They say confession is good for the soul, but when you compartmentalize your own confession, does it really count?
Watching Mark McGwire's one-on-one interview with Bob Costas on the MLB network this past Monday after the former A's and Cards slugger released a statement admitting to steroid use during his playing career, I was continually struck by McGwire's assertions that, from his viewpoint, no illegal drug he put into his body actually "enhanced" his performance on a baseball field. He claimed he took steroids during the 1990s for "health purposes." It [Steroids] was going to help me heal faster and make my body feel back to normal... I did not take steroids to get any gain for any strength purposes."
"But didn't you become stronger?" asked Costas.
"I've always had bat speed. I just learned how to shorten my bat speed," answered McGwire. "I learned how to be a better hitter, There is not a pill or an injection that is going to give me the hand-eye - or give any athlete - the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball. A pill or an injection will not hit a baseball."
No, a pill or an injection will not hit a baseball. But it will help a strong man who can hit a baseball hard and far hit it harder and farther, which is what Mark McGwire (and Sammy Sosa, and Raphael Palmiero and, most folks believe, Barry Bonds) did during the 1990s and early 2000s, before baseball and its millionaire's club masquerading as a labor union finally agreed to start mandatory drug testing. And, miraculously, both individual home run totals and ballplayers' overall sizes quickly began to undergo significant, as George Castanza would put it, "shrinkage."
Of course, to hear McGwire tell it, he certainly could have hit 70 home runs without steroids. ("I was given this gift by the man upstairs.") And the real shame, according to McGwire, is that, like the world's first banned substance user - that would be Adam - it was temptation that led him astray.
"I wish we had drug testing," said McGwire. "If we had testing when I was playing, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation today. I guarantee you that."
So - it was the system that was to blame for him doing steroids! And a crime without punishment isn't really a crime.
Costas asked McGwire about his well-documented "I'm not hear to talk about the past" appearance during the Congressional hearings about steroids in baseball in 2005. Here's McGwire's explanation:
"Our lawyers were down there trying to get immunity for me. I wanted to talk, I wanted to get this off my chest. Well, we didn't get immunity. Here I was in a situation where I had two scenarios: Possible prosecution or possible grand-jury testimonies. Well you know what happens when there's a possible prosecution? You bring in your whole family, you bring in your whole friends, ex-teammates, coaches, anybody around you. How the heck am I going to bring those people in for some stupid act that I did? So you know what I did? We agreed to not talk about the past."
Nice to know after all these years that McGwire secretly made a deal that precluded anyone asking him directly about steroid use. Not that it mattered to him one iota if people knew he did steroids, you see, but all those poor innocent people who might have gotten hurt for his "stupid act." [Years of regular steroid use is somehow one "act"?]
Costas: "I'm not a lawyer, but the statute of limitations on these crimes is five years.. Anything to do with the timing?"
McGwire: "No, the timing has to do with the Cardinals, being offered the [job of] hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals."
Costas: "Did you feel you were cheating?"
McGwire: "As I look back now as far as my health and my injuries, trying to help my injuries to help me feel normal, I can see why people would say that. As far as the god-given talent and hand-eye coordination and the genetics I was given, I don't see it."
Towards the end of the interview, McGwire expressed his hope that after finally admitting to his steroid use, "When this is all said and done, we can move on from this. That's what I'm hoping happens."
"Confession good for the soul?" asked Costas.
"I'm sure I'll find out soon," answered McGwire.
Given his idea of what constitutes a "confession," that may take quite a while.