Comments on: Bold decision to hire Mark McGwire as hitting coach has paid off for Cardinals

By: genericcommenter

genericcommenter — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:38:52 +0000

I don’t remember all the details surrounding that Congressional circus thing, but I think not giving any self-incriminating testimony was the smart/no-brainer thing to do. Not talking about the past seems better to me than jabbing your finger and saying you never used steroids and then getting caught or pretending to not understand English. Those guys were placed in a position where there may have been legal consequences and they shouldn’t have been required to give up their rights just because they play baseball for a living.

The whole Congressional inquiry thing was a joke- with old fat guys who knew nothing about working out or supplements and no intellectual interest in differentiating illegal steroids and things like Flintstones vitamins.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:20:34 +0000

Jamie54,

“greenies were performance ‘enablers’, doing nothing as far as increasing muscle size, strength, bat speed”

Trust me, I have done this. They absolutely do. It is nice of you to tell us that you have a strong opinion on the subject and are clueless, so thank you!

By: nlfan865

nlfan865 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:13:13 +0000

stl….i concur. if ones morale character is a guage to the greatness of his athletic or competative abilities and accomplishments then the hall of famers could be counted on one hand…the time has come for some to come down from their high horse. if left to the governing consensus of the early governing authority of baseball such greats as satchel paige would never be in the hall of fame when they could have effected the game beyond the acheivements of those held in such high regard of their day,so to disqualify to let these modern players be subjected to this kind of self righteonous is dishonorable….joe jackson and pete rose deserve to be in the hall of fame just as ty cobb does ,because no matter their level of personal integrity….they earned it on the field of play…after all its just a game

By: gostlcards5

gostlcards5 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:56:30 +0000

I think we agree on the fundamental thing (i.e. – which comparison is good), and perhaps I misread or misunderstood your comment. Hell, ala Roger Clemens, perhaps I misremembered my answer. (ha!)

I am saying the HGH/amphetamines comparison is the reason that you really can’t strike everything from the record books, because many players throughout the years have had their performance enhanced, whether it was by (in your terms) enhancers or enablers.

By: bozosforall

bozosforall — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:19:27 +0000

Once a New England sports fan, always an excusemaker for cheaters.

By: foreverchipper10

foreverchipper10 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:16:17 +0000

I prefer a Whopper to a Big Mac.

By: docktorellis

docktorellis — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:43:43 +0000

Nice research, falcon. I had forgotten that…

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:22:13 +0000

Wow…these negative posts are something else. Hate…hate…hate…drama…drama…drama.
I attribute it to the “Jerry Springer Mentality” of today’s society. Following the strike…when Big Mac and Sammy were in the middle of their Home Run duel and the turnstiles were in perpetual motion Bud Selig (and society in general) turned their heads. Why? Because they directly benefited from it. When it suddenly become politically correct to identify (and admit to) a potential issue they start testing players, shaking fingers, slapping wrists and trying to shame individuale players.
The SAME individuals who were (in essence) their pack mules.
Add an asterisk next to the numbers and line em’ up for the Hall.
Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmero, Roger Clemens AND Mark McGwire (among many…many others) absolutely DESERVE to be in the HOF.

By: 6ball

6ball — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:18:13 +0000

Red Sox and Roger Maris ….I’m a fan of both.

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:14:56 +0000

Yeah really. Hahahaha!

By: stlouis1baseball

stlouis1baseball — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:12:44 +0000

No it didn’t!

By: dlevalley

dlevalley — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:03:27 +0000

@gostlcards5: Exactly my point. The effect of HGH is that of an ‘enabler’ (as jamie put it) and not that of an ‘enhancer’ (although the distinction is pedantic – both allow an athlete to perform athletic feats better).

Distinguishing between HGH (or even anabolic steroids) and greenies is grounded in a desire to romanticize the past, not in reality.

Also, I’m not a Cardinals fan, but it’d be fun to see them win one after being written off in August. Go Cards!

By: mianfr

mianfr — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:53:53 +0000

Clearly it was Mark McGwire’s fault for the random variance in the beginning of Albert Pujols’ season and the fact that opposing pitchers stopped intentionally walking him. The blame for that should always fall square on the hitting coach.

By: The Common Man

The Common Man — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:47:18 +0000

That’s an interesting point, but after May 24, Albert hit exactly the same as he did last year (as in the exact same OPS). Perhaps we should credit him with the turnaround. Figuring what to credit McGwire for is an imperfect science, but looking at the whole, it doesn’t seem like he’s hurt the club.

By: 1historian

1historian — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:42:33 +0000

once an asshole, always an asshole

By: braddavery

braddavery — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:37:57 +0000

The only downside… he “hitting coached” Albert Pujols into the worst hitting season he has had as a pro. Fortunately, it’s a team sport and Albert would trade a bad hitting season for playoff wins any day of the week.

