by Chris Humpherys

Created on: January 13, 2010

I don’t like movies that are predictable.  Like the typical romantic comedy where the couple who despises each other falls in love in the end or the true-crime thriller where we know the killer’s identity from scene one.  Scriptwriters may try to pull the wool over our eyes but the American public is not stupid.  We might be disinterested.  We might be overweight.  But we know what we like.  Entertain us.  Just don’t lie, don’t cheat and don’t mislead. 

Take Mark McGwire for example.  Is there a baseball fan in America that for one second doubted he was on steroids?  His announcement was followed by a collectively sarcastic “Oh really.”

McGwire was a string bean when he came into the league.  Tall and lanky.  A power-hitter for sure but not a 70-home run a year guy.  Nobody was.  At least not until the needle entered the locker room.

Even the most ardent McGwire fan couldn’t look you straight in the face and tell you Mac wasn’t juicing.  Like your average predictable movie, everyone in the audience knew what was coming.  But we watched anyway.  After all, what’s a Big Mac without the special sauce?

The Sosa-McGwire home run race of 1998 made for great theater.  After a cancelled World Series only a few years earlier, fans desperately wanted to believe in the national pastime again.  What better way that to make that happen than to have one of its most hallowed records fall?

We knew the numbers were tainted, the shadow of a giant asterisk looming overhead.  What we didn’t know was how long McGwire could live the lie. 

When Andy Pettitte admitted to using performance enhancing drugs, it was a big thing... for a while.  He said he took them to expedite rehabilitation.  Pettitte came clean, we moved on.  His legal advisors obviously didn’t work for the firm of Clemens, Bonds & Palmeiro.

In essence, McGwire’s confession didn’t resolve anything.  A number of questions remain unanswered.

Instead of refusing to “talk about the past” at the Congressional hearings, what if McGwire had admitted taking steroids right then and there?  Would that have changed anything, and if so how?  Would others have come clean sooner?  Instead we’re left with the image of Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro standing outside the courtroom like the

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>