Burgos: McGwire did the right thing — and you can’t deny that

Mark McGwire spoke to the public Monday. More specifically, he spoke with Bob Costas on the MLB… Mark McGwire spoke to the public Monday. More specifically, he spoke with Bob Costas on the MLB Network and admitted to something he probably should have fessed up to long ago.

Though tried in the court of public opinion since a fateful day in 2005, when the former first-baseman refused to answer questions about the use of performance-enhancing drugs at a congressional hearing, it was not until this week that McGwire definitively told the world that he used steroids and human growth hormones on occasion from 1993 through 1998. In 1998, he claimed the single-season home run record, belting 70. He retired from the game three years later.

Throughout his long interview with Costas, and through a written statement released earlier that day, McGwire maintained that the sole reason he used the drugs was to aid and expedite recovery time. He said this was due to a myriad of injuries sustained throughout the ’90s and that he did not use the drugs to gain a competitive edge.

“There’s not a pill or an injection that’s going to give me, going to give any player, the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball,” McGwire told Costas.

Costas, for his part, did well in the interview. He asked pointed and direct questions and did not cut McGwire any slack. The key was that Costas wasn’t buying all that McGwire, who amassed 583 home runs in a 16-year career, was selling.

McGwire had tears in his eyes. His voice cracked on multiple occasions. At one juncture, the interview took a brief commercial intermission to allow the disconsolate slugger to gather himself.

Whether rational or otherwise, it seemed clear that McGwire believed what he said. It seems nonsensical to think that steroids wouldn’t help you hit a baseball, but the look in McGwire’s eyes and his demeanor revealed that in his mind, this was truly the case.

Although he was professional, Costas appeared to have contempt for that explanation. Here McGwire was, after years of baseball exile for the belief that he used drugs, finally giving his side of the story, and Costas wasn’t satisfied.

It seemed that in the mind of Costas, and probably for droves of other talking heads, journalists and sports people, McGwire was at least partially untruthful. By and large, when it comes to matters of the steroid era of baseball and the accused athletes, all people want is honesty to ease the slights they’ve sufffered. Despite this romantic, feel-good view, it isn’t really accurate, as Costas demonstrated. What people really want is for athletes to tell them what they think — to agree with them. It is never enough for an athlete to admit dishonesty, shame and cheating. It isn’t enough for the athlete to say what he, deep down, feels about the matter that most directly affects him and his family.

Something to know about athletes, especially professional ones, is that they tend to have supreme confidence in themselves. They have gone their entire existence excelling at what they do — at being the best. So, rational or not, it is completely plausible that McGwire believes it when he says he did not take steroids to gain strength. Call it denial or call it ignorance, but McGwire seemed genuine.

Costas, and others who have weighed in on the subject this week, don’t appear to feel that way. The majority of what McGwire said Monday has been taken as truth, with only this one glaring hole. In contrast, I think this viewpoint should be reconsidered. People should take into account the tremendous anxiety and pressure that goes into such an admission.

They should recognize the mentality of an athlete, especially of one like McGwire, who, steroids or not, stands tied eighth all-time on the career home run list. They should focus on what Big Mac did say because, despite any minor gripes Costas and the like may have, today the world knows a better, more honest McGwire.