By: lookatthefarside

lookatthefarside — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:22:52 +0000

Once a cheater, always a cheater.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:15:49 +0000

I remember when McGwire was first hired as the hitting coach, LaRussa said, jokingly, that he’d activate McGwire when rosters expanded in September and use him as a pinch hitter. Everyone had a nice laugh. Who in their write mind would activate and use a guy who hadn’t played in 8 years and was pushing 50 as a pinch hitter.

Turns out, whoever was managing this team would: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/1980.shtml (hint, sort by “age”).

By: kopy

kopy — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:13:30 +0000

There’s a point to what the “McGwireHater” is saying. Apologies always mean much more when the person giving it isn’t forced to do so and doesn’t have anything to personally gain from making the apology.

In this case, McGwire couldn’t be bothered to ever admit he took steroids until he realized that doing so was the only way to coach in the league. It doesn’t mean as much as just apologizing because it was the right and honest thing to do.

By: cur68

cur68 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:08:15 +0000

ipso facto..

By: Detroit Michael

Detroit Michael — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:03:35 +0000

In general, the writers don’t control who gets inducted into the Hall of Fame, just the timing. Nearly all of the borderline HoF members were inducted by the various permutations of the veterans’ committees. In the long run, it’s the veterans’ committees who will decide who gets into the Hall of Fame, and sometimes, it can be a very long gap between when a player’s career ended and when he is inducted.

I’d lean toward inducting most of the steroid era players into the Hall. Palmeiro and Ramirez were caught cheating after baseball started making efforts to enforce the band, so they are in a different position from most of the others.

If you want to wipe the record books clean of cheating, don’t forget that the New York Yankees should not have been able to cheaply trade for Roger Maris and several other Athletics players.

By: gostlcards5

gostlcards5 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:57:32 +0000

By the way, I forgot to mention this…get the Kirk Radomski book. Good read. I actually went into the book thinking “I’m going to think this guy is a real slimeball.”, but that wasn’t the case, and he really explains the effects of steroids versus HGH very well. He would seem to have the background for this, as he was heavily into bodybuilding.

By: gostlcards5

gostlcards5 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:54:59 +0000

dlevalley – HGH does not improve physical characteristics for a person, true, but it does help a player to recover from injury, fatigue, etc, at a much faster rate. Therefore, it absolutely is a performance enhancer, because it allows players to be on the field more often.

In fact, I would say that makes the amphetamines/HGH comparison a very good one, where amphetamnies/steroids is probably weak.

By: browngoat25

browngoat25 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:49:53 +0000

I learned me some Latin today…

By: cerowb

cerowb — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:41:20 +0000

I always love the headline “Successful Team Praises Hitting Coach”.
In related news, “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc”

By: dlevalley

dlevalley — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:35:07 +0000

Jamie54 – You can say that amphetamines are not performance enhancers, but that does not make it true.

Amphetamines are, and have always been, performance enhancing drugs. Caffeine has a more measurable affect on physical ability than does HGH*. Just because the science disagrees with your view of the world doesn’t make the science invalid.

*I’m not saying HGH has no effect, or that it should not be banned (and tested for). But HGH has yet to be proven to have any measurable effect on physical performance (unlike caffeine).

By: The Common Man

The Common Man — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:29:56 +0000

Wait, if something enables you to perform, doesn’t that mean that you’re on the field more often to do more things like hit home runs, steal bases, play defense, and strike people out? How is that at all different? If amphetamines do enable performance to happen that otherwise wouldn’t, doesn’t their use artificially boosts the numbers over what a player would be able to do naturally? And how is this at all different from HGH, which has not been demonstrated to help players play better, but that may help them to recover faster?

By: The Common Man

The Common Man — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:26:11 +0000

Those may very well be a benefit of the Cardinals hiring McGwire, Chew, but if they didn’t think he could actually help their hitters they wouldn’t have hired him as the hitting coach. Say whatever you want about TLR, but there’s no doubt that he doesn’t do everything in his power to try to win baseball games (even though that means getting in his team’s way at times). So if he didn’t think his hitting coach was helping the team to win, I can’t imagine he’d stick with him.

Regarding Big Mac’s no-longer-existent records, I think you’re being silly. Maris had a longer season than Ruth and an expansion of the league in his big year, so his claim over the Babe is equally tenuous. Let’s just count what actually happened on the field, then, since everyone in 1961 was playing under the same rules, and everyone in 1998 was playing in the same Wild West atmosphere.

By: jamie54

jamie54 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:22:12 +0000

Get over yourself already. McGwire was good but certainly not ‘great’ and definitely performance ‘enhanced’ whereas greenies were performance ‘enablers’, doing nothing as far as increasing muscle size, strength, bat speed, etc., so spare us your ‘greenies as illegal’ argument, BS.

By: thefalcon123

thefalcon123 — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:07:44 +0000

McGwireHater: Man, McGwire needs to just fess up! That “I don’t want to talk about the past” stuff is weak! I won’t forgive him until he admits it.

McGwire on TV: I did steroids and I’m sorry!

McGwireHater: Whatta jerk! He’s only admitting it because he has to! Booooooooooooo!