We have a breaking story here at Outside the Boxscore and that is former Athletics/Cardinals star Mark McGwire has told the Associated Press that he used steroids during his play career.
We get more from MLB.com:
Mark McGwire acknowledged on Monday that he used steroids during his Major League playing career, including in 1998 when he broke Major League Baseball's single-season home run record.
McGwire made the revelation in a statement issued to news outlets on Monday afternoon. McGwire will address the situation further in an interview with Bob Costas on MLB Network at 7 p.m. ET on Monday. The program will be simulcast on MLB.com.
"I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize," McGwire said in the release. "I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989-1990 offseason and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the '90s, including during the 1998 season. I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era."
The Cardinals announced in October that McGwire would be the team's hitting coach for the 2010 season.
Although this isn't a huge surprise to anyone, the timing of it is just weird. Sure, I understand that McGwire would have to talk about the subject eventually when he took the job with the St Louis Cardinals but I didn't expect him to talk about it this soon.
Most of us who grew up in the mid 90's and remember the Chase to 62 between McGwire and Sammy Sosa will now refer to that period of time as being tainted in some form.
It's sad but true.
The real question is how will this affect McGwire's candidacy for the MLB Hall of Fame? He did garner a fair amount of votes this time around but I'm not 100% sure this will help him get into the hall since many other alleged steroid users are pretty much being left at the doorstep at this point.
This is the sad part of the steroid era, baseball heroes become mere mortals and the sport of baseball continues to have a dark cloud hovering over-head.
