Disgraced MLB star makes bold steroid claim that's raising eyebrows
In the summer of 1998, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa put baseball back in the public eye, saving the sport after the disastrous 1994 players strike canceled the World Series and left fans disgusted with the national pastime.
The two sluggers’ efforts to chase and eventually shatter Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs in a single season was the shot of juice baseball needed to regain some of its popularity. Sosa ended up with 66 home runs, but it was McGwire, with 70, who became a legend.
Trouble was, the sport wasn’t the only one getting a shot of juice. McGwire later admitted in an interview with Bob Costas that he had spent the season on performance-enhancing drugs.
Now, 20 years after that memorable run, McGwire has said something else noteworthy, claiming that even without the steroids, he still would have broken Maris’ record.
“Absolutely,” McGwire told The Athletic‘s Jayson Stark. “I just know myself. I just know. I was a born home run hitter. I mean, unfortunately, I did (take PEDs). And I’ve regretted that. I’ve talked about that. I regretted it. I didn’t need to. That’s the thing. Didn’t need to.”
“Deep down inside, I know me as a hitter. And I know what I did in that box. And I know how strong my mind is. And I know what kind of hitter I became,” he added.
If that were true, though, then why didn’t he eclipse the 50-homer mark before 1996, when he was 32 years old.
Or, if he could have hit 70 home runs without steroids, why didn’t he hit more than 70 when he was on them?
McGwire is the bench coach for the San Diego Padres these days, where he teaches players like fellow first baseman Wil Myers — who hit a career-high 30 home runs in 2017 — how to get the most out of their body without resorting to the pharmaceutical tricks of McGwire’s day.
In that same interview with Stark, McGwire tried to explain away his PED confession, revising history a bit to fit his 2018 narrative.
“There wasn’t anything going on (to keep the sport clean),” McGwire said.
“The game has done a terrific job of doing what they’re doing now. I commend them for doing it. I think we all wish (testing) went on when we had played. But unfortunately, it didn’t.”
It is telling that nobody has hit 70 home runs since PED testing began — McGwire’s 70-homer year and Barry Bonds’ record-setting 73-homer season three years later remain the only two such seasons in baseball history.
It is perhaps even more telling that only two men in history have hit 60 homers or more without being linked to PEDs, and they’re the same two men who have held that honor since 1961 — Babe Ruth and Roger Maris.
Giancarlo Stanton came close last year, hitting 59 home runs for the Miami Marlins, and quite a few people in baseball circles think that ought to stand as the true National League record for dingers in a season.
As for McGwire, he also said that if there had been testing two decades ago, there is “no way” he would have used PEDs.
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