of course, was a little more illegal than other methods.

Still, I have yet to hear an apology to Tony La Russa.

While McGwire hid in a secret lair where he would go on and tutor Matt Holliday and others, La Russa was McGwire's only line of defense.  He often chastised media members for even questioning McGwire's past.

In the end, McGwires non-lies have turned La Russa into a liar.

Other than that, La Russa's blind eye act doesn't fool me, nor should it fool anyone else.  Of course Big Mac worked harder than everyone in the weight room.  He had supplements that allowed him to work for longer periods of time while helping his body cure up from its ailments. 
That's what steroids are for, not to make you big and strong, but to help with your endurance and speed up the healing process.  Always keep that in mind.

Then take into consideration the other former roided-up freaks that have played under TLR and with the Cardinals, including the team's starting center fielder much of last year, Rick Ankiel, and closer Ryan Franklin.

(Due to time constraints, we'll pretend that the Oakland Athletics of the late 1980s didn't exist.)

Yep, big surprise that a guy who hit 18 home runs in 279 PAs from 1993-94 jumped to 39 HRs in 422 PAs in 1995.

So, Mark.  If you want to make amends, why not start with the guy who made you relevant again in the first place?

Jim Parque Comes Clean; He Was Dirty

When people think of the Steroid Era in baseball, they will likely think of bulky power hitters launching mammoth home run bombs even NASA struggled to track down. They will look at guys like Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and other (allegedly) juiced-up and souped-up sluggers and consider them to be the Mount Rushmore of PED pushers.

But other than Roger Clemens' (alleged) use of performance enhancing substances, pitchers are commonly overlooked when it comes to this era of infidelity. That is, until former White Sox pitcher Jim Parque confessed to his use of performance enhancing drugs in an exclusive first-person story in the Chicago Sun-Times.

In the piece, Parque said he first admitted to substance abuse in 2006 while talking to approximately 100 youngsters about its perils and the pressure that comes with it. I don't want to take awaay from the read, but I will leave you with this excerpt:

"HGH was not banned by Major League Baseball when I ordered it. It was controversial and unethical, but it was not banned."

There, my friends, fans, and fellow readers, is the big asterik when it comes to this era. HGH was frowned upon, but not punishable. Kind of like having several girlfriends, except Joey Greco isn't stalking you in an unmarked white van with black-clad, video-camera wielding nerds searching for answers.

Parque proves that it wasn't just the Incredible Hulk-like hitters beneffiting from this. When mediocre pitchers like Parque confess their wrong doing, one of those "what came first, chicken or the egg" scenarios pops into my head.

Was it pitchers juicing in an attempt to catch up to big, beefy batters or was it the hitters trying to get an edge over hopped-up hurlers? And while the world will never know, the only thing for certain is that the black cloud that looms over Bud Selig and the rest of baseball's collective heads is not going away any time soon.

If ever.

Ex-Sox Pitcher Jim Parque Confesses: Why I Juiced [Chicago Sun-Times]