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Baseball Would Be Naive to Think Race Isn't at Least Part of the Reason
By RICHARD JUSTICE, AOL
During their years together in Oakland, they were as different as night and day.
Mark McGwire hated attention. Jose Canseco loved it.
Mark McGwire was revered as a teammate. Jose Canseco was despised.
They played these roles even after baseball. McGwire essentially disappeared from the public stage, but Canseco continued to pop up from time to time in either a scrape with the law, a comeback attempt or some quest for attention.
Now the Bash Brothers are back.
In his new tell-all book, Canseco says that McGwire used steroids. He says he and McGwire injected each other in the toilet stalls in their Oakland clubhouse.
He names others, but McGwire is the one people will be interested in. He's the one with star power.
McGwire helped revive baseball in the summer of 1998 when he and Sammy Sosa dueled for the single-season home run record. He came across as pretty much a regular guy: a good teammate and father, someone who would be just as comfortable if no reporter ever asked him a question.
Canseco had become a cartoon figure by that time, and I'm guessing jealousy played at least a small role in his reasons for writing the book.
Maybe he needed the money. Maybe he needed the notoriety. Otherwise, why would he throw a teammate under the bus?
We'll debate the ethics of steroid use and their impact on the game for decades. We won't have to debate what we think of a ******.
The most interesting part of the revelation is how fans and reporters are reacting differently to McGwire than they did to grand jury testimony implicating Barry Bonds in steroid use.
Bonds was roundly portrayed as a cheat and a disgrace. McGwire has been treated more delicately.
To think that race isn't a factor in these varying reactions would be naive.
At the same time, as someone who has spent time around both men, there are other considerations.
Bonds doesn't care what you think or I think or anyone else thinks about him. He's not much for horsing around with teammates either.
He shows up, stays in his corner of the clubhouse and does his job better than almost anyone in history.
McGwire wanted to be one of the boys. He could be tough with the media. In large group sessions, he could be as rude as Bonds.
But in one-on-one interviews, he was as approachable and as interesting as anyone I've been around.
As McGwire's name has been thrown into the public arena, Jason Giambi meets with reporters in New York to explain his own steroid use.
There are other revelations to come. Maybe more grand jury testimony will be leaked. Maybe someone else will feel the need to write a book.
And the damage isn't even finished. Even with baseball instituting a tougher testing plan for steroids, the cloud will linger.
An entire generation of players is tainted by it even if they didn't use steroids.
Bonds will take more heat than the rest. What does commissioner Bud Selig do this summer when Bonds passes Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list?
Does he ignore the accomplishment? Does he celebrate it and pretend the other stuff never happened?
Knowing Selig, I'm guessing he'll do the latter. He has a personal fondness for Bonds and will take the high road.
The rest of us will debate steroids for a long time.
We love sports because it's one person or one team testing its limits against another person or another team.
Yet fair play has limits. If one guy is chemically enhancing his body, he's got an unfair advantage.
Worst of all, other players see one guy cheating, and they feel compelled to cheat. They can study up on the negative impact of steroid use later. They only know they want to stay in the game. They feel they have to use the stuff to do that.
Baseball people have long believed Canseco was the first prominent player to use steroids. Teammates followed and then still others.
No matter how many books he writes, no matter how many ex-teammates he names, he can't escape the fact this is his lasting contribution to baseball.
By RICHARD JUSTICE, AOL
During their years together in Oakland, they were as different as night and day.
Mark McGwire hated attention. Jose Canseco loved it.
Mark McGwire was revered as a teammate. Jose Canseco was despised.
They played these roles even after baseball. McGwire essentially disappeared from the public stage, but Canseco continued to pop up from time to time in either a scrape with the law, a comeback attempt or some quest for attention.
Now the Bash Brothers are back.
In his new tell-all book, Canseco says that McGwire used steroids. He says he and McGwire injected each other in the toilet stalls in their Oakland clubhouse.
He names others, but McGwire is the one people will be interested in. He's the one with star power.
McGwire helped revive baseball in the summer of 1998 when he and Sammy Sosa dueled for the single-season home run record. He came across as pretty much a regular guy: a good teammate and father, someone who would be just as comfortable if no reporter ever asked him a question.
Canseco had become a cartoon figure by that time, and I'm guessing jealousy played at least a small role in his reasons for writing the book.
Maybe he needed the money. Maybe he needed the notoriety. Otherwise, why would he throw a teammate under the bus?
We'll debate the ethics of steroid use and their impact on the game for decades. We won't have to debate what we think of a ******.
The most interesting part of the revelation is how fans and reporters are reacting differently to McGwire than they did to grand jury testimony implicating Barry Bonds in steroid use.
Bonds was roundly portrayed as a cheat and a disgrace. McGwire has been treated more delicately.
To think that race isn't a factor in these varying reactions would be naive.
At the same time, as someone who has spent time around both men, there are other considerations.
Bonds doesn't care what you think or I think or anyone else thinks about him. He's not much for horsing around with teammates either.
He shows up, stays in his corner of the clubhouse and does his job better than almost anyone in history.
McGwire wanted to be one of the boys. He could be tough with the media. In large group sessions, he could be as rude as Bonds.
But in one-on-one interviews, he was as approachable and as interesting as anyone I've been around.
As McGwire's name has been thrown into the public arena, Jason Giambi meets with reporters in New York to explain his own steroid use.
There are other revelations to come. Maybe more grand jury testimony will be leaked. Maybe someone else will feel the need to write a book.
And the damage isn't even finished. Even with baseball instituting a tougher testing plan for steroids, the cloud will linger.
An entire generation of players is tainted by it even if they didn't use steroids.
Bonds will take more heat than the rest. What does commissioner Bud Selig do this summer when Bonds passes Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list?
Does he ignore the accomplishment? Does he celebrate it and pretend the other stuff never happened?
Knowing Selig, I'm guessing he'll do the latter. He has a personal fondness for Bonds and will take the high road.
The rest of us will debate steroids for a long time.
We love sports because it's one person or one team testing its limits against another person or another team.
Yet fair play has limits. If one guy is chemically enhancing his body, he's got an unfair advantage.
Worst of all, other players see one guy cheating, and they feel compelled to cheat. They can study up on the negative impact of steroid use later. They only know they want to stay in the game. They feel they have to use the stuff to do that.
Baseball people have long believed Canseco was the first prominent player to use steroids. Teammates followed and then still others.
No matter how many books he writes, no matter how many ex-teammates he names, he can't escape the fact this is his lasting contribution to baseball.
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