The Man Upstairs

"The man of upstairs gave me the ability to hit a baseball far....he gave me hand/eye coordination"so heralds the long awaited and anticipated mea culpa from the exiled, I mean, "retired" St. Louis Cardinal, Mark McGwire, to Bob Costas this past week on a national TV show. McGwire's last public sighting was of his clumsy and pathetic "I'm not here to talk about the past" gaffe made in front of the US Congress Oversight Committee in 2005 investigating Major League Baseball's apparent addiction to illegal performance enhancing drugs or "peds" including steroids and human growth hormones "hgh." At long last, McGwire came clean that he did in fact used steroids for 10 years. He used steroid capsules in small doses only (no butt injections from Jose "not on Mark's Christmas card list" Canseco) and HGH for nagging injuries caused from a 162 game season. Improved performance on the field, if perceived, was purely coincidental during this steroid phase of his life according to McGwire...for "the man upstairs" supplied him with all the power and ability needed to play the game he loved...he did not need no stinkin' drugs to do dat!

OK, let's take the tear streamed rose-colored glasses off and look at this more clearly. I feel like writing the contrite Mark and more importantly, Baseball, a letter.

Dear Mark and Baseball,

Mark, "the man upstairs" may have given you the greatest ability to hit a baseball but he sure missed giving you some native intelligence in the brain department to go along with all those muscles, instincts and perfect eyes. Please do not insult my intelligence which "the man upstairs" gave me to discern between fact and fiction. The facts are you wanted to get back into baseball which you said plaintively to Costas, "...because I loved it" and it do this you had to face the music. And, you got into USC for your baseball talents not your academic excellence. The fiction is equally apparent. You tearfully confessed because you want back in the game on your terms; that is, the drugs helped with "my walking Mash unit" body but did not help my performance at all and my numbers and records should stand the test of HOF scrutiny. I'm sorry but this is absurd. I feel sorry for you not for what you did and how you deceived and subsequently hurt so many supporters for so long but how you were used as a dense pawn by the next addressed group.

Baseball, which includes the following: Bud Selig, MLB, Players Union, Owners, Managers, Coaches, Scouts, Sponsors, Players, Trainers and anybody who profits from baseball are the real miscreants in this "Steroid Era." You all knew what was going on all along. It's like exonerating Stevie Williams and Mark Steinberg, Tiger Wood's closest employees, for not knowing anything of Tiger's off the course escapades. Give me a freaking break! You all conspired and turned a blind eye to this drug culture because it improved the attendance, TV ratings, sponsors and the bottom line. In the 1998 season with the Maris homerun chase on between McGwire and Sammy Sosa, the race captivated an American audience and was widely advertised as a season in which "baseball was saved." Baseball, your benign neglect on this matter similarly mirrors the greedy attitudes of the Wall Street brethren who also looked for a easy way to make a buck with exotic investments that no one understood at the great risk of toppling the global economy at no personal expense to them. In their case, the scoundrels on Wall Street used "credit default swaps" to fatten their purses, in your case you used "baseball saps" to perpetuate a theatrical charade on the field to fill your coffers. Shameful.

What have we learned gentlemen and ladies from this sullied era in sports? Nothing really. Life will go on. People will forget and forgive, most of them. McGwire will become a successful coach with the STL Cardinals. Ballparks will fill up again with adoring fans. Drug testing will be ten steps behind the agile offenders by design. And the greedy profiteers will continue to make gobs of money while fielding a product bereft of honesty and integrity for the unending appetite of all of us, the fans. For our memories are short and our hunger for entertainment remains unsatiated. Are we to blame as well?

Batter up.

PS. Mark, just wondering, is "the man upstairs" a Cardinal fan or a Cubs fan? and, what if it's really "the woman upstairs?" Mark, we have NOW on line 1 for you.