McGwire: Why would player cheat?

The face of performance-enhancing drugs now can’t understand why an athlete would engage in their use.

Mark McGwire was perhaps the first major leaguer to truly bring PED use into focus. To accomplish that, all he had to do was break MLB’s all-time single-season home run record while taking PEDs.

After a long exile from baseball and the limelight, McGwire spent the past two seasons with the Cardinals as their hitting coach, and was just recently hired in the same position by the Dodgers to move back closer to home. After accepting the position, McGwire granted an interview to Fox Sports Radio (compiled by Sports Radio Interviews) in which he said some very interesting things, considering his history.

“I’m a great example of what happens when, I mean I owned up to it,” said McGwire. “Why anybody would even think about doing that today I have no idea. I’m sad for these guys but then again you have to look at Major League Baseball and what they have done to crack down on it, it’s been fantastic for the game of baseball and you just have to move on from it.”

Give credit McGwire for at least one thing: he certainly has long-term implication in mind. He seems to have come to terms with the fact that he’ll never be in the Hall of Fame, but beyond baseball consequences, honestly telling his children about his indiscretions, he says, was not worth his time on top.

“It’s a mistake that I have to live with for the rest of my life. I have to deal with never, ever getting into the Hall of Fame. I totally understand and totally respect their opinion and I will never, ever push it. That is the way it’s going to be and I can live with that. One of the hardest things I had to do this year was sit down with my nine and ten year old boys and tell them what dad did. That was a really hard thing to do but I did it.”

While McGwire may never end up in Cooperstown, it does speak to his love of the game that he came back to deal with the inevitable questions to work in the sport again.