By Mike Pound
mpound@joplinglobe.com
There is a great scene in the movie “Casablanca” when Captain Renault decides he’s going to shut Humphrey Bogart’s place down because of reports of gambling on the property, which is sort of suspicious since Bogart’s place is a casino and the good Captain is a frequent customer.
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” Captain Renault says while at the same time one of the table guys hands him a stack of money he has just won.
I thought about that scene while reading about some of the big-time sports media folks reacting to Mark McGwire’s long-anticipated admission that, yes, he too used steroids.
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that steroid use is going on here,” is basically what some folks said, while most other folks said, “Well, DUH!!!”
Look, McGwire did a very dumb thing. He cheated. Not once. Not twice. But over and over, all the while hitting home runs at an amazing pace. In the summer of 1998, he and Sammy Sosa captivated the nation as they both went on record home run binges. The only problem is the whole home run drama was pretty much built on a house of cards. And the records, now, are about as worthless as a Bernie Madoff financial report.
But even the causal baseball fans were starting to wonder, during that summer of home runs, why baseballs were flying out of ballparks faster than Tiger Woods flying around a Hooters restaurant. Even the casual baseball fans were starting to wonder how so many baseball players were developing Hulk-like physiques. So, if the casual fan was starting to wonder, what were the sports writers — the guys who covered baseball during the so-called steroid era — thinking? Well, if they weren’t thinking something was hinky, then they weren’t thinking.
My guess is they were thinking. My guess is they figured something was hinky, but they decided it was much more fun to write about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa playing dueling home runs than it was to write about possible steroid use. Besides, they probably figured, the baseball bigwigs — the players union, the owners, the league officials — obviously didn’t care or they would have been testing players for steroids back then.
None of this makes what McGwire, Sosa (allegedly), Barry Bonds (allegedly), Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens (allegedly), Rafael Palmeiro and probably hundreds of other players did OK. It just gives it some perspective.
In one of his many interviews on Monday, McGwire said he starting taking steroids in 1990. He said guys talked openly about the stuff in the gym, and that steroids were readily available.
“I really didn’t think much of it,” he said.
Apparently nobody else connected with baseball did either.
But, again, nobody forced McGwire to take steroids. He had to know that what he was doing was cheating at the least, and illegal at the worst. By the way, the only part of McGwire’s apology that really bothers me is his insistence that his steroid use had nothing to do with his ability to hit home runs. McGwire insists that steroids helped him heal faster, helped him recover from workouts faster. They didn’t, he insists, help his hand-eye coordination. They didn’t help his ability to get the bat on the ball.
Well, McGwire can believe that if he wants, but I’m not buying it.
But beyond that, I figure McGwire has made his apology and should be allowed to move forward. He admitted what he did. He admitted what he did was wrong, and he said he was sorry. What more do big-time sports media folks need? Oh sure, they can keep him out of the Hall of Fame, but I’m pretty sure McGwire figured that was part of the deal a long time ago. Nope, he said he was sorry. Let’s let the guy move on.
And let the big-time sports guys and the big-time baseball officials continue to be “shocked, shocked” to find out that steroid use went on in baseball.
