Baseball is best when it’s kept natural

In another era, when Major League Baseball still had an aura of purity and innocence, fans might have said, "Say it ain't so, Mark," to Mark McGwire's admission of steroid use.

As it is today, the response was more like a shoulder shrug and a sarcastic, "Really?"

McGwire wasn't fooling anyone when he used legal-dodgeball language before Congress during a March 2005 hearing on steroid use in Major League Baseball.

He now says he's coming clean with friends, family, teammates and the world. He's also becoming a hitting coach for St. Louis, but we won't get into questioning the motivation of a man who says he "took the hit" back in 2005 to save friends and family embarrassment.

Before we get into the whole argument about how steroids have tainted the hitting records of baseball in recent years, let's consider the legal and moral aspect of McGwire's maneuvering.

There are people facing trials and criminal prosecution for supplying steroids to professional ballplayers. McGwire may speak eloquently and contritely about "taking the hit," but he's effectively hidden a bigger issue: Who's the supplier? Where did he get the steroids? McGwire admits he gave his weasel-word laced testimony on advice of attorneys and because he was unable to get Congressional immunity. There's no high ground for self-preservation, except, perhaps, in organized crime, where McGwire's actions would cause him to be hailed as a "stand-up guy." Baseball is a place where "stand-up guys" should tell the truth.

McGwire said he took the drugs only to heal faster as he got older. Effectively, he extended his prime with pharmaceuticals, where others enjoyed looking back on their seasons in the sun while their physical talents declined late in their careers.

McGwire's era was sadly tainted. The excitement of his single-season home-run competition with Sammy Sosa is a mere asterisk. The way players suddenly grew and were able to smack the ball around made it obvious something was going on outside the realm of regular physical training. Records fell, but they should have the names of scientists, not the ballplayers, next to them.

As it is, baseball remains bigger than the pharmaceutical muscle of McGwire and others. Fans are still excited as the date for pitchers and catchers to report approaches, signaling spring once more.

That's because McGwire hit on one basic fact in his statements Monday: Steroids don't make a natural baseball player. Hand-eye coordination is not a gift from a test tube. The mind of a ballplayer, the knowledge of the game, doesn't come from a syringe.

And that's what brings the fans out, year after year.

The players need to keep that message always in mind.