Say It Ain't So, Big Mac

A shocking revelation took the baseball world by storm last night. Mark McGwire, Major League Baseball’s former single season home run king, admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs during his climb up the all time home run list in the mid to late 1990s.

I can’t believe it. This is Mark McGwire we’re talking about here. He of the tree trunk like biceps and with a chest the size of a Volkswagen. He’s the last guy I would ever expect to have been abusing steroids.

Bullshit.

In other news, the sky has been determined to be blue.

McGwire’s twenty minute mea culpa was such a load of crap. The transcript of his statement to the media is inundated with words like ‘apologize’, ‘sorry’, ‘foolish’ and ‘mistake’. Sorry Big Mac, but the purpose of coming clean is so transparent, your entire tearful apology reeks of insincerity.

First of all, he is not sorry for making millions of dollars and hitting all of those home runs. Nor is he sorry for deceiving his legions of fans for the past decade. He IS sorry for having his hand forced to admit all of his past transgressions.

This apology is just the first step in McGwire’s sickeningly obvious master plan. He wants to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Evidenced by his desultory vote totals over the past four years, the dream wasn’t coming to fruition with Big Mac keeping his mouth shut and staying out of the public eye.

Therefore, he decided to accept the hitting coach position with the St. Louis Cardinals as a way for him to get back into the game and, hopefully, the good graces of the baseball writers. The only way he could accept the position was to admit his past ‘mistakes’. Also, he naively believes that coming clean will force the Hall of Fame voters to reconsider his case.

Sorry, Mark, but you were never a good enough player to be in the Hall of Fame. Without steroids, you were just a shitty player who could hit the ball out of the ballpark at a decent frequency. Steroids made you Big Mac.

On the other hand, guys like Barry Bonds, A-Rod and Manny will be inducted into Cooperstown regardless of their PED use. They were great players before they started juicing.

My two favourite parts from McGwire’s speech:

1. He points to a rash of injuries as being the catalyst for taking steroids. I’m not a medical doctor, but the whole point of steroids is to build extreme muscle mass, at the expense of your tendons, bones and ligaments. You are more susceptible to injuries after you take steroids. Nice try though, Mark.

2. McGwire says he’s going to “do everything I can to help the Cardinals hitters become the best players for years to come. Even if that means injecting syringe needles into their asses before games” (Ok, I made up half of that quote but, be honest, it’s hard to tell which part, isn’t it?)

Since I’m discussing artificial aids to help performance, I think it’s apt to quickly discuss last night’s episode of The Bachelor (there was enough silicone on my TV screen to power, uh, a lot of stuff for which silicone is used for? Something to do with computers? I really should have researched silicone before I made that joke).

My new short list of favourites is Ali, Ashleigh (when she strolled up to Jake in that black bikini, I may have lost consciousness for a minute or two), Tenley and Elizabeth.

However, I am wavering on Elizabeth. I actually liked her rule that she won’t kiss Jake unless she’s the last remaining girl. I can respect that and it would have had me intrigued. I also would have given her a rose.

That being said, when she started playing silly buggers and asked Jake if he wanted to kiss her, and told him she was a great kisser, and planted her face six inches away from him, I started getting pissed off. I don’t like games. If Jake had any semblance of testosterone, he would have manned up and told her to stop fucking around.

I would have taken her rose back and then thrown her off a roller coaster.