Mark McGwire a Hero? ABSOLUTELY!
Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008
by KarieAnn Duggan
On Sept. 8th, the 10 year anniversary of McGwire's record breaking #62 home run, Yahoo published an article and I have officially become ashamed to be part of a society that will eagerly and enthusiastically devote more time and effort discrediting another's success than achieving their own. We're treading on dangerous ground with the possibility of irreversible damage and no one seems to care or even notice that it's happening. We have become our own worst enemy.
Years ago someone asked me who my hero was, I thought about it for a minute and answered "my little brother". Those who knew my brother assumed I felt that way because he was an exceptional athlete, with consistently impressive record setting stats. Though I was certainly proud of that, it's not what made him a hero in my eyes. It was all the years of 4:30a.m. alarm clocks on cold sleepy mornings, that he got out of bed for. The lazy carefree days of summer vacations, that he spent in an ice rink. The evening sitcoms he never saw because there was no tv in the garage, where he was working on his stick handling. The broken bones and torn muscles that he was careful not to hurt while practicing, and every other set back, of which there were many, he pushed his way through. He always credited his teammates as the reason for his success and cringed every time our older brother (who lost his shot due to the injuries he sustained when he was hit by a car while riding his bike to school) could hear people saying he was great. He believed his talent was a gift and understood it meant nothing if he didn't put in the work and make the necessary sacrifices. My brother was my hero because he was 4 years old when he saw his dream, and spent the next 18 years bound and determined to reach it because that's what it takes to be great.
When a sports writer, such as Yahoo's Jeff Passan can make the statement " No one knew, and no one really cared, either. Logic should have screamed that this was all a fraud, a sham, a pharmacologically aided freak show. But it was fun. Logic loses in the face of fun." (referring to the McGwire / Sosa showdown, written on the 10 th anniversary of McGwire's record breaking #62, a day that should have been celebrated.) I sink farther into the fear that there's not an ounce of decency left within us. Have our egos become such a burden to us that we're willing to ignore the 20+ years of blood, sweat & tears that preceded #62, so that we don't have to admit we wanted the dream but were too lazy to do the work? It's the adult equivalent to a playground bully saying "neener neener, if I can't have it you can't either!". Where does this madness stop if we are willing to throw away a man that energized and inspired an entire nation with his good nature and determination, because a reporter saw a bottle of a legal herbal supplement in his locker? I assure you, if a world renowned athlete has something to hide, it would be hidden, not sitting in a place common to reporters and photographers with a label advertising it. Again, a legal supplement anyone could buy, at any corner nutritional store. It claimed to help your body temporarily increase testosterone levels, by temporarily, I mean about 3 hours and by "help your body" I mean it's a chemical from a plant that mimics the chemical in a man's body telling it to make more testosterone. The body is a pretty smart machine, though, so the regulator kicks in to keep from over producing. Now, I'm no expert but I've known plenty of people with fertility issues and common causes of low testosterone levels are: age, high protein / low carb diets, lack of sleep and working out the same muscle groups 2 days in a row, without a day in between to repair. Sure does sound like the life style of a mid season MLB player to me, so I hope the Androstenedione helped get things back to good for you, Mark. However, I have trouble believing a whole lot of this dietary supplement was used since the blurred vision side effect would have made a little white ball coming in at 90mph a wee bit hard to hit!
Let's look at it worst case scenario, he swallowed these pills by the boatload and they were "performance enhancing", did he have an advantage over other players? There's no way of knowing that because, again, anyone can buy it, it's legal. Generally speaking, if a person finds a product that makes them feel good, they tell their friends so they can feel good as well. How do we justify saying to someone "hey, remember a few years ago when you took those herbs? We've thought about it and decided to make them illegal, you're a horrible person for taking them and don't deserve to be remembered, don't show your face here again! Oh, wait, before you go, can you give us names of your fellow teammates so we can ruin them too?"
I wonder who we'll take down when it's decided that energy drinks are illegal. Come to think of it, we should probably go ahead and have Ty Cobb and any of the other old timers, removed from the Hall of Fame, odds are good they drank Coca Cola which contained cocaine at that time and most likely would have enhanced performance. Hell, why stop at baseball, I'm sure Edison, Ford & Einstein drank it too, so let's remove those names from our history books. 'Thanks for your contribution guys but your probably not as smart as we thought you were, it may have been enhanced by a dangerous drug that's illegal now.' Are we starting to feel better about ourselves yet? If not we could always grab a bunch of mothers and grandmother's that endangered the lives of their children by letting them ride in cars without being buckled up, this carelessness should not go unpunished. If reading this has given you a headache, would your co-workers think less of you for taking a pain reliever which would enable you to focus on your job and not your pain?
Todays "American Dream" is nothing more than an unrecognizable bastardization of a brilliant concept that spawned the most powerful country in the world and we're destroying it with greed and selfishness. We need to get over the feeling that we're entitled to the dream and remember we're only entitled to the pursuit, the rest is up to us. We need to recognize, encourage and be proud of our neighbors when they do well, they're on our team and we need as many great players as we can get. We need to hold ourselves accountable for where we are in life, no matter what's happened in the past, the past is over and will never be here again, so there's no chance of changing it; may as well let go of it if it's holding you down. Stop looking for scandals, you will always find one and a negative story is a poor trade off for heroes and roll models. And for God's sake, someone needs to step up to the plate and apologize to Mark McGwire. There may not be another person in the history of the world to unexpectedly suffer a broken heart inflicted by millions. The pain of one person breaking your heart is bad enough, I don't believe anyone could begin to comprehend his pain. We killed an icon, what good did it do???
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)An excellent passion filled article. What can one say? If you have read my work you already know where I stand on the character of the nation. You presented some excellent arguments. Yet, like my writing, I find people don't do well when confronted with facts or truth. How sad. Good job.
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