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McGwire Comes Clean

The Mark McGwire steroid admission has to be the biggest non-news of the new decade.

Of course, we all knew McGwire took steroids during his heyday in the late 1990’s when he put up four straight seasons of 50+ home runs and 100+ RBIs. McGwire was always a good hitter, but not that good.

Who knows why McGwire waited so long to admit his doping. He definitely has his reasons. It’s been rumoured that the St. Louis Cardinals asked him to do it after they hired him as their new hitting coach last October.

You could also make the case that he wanted to wait and see if he would be inducted into the Hall of Fame before coming clean. Admitting steroid use, obviously, is rather detrimental to ones chances.

In 2007 — McGwire’s first year on the ballot — he received 23.5 of the 75 per cent of the vote that is required for induction — a number that stayed constant in 2008 and then dropped to just below 22 per cent in 2009. Making up the 53% of the ballots McGwire needed to get into the hall would be an extraordinary feat, steroid admission or not. So, might as well put all the cards on the table.

Either way, McGwire was never worthy of the Hall of Fame, it says here. I belong to the school of thought that says a hall of famer should excel at all aspects of the game — not just hitting.

There’s no debating that McGwire was a terrific hitter — although his .217 post season batting average suggests he couldn’t get it done in the clutch. McGwire’s 583 home runs and 1414 RBIs are impressive numbers, however his 12 career stolen bases and pedestrian defence would disqualify him from my Hall of Fame ballot.

McGwire spent the overwhelming majority —98 per cent of the games he played — of his career at first base, where he posted a respectable .993 fielding percentage. But consider that the average fielding percentage for all other first baseman during the time he played was also .993 per cent. So really, McGwire was just average — never anything special.

McGwire also played 24 games at third base, where his fielding percentage dropped dramatically to .827. McGwire committed 9 errors in those 24 games on the hot corner, meaning he would commit an error every 3 games. Expand those numbers to an entire season and you get 61 errors in a 162 game campaign. That’s porous defence by MLB standards, where the league average for fielding percentage among third basemen in 2009 was .956.

For me, a Hall of Famer has to excel at all aspects of the game. A special, five-tool player —like, oh I don’t know, Roberto Alomar — is the ideal Hall of Famer.

As far as the steroids issue goes, it’s well and fine that McGwire came clean. The story will come in what happens next.

Hopefully his admission will have a trickle down effect and provoke some of his peers to come clean on their steroid use as well.

As McGwire, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez have all proven in the past 12 months, there are really zero consequences for a steroid admission — might as well put the cards on the table.

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