Mark McGwire, spring training, 2001.
Mark McGwire on Capitol Hill today.
Posted on 03/17/2005 12:17:34 PM PST by Cagey
WASHINGTON (AP) - Retired slugger Mark McGwire Thursday told a congressional panel investigating drugs in baseball that he would not "participate in naming names" of players who used steroids. McGwire did not say in his opening statement to the House Government Reform Committee whether he used steroids.
Two current players, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, said they never used steroids. That duo and McGwire were accused of using performance-enhancing drugs by Jose Canseco in a best-selling book that helped prompt the hearing.
In a tense scene, Canseco sat at the same table as the other players as he told the lawmakers that he could not fully answer their questions because of concerns his testimony could be used against him.
Choking back tears, his voice cracking, McGwire said he knows that steroid use can be dangerous and will do whatever he can to discourage young athletes from using them.
"What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and teammates," said McGwire, who ranks sixth in major league history with 583 homers.
Canseco blew all his millions, so in order to make a few million, he turned into National Basesball Rat Fink. What a whore!!
I wouldn't answer to those crooked bastards. Mac did the right thing.
"Of course, they're well compensated, so they're not complaining, but the image that these guys are just pampered, lazy athletes is just wrong. They work incrediby hard."
Cry me a river. Better yet, let's take up a collection.
Any knucklehead can have a Hall of Fame career on the juice. Anybody who can do it on a steady diet of steak, bourbon and showgirls deserves respect.
Is there a more ignorant pompous a$$ than Christopher Shays?
All high and mighty but he didn't understand a word that Selig said, who repeatedly proved that Shays' accusations that Selig wasn't pushing for harder penalties were completely false.
I'm not defending the player's actions. I frankly think they're stupid for using the stuff, but it is NOT the caliber of Congressional investigations! If it's illegal, let the local cops handle it. If it makes the league look bad, the league is going to handle it for their own self-preservation.
I don't believe any records after about 1980. ...corked bats....steroids...souped up ball...I pass!
Roger that ~ all these foaming at the mouth wackos that are accusing Mark McGwire need to have more proof than the word of a proven liar and self promoting money grubber.
My parents and I came to the United States after fleeing the communist tyranny that still reigns over my homeland of Cuba. We came seeking freedom, knowing that through hard work, discipline, and dedication, my family and I could built a bright future in America. Since arriving to this great country, I have tried to live every day of my life in a manner that I hope has typified the very embodiment of the American Dream. I have gotten to play for three great organizations — the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, and Baltimore Orioles — and I have been blessed to do well in a profession I love.Here for Palmeiro's statement.
Next time these pompous nitwits have a staffer busted for drugs, DUI, stealing, etc. is anyone going to scream at them "How could you not know what was going on with your staff?" the way Souder is saying the owner had to have known?
As an American, I am truly embarrassed by these hearings. Both Republicans and Democrats on this committee have shown me that our government is comprised of idiots.
Genius Democrat just asked if baseball officials have ever considered placing markers into steroids to trace where they come from.
Considering how they are ILLEGAL, I kinda doubt they could get the producers and dealers to go along...
He led the league in HRs as a pitcher.
Did he also use trick baseballs when he dominated from the mound, too?
You're avoiding the question. Would you also asterisk Babe Ruth's records, since he used trick bats?
Cork's actual effectiveness is very much open to debate, but that stops no one from believing it does, as you might have fathomed in 2003 when Sammy Sosa was caught with a plug. When Hillerich and Bradsby sent a touring exhibit of historic bats around major league parks, in 1983, a group of Seattle Mariners were admiring one of Babe Ruth's bats until Dave Henderson, according to Dan Gutman (It Ain't Cheating If You Don't Get Caught), spotted something amiss: the round end of the bat did not match the barrel's wood. The end also had a crack the rest of the bat didn't. "That's a plug!" Henderson hollered. "This bat is corked."
As a matter of fact, the Sultan was a real corker: he was in fact the half-inspiration for then-American League president Ban Johnson imposing a policy outlawing "trick bats" in 1923.after Ruth was found using a bat made of four pieces of wood glued together.
"As I see it, wrote Bill James, in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, "nothing could be more typical of Ruth than to use a corked bat if he could get by with it. Ruth tested the limits of the rules constantly; this was what made him who he was. He refused to be ordinary; he refused to accept that the rules applied to him, until it was clear that they did. Constantly testing the limits of the rules, as I see him, was Babe Ruth's defining characteristic."
In 1923 Babe Ruth experimented with a laminated bat, thrust upon him for approval by some ambitious batmaker. The Babe was generally pleased with it. But as soon as word of the experimental stick reached American League president Ban Johnson, he ordered it confiscated and published a reminder to all players that bats were to be made from a single piece of wood. After Johnson's departure from power in 1927, the rules makers began to vacillate on the subject of the laminated bat, never seeming able to make up their minds about the dangers the process posed. Finally, in 1939 the rules committee pronounced a total ban on laminated bats. It remained in force for fifteen years. The present rule, adopted in 1954, permits use of a laminated bat if it is made entirely from the same kind of wood and has been first submitted to the rules committee for approval.
So Babe Ruth used bats that were constructed under different rules than the bats used today. Corked bats were definitely illegal when Babe Ruth played.
Should the Babe's records be asterisked? I vote no.
Wow, this is utterly embarassing for these congress people.
"HE took the fifth. That makes him guilty IMO."
You have to be kidding. I guess you also endorse the "guilt by association" theory as well.
I need proof and facts to find guilt with someone.
You obviously prefer a tyranical style of justice.
That hippie hair on the GOP page behind the speaker is pretty embarrassing, too...
Mark McGwire, spring training, 2001.
Mark McGwire on Capitol Hill today.
I'm pissed off too. We're not asking McG to name names. Just tell us -- Did you juice or didn't you?
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