Ralph Houk: Mark McGwire Belongs in Hall of Fame

     Yesterday I wrote about reading Jay McGwire's account of his brother-home run phenom Mark McGwire and his steroid use. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/jose-canseco-vs-jay-mcgwire-someones.html

     As I said, I find his account of McGwire's steroid use considerably more credible than Canseco's. In his second book in 2008, Vindicated, Canseco complains a good deal about being called a liar and makes a big deal about passing 2 lie deterctors on the truth of his 2005 Juiced. 

    http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/03/jose-canseco-steroids-and-who-cares.html

    But, polygraphs can be wrong either way and his claim that he personally used to inject McGwire in the butt-with McGwire doing the same thing for him-with steroids in the Oakland A's clubhouse seems pretty theatrical. 

    Canseco recently attempted to apologize to McGwire and he rebuffed him. 

    "And though Canseco has apologized to McGwire on numerous occasions, McGwire told ESPN Los Angeles that he has no plans to make amends:"

     “It’s too late. I don’t care to ever speak to him again…. What he did was wrong.”

     "Canseco’s dedication to apologizing to McGwire seems to be matched only by his desire to call attention to himself, and he managed to combine his interests with a T-shirt he wore to a Cardinals-Dodgers game in 2012:

     http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/07/mark-mcgwire-jose-canseco-apology-oakland-athletics-mlb

     However, maybe Canseco won't feel so bad in being rebuffed when he realizes that McGwire hasn't spoken to brother Jay since 2002 and says he never wants to speak to him either. 

    "Mark McGwire said he's saddened his estranged brother wrote a book that chronicles their use of performance-enhancing drugs and reiterated his claim that he only took them to heal from injuries.

McGwire said Thursday he's so upset with his brother, Jay McGwire, that he doesn't believe reconciliation is possible."

     "I don't plan on ever seeing him again," said McGwire, the new hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals."

     http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4946726

    
    "I can't really blame him for not wanting to talk to Canseco, but even so, this is clearly not a guy big on forgiveness."

     
     "Regarding the Hall of Fame you have the Bill Maddens of the world who take a hard-and hypocritical-line."

   
     "Indians Hall of Famer pitcher Bob Feller, 91, doesn't believe McGwire's admission will help him much with voters."

  
    "It'll help him some, but not very much," Feller told Willie Weinbaum of the ESPN Enterprise Unit. "I wouldn't vote for him and I don't think he'll get into the Hall of Fame in my lifetime."

    
     http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4816607

     'Of course, Feller's lifetime isn't necessarily going to be too long!"

    "I don't think any of the steroid boys will be in the Hall of Fame for 25, 30 years," Feller said. "I think Clemens has been lying through his teeth. In my opinion, Bonds did take steroids."

     
    "I disagree. Some probably are already in. The shaming is very selective. The one illusion that sanctimonious baseball writers hold onto is that steroid use was pretty rare-they claim that everyone wasn't doing it because they need to hold onto the idea that it was deviant to maintain the moral outrage."

     "Feller isn't buying that McGwire's performance wasn't helped by steroids."

   "I think that's a lot of horse muffins," he said. "If it didn't help him any, what the hell was he taking them for? Of course it helped him."

     Does Feller not realize that helping the body recover quicker from injury is also, well, help? I mean if steroids offered the chance to recover quickly from an injury but didn't enhance one's performance, he imagines no one would use them?

       I will finish off with Ralph Houk-who was Roger Maris' manager on the NY Yankees when he hit 61 hrs. 

      "Ralph Houk, Maris' manager with the Yankees in 1961, told ESPN that he does not think the legitimacy of McGwire's home run totals is changed by his admission of using performance-enhancing drugs and that the effects of such drugs -- whether pills (amphetamines) taken in the 1960s or steroids in later years -- are questionable."

   "I think [McGwire] broke [Maris'] record fairly," Houk told ESPN.

    "I wouldn't be concerned about it. [McGwire] was a good hitter that deserves everything he's got," Houk said.

     Amen. Meanwhile, there are all those old greats who played in the Segregation Era but no one says they deserve an asterisk. 

     The irony, is that while McGwire repudiates his brother's book, according to his account, the main reason he took the roids in 1994 was precisely the same reason Mark has given throughout-to recover from a series of injuries-he had missed almost the entire year both in 1993 and 1994. 

     According to his account-again, I find much more credible than Canseco's-McGwire didn't take that much steroids and the main reason was to repair injuries.