Mark McGwire Comes Clean

In case you missed it, the home run record-setting Mark McGwire has at long last confessed to using steroids. (Click here, here, here.) Apparently the only person in America who has had any doubt about that fact for well over a decade was McGwire’s long-time manager, Tony La Russa, who said he didn’t know until McGwire called and told him right before the carefully orchestrated media event which McGwire used to express contrition. To be one of the best managers in baseball, La Russa isn’t very observant.

In any event, the St. Louis Cardinals have hired McGwire to be the team’s batting coach, and this development undoubtedly set the stage for McGwire’s mea culpa. Commissioner Bud Selig used McGwire’s confession as a platform for declaring that baseball’s steroids era is over. Watch out. He may announce peace in the Middle East any day now.

Rarely has anyone made a mockery of professional baseball like McGwire did. He became the Incredible Hulk before our eyes and hit 70 home runs in 1998, a number so extreme that Selig should have suspended McGwire, pending an investigation, instead of reveling in the hoopla created by McGwire’s maniacal slugging. Such action might have prevented the obviously steroids-laden Barry Bonds from later hitting 73 home runs in a single season.

McGwire is still setting quite an example for all followers of baseball, young and old — indeed, for all employers and employees. You can cheat and lie and still be welcomed back to the game upon shedding a few tears. The next time a big company needs a new CEO, choose from the following: Dennis Kozlowski, Richard Scrushy, Jeff Skilling, John Rigas, Bernie Ebbers, Sam Waksal.

1. 

   ACU Frank says:

   January 12, 2010 at 2:27 pm

   Welcome back from your vacation, John! I was starting to think they were negotiating with Conan O’Brian to take your place!
2. 

   John Phillips says:

   January 12, 2010 at 2:42 pm

   Good to hear from you, Frank. I haven’t returned Conan’s call.