The Chris Moeller Archives

I read your columns, you magnificent bastards!

I spent the afternoon flipping through old St. Louis Cardinals newspaper clippings. Obsessive compulsions I suffered in my youth led me to clip nearly every article I came across related to the team during the ages of 13 to 29. When Iowa newspapers no longer provided enough copy to feed my insatiable habit, I began a subscription to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and it wasn't long before I had filled a three-foot-tall file cabinet. The conclusion of the Cardinals' participation in the 2004 World Series seemed like a good stopping point, and perhaps not coincidentally, this blog began just a month later.

Anywho... I have damn near every home run account recorded from Mark McGwire's historic 1998 season in St. Louis, as well as articles culled from Sports Illustrated, Baseball Weekly, and various other sources reprinted in the Post. I had forgotten some of the bits and pieces that made the season so indelible in the immediate aftermath-- McGwire's ejection from a nationally-televised game in August, Sammy Sosa's two short-lived leads in the home run race, homer #65 1/2-- stolen by umpire Bob Davidson in Milwaukee, McGwire's slightly-overweight pre-teen son serving as batboy, the $3 million Mac pledged to fight child abuse-- a lofty sum rarely matched in gift-giving history by a sports celebrity, and the unprincipled media attacks leveled at Sosa after Jose Lima supposedly "grooved" pitches to his fellow countryman. I even found a blurb I missed the first time through-- an admission by former big-league pitcher Milt Pappas that he did groove pitches to Roger Maris, when he allowed #59 to the Yankees' slugger in 1961.

I had forgotten the true level of the national hysteria in '98. ABC news anchor Charlie Gibson broadcast an hour-long prime-time TV special the night before Mac hit the record-tying #61 (with me and three friends headed to the game,) McGwire filmed a scene in bed with Helen Hunt following the season for an episode of "Mad About You," and not only did the slugger appear as a guest on David Letterman, but so did the kid who caught the record-breaking home run ball.

Imagine my fascination re-reading these ancient tributes to Big Mac, living as we do now in the age of revisionist home run history and performance-enhancement McCarthyism. I was particularly interested in tracing the articles related to the discovery of the then-legal dietary supplement androstenedione in McGwire's locker August 22, after an AP reporter snooped through the clubhouse following a game. Surely, sports reporters, knowing full well as they did at the time that Major League Baseball had no steroid or drug testing program of any kind in place, and no written guidelines whatsoever as to what players could or could not consume in pursuit of their professional excellence, and knowing full well also that the NFL and the International Olympic Committee had already banned that particular substance-- surely, our poets of the press box expressed serious doubts, or at least, tempered enthusiasm for McGwire's exploits, and wondered aloud then whether the sport of baseball was doing enough to protect its integrity against such sinister foreign substances...

You be the judge...

Dan Shaughnessy, Boston Globe: No wonder ballplayers loathe the media. Mark McGwire is stalking one of baseball's most cherished records... and suddenly he's engaged in a tabloid-driven controversy that's painting him as a cheater and a bad role model. It's unfair... McGwire's been a good citizen, never one to disgrace the uniform. Most recently he's dedicated his charity efforts to awareness and funding for abused children. And now he's got to read that he's a bad example to young athletes? Please.

Bill Thompson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: A reporter decided to invent a scandal by revealing that the once injury-prone McGwire uses a dietary supplement to bolster his strength and durability. There was no reason in the world to report the information except to create controversy.

Steve Bisheff, Orange County Register: Roger Maris' home run record, should McGwire break it, will not be tainted. McGwire is doing nothing wrong. He isn't breaking any rules. He isn't even stretching them.

Murray Chass, New York Times (whose commentary, to his credit, has avoided hypocrisy in the subsequent years): If they are going to question the home run record because of the pills, they better go back and investigate some of baseball's records that were produced with the aid of amphetamines. In past years, some of the game's best players were said to have played their careers on amphetamines. So no bluenose asterisk, please, for a McGwire home run record.

Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Why can't everyone enjoy Sosa and McGwire and this experience? There's the International Olympic Committee, which revived its attack on McGwire for his use of a legal supplement, androstenedione. Memo to the hypocrites at the IOC: Clean up your mess before you start to preach about other sports, OK?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Yes, the IOC has banned androstenedione. It also has banned Flintstones chewables, Visine, Luden's Smith Bros. cough drops and some flavors of saltwater taffy. True, the NFL also has banned andro, but it does allow two-a-day workouts in 98-degree temperatures in mid-August.

Jack McCallum, Sports Illustrated: Get this straight: McGwire's use of androstenedione, which he may not have advertised but didn't try to hide, should not taint his achievement if he breaks the Roger Maris record... if baseball were to ban andro, then he could be faulted if he kept on using it. To hold McGwire to a higher standard than his sport does is unfair.

Everyone was complicit-- from the league, to the media, to the fans, to our elected representatives who made not a peep at the time, focused as they were on the president's underpants. We soaked the story for all it was worth. The league cashed its checks. The media outlets cashed theirs. Congress cozied up to a feel-good story, as it always does, and the fans embraced a hero, asking only that he give his all within the bounds of the rulebook. He obliged. End of story.

posted by CM @ 4:09 PM