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 [1] 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 [2] 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 [3]. 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 [4] 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 [5] 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 [6] 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 [7], 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 [8] 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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[11]Alan Spoll [12]
[11]Latest posts by Alan Spoll (Posts [13])
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