Bad sports, good sports: I hate cheaters. I’m talking to you, Mark McGwire
There are many things I love about sports. I started watching at a very young age, and have been hooked ever since. Of course, with anything you spend a whole lot of time observing or experiencing, there are always things that you don’t like as well. Cheating is one of those things. This week, Mark McGwire openly acknowledged for the first time that he used steroids throughout a large portion of his baseball career. This came as a shock to virtually no one, I have to imagine, as most people have long been convinced that McGwire was dirty.
For those of you who don’t follow baseball, McGwire was a power-hitting first baseman who started his career with the Oakland Athletics in the late eighties. He hit 583 home runs in a career that lasted until 2001, the last four and a half years of which were spent with the St. Louis Cardinals, highlighted by the 1998 season, during which he hit a then-record 70 home runs in a spirited battle with Sammy Sosa of the Cubs. The country was captivated by the competition, as both players broke Roger Maris’ long-standing record of 61 homes runs in a season. I, myself, recall standing in a sports book in Las Vegas watching McGwire hit the record-breaking home run, mesmerized by the display of power that had been going on all summer. Baseball, which had been suffering from a fan backlash after the strike of ’94, lapped up the attention. If the world didn’t yet suspect McGwire of steroid use, it certainly did at the end of the ’98 season, when it was discovered that McGwire had been using Androstenedione, a substance that was banned in a number of other sports, but not yet by Major League Baseball.
So this week, McGwire admitted he used steroids. He apologized and cried. He did everything except take responsibility for his own actions. He claimed he only used steroids to help recover from injuries, and even went so far as to state that he felt he would have broken the record anyway, even without the steroids. He ridiculously stated that he “wished he had never played during the steroid era.”
Really.
McGwire, you WERE the steroid era. You, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, etc. No one did this to you. You did this to baseball. You perpetrated a fraud on all of us only too-willing participants. Because you say you’re sorry, we are now supposed to feel sorry for you? I hope the only way he ever gets into the Hall of Fame is by paying for admission at the door.
By the way, do you want to know another thing I hate about sports, or, more specifically, about sports fans? What is this need to give standing ovations to disgraced athletes when they return to the spotlight? On Sunday, McGwire made his first public appearance in St. Louis since his admission of steroid use earlier this week. As expected, a bunch of idiots camped out for hours to get seats at the news conference, and gave McGwire a standing ovation when he appeared. What is wrong with people? It’s not enough that he is being allowed to coach for the Cardinals, and likely being paid a lot of money to do so? He really needs to be applauded with such vigor? The same thing happened when Manny Ramirez, another cheater, made his first appearance for the Dodgers last season. What are people trying to prove?
I don’t like cheaters, and I don’t like people who applaud cheaters.
Bad sports, continued:
2) Speaking of people I don’t like, how about that Lane Kiffin? After a mere 14 months as the head coach of the University of Tennessee football team, during which he had more NCAA violations than he had wins, he left to become the new head coach at USC. If I didn’t think the Vols were better off without him, I would be even angrier at his abandonment of a program that never should have hired him in the first place. The fact that he jumped ship a few weeks before National Signing Day, and reportedly, with assistant coach Ed Orgeron, called Tennessee recruits to try to get them to go with him to USC, just reinforces the fact that he is not the kind of coach that a program like Tennessee should want to have associated with their school and their tradition. Let’s hope new coach Derek Dooley makes Vols fans quickly forget about the last 14 months.
3) Gaines Adams, former number one draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and current member of the Chicago Bears, died Sunday morning in South Carolina. Reports are that he died of cardiac arrest caused by an enlarged heart. Adams was 26 years old.
Good sports:
1) It’s nice when an athlete speaks out against something that many people agree with, even if it’s not a popular opinion. OK, maybe I just mean it’s nice when one agrees with me. Ray Allen of the Boston Celtics stated this week that he feels that the participants in the NBA All-Star game should be decided by something more than just the fan vote. Allen Iverson and Tracy Mcgrady are on the verge of being named as starters for this year’s game, despite the fact that McGrady has only played in six games this year and Iverson basically quit on the Memphis Grizzlies before signing with the Sixers. The All-Star game should be for the players who are having the best seasons. Not for what they have previously done in their careers, or for what they might do in the future. Certainly not just because people like them.
2) If you read this column regularly, you know how I feel about Brett Favre. I would not be doing my job, however, if I didn’t laud his performance in Minnesota’s playoff win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. Favre was fantastic, as were the rest of the Vikings. There are not many things I enjoy more than watching the Cowboys get crushed, even if it involves me having to cheer for Brett Favre.
Oh, and Keith Brooking – if you don’t want them to keep scoring, try stopping them.
3) Major league shortstop Miguel Tejada is another guy whom I would normally criticize (he is a member of the same group of cheaters as McGwire), but he showed that he has another side to him this week. He spent the week in Haiti bringing food and supplies to the victims of last week’s earthquake. Now that’s something that deserves a standing ovation.
Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday
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Alan, I agree fully with 4 of the 6 good sports/bad sports, and so might as well offer my perspective on the other two. First, regarding Mark McGuire, it’s interesting to me that everyone is so quick to point their fingers at him, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, and the suspected steroids crew as disgracing the sport. But nobody ever mentions the possibility that a lot of the mediocre, slightly better or worse than average players in the league may have only been in the league because of steroids. Why are we angry only at those who achieve great success? Can athletes take PEDs as long as they break records? We don’t really care about investigating or accusing people unless they’re hitting 50 homeruns or getting 20 wins on the mound. I think it’s highly plausible that a many major leaguers were using steroids at the same time as the other guys, but they just weren’t good enough at the sport to show up on our radar.
Secondly, on the NBA All-Star Game, I do agree that it should serve to reward those players who are having breakout years, and not just those with a golden past. But as the All-Star Game is basically for the fans, I really don’t have a problem with them selecting the participants. It is at the end of the season that members of the media vote on who gets All NBA First, Second, and Third team, which is the real honor. Maybe we should publicize those selected to these teams by the media more so that players can be given the proper respect for great seasons.
There’s a part of me that wants steroids to be mandatory in all sports. Lets see what the human body is capable of. How many homers can one freakish guy hit? How hard can a monster throw a pitch? How big and strong and fast can a middle linebacker be? Let the circus out. Lets watch the freak flags fly! If you want to be a pro ball player, the price is your body.
But then I realize that’s wrong and that I just like the circus.
Adam – thanks for reading and for the feedback. I don’t think it’s that we don’t get angry at the lesser players who also took steroids. Speaking for myself, those people anger me in the same way. The difference is that baseball, more than any other sport, is a game of statistics and records. For whatever reason, we care a lot about who holds the record for most home runs in a season or in a career. When people break these records, it’s a very big deal. When those people cheated to do so, the anger is far more magnified than if the 25th guy on the bench cheated to stay in the big leagues. The crime is the same, but the magnitude is not.
As for the All-Star game, I know there are opinions out there that are different than mine on this. If it’s going to be purely a popularity contest, it seems like a waste of time.
Jeffrey – I appreciate your comment. I also think a lot of people would agree with you. So much of what we read and see is done for shock value anymore. The viewership for reality shows proves that people out there care a lot more about that kind of thing than I do. I dislike it, actually. I know a lot of people, though, that love to look at car accidents.