Wait, you mean baseball wasn’t more pure when only white guys were allowed to play and gamblers could buy the World Series?

I simply do not understand what all the fuss is over McGwire.  At no time, proven or suspected has anyone shown that he did anything illegal.
He did what others did, that was considered state of the art supplemental diet and training aid.

He hit more home runs in less time than anyone in the history of the game. (my guess not proven).

I paid to watch him play and I’ll pay to watch him coach. 

While I will never dismiss the 61 home runs hit by Maris as being less than a grand record of it’s time, the year McGwire and Sosa both went over 60 was an incredible baseball feat.  Then to have Bonds do it again shows that the record was meant to be broken.

I have one word: Andro.  We knew about the Andro when the great home run chase was going on.  And we all pretty much dismissed it.  We knew what he was when we loved him.  We didn’t care.

Maybe we were all idiots back in ‘98.  But McGwire and Sosa and MLB gave us what we wanted: dingers, and lots of ‘em.  McGwire took nothing from us that we didn’t give willingly.

Never mind that part of baseball’s problem these days is that the record book is treated like it’s sacred.  It’s just a game, Mr. Pearlman.

Jeff Pearlman’s only regret is that the guy who called Selena Roberts didn’t call him.

Dude makes his living being a mean-spirited ass.

I can say now that I don’t care what McGwire did while he played, but to be honest when he went in front of congress and made an ass of himself a little piece of my baseball soul died that day.  Big Mac (and Canseco) were the reasons I started watching baseball in the first place (I was 7 in ‘89, that World Series is my oldest memory of baseball). 

But, to be as old as I am now (or to be Pearlman’s age) and still have this view of the game it tells me that he never really liked baseball all that much to begin with.

Oh and by the way, i seriously doubt that ANDRO was the only thing McGwire was doing.  Big Mac’s brother is (and has been) a personal trainer here in SoCal for 20+ years, and, uh, yeah ANDRO is not the only thing that guys associated with.  Mac is still one of my all-time favorite players, but this assumption that all he ever did was ANDRO is extremely naive, if not ignorant.

Anyone with the slightest shred of decency would alert Jeff Pearlman to the fact that a moronic psychopath has been signing his name to some deeply weird comments.

i think its pretty obvious that steroids made baseball more exciting.  i understand in the long run why you want to remove them from the game but but people like mcgwire et al did not immoral except sacrifice their health to entertain sports fans.  oh boo hoo, roger maris’ family doesnt get moeny off the number 61?  so what makes roger maris’ family so special?  and where does perelman draw the line anyway?  what if maris drank, smoked tobacco and cursed and cheated on his wife? is that better or worse than taking HGH?

When Pearlman decides to, effectively, turn his gorge onto his own fraternity, the writers who have locker room access, see the players’ physiques, pick up some of the buzz, made jokes with players like Piazza about exactly what he was doing, were staring a Woodward-Bernstein class Pulitzer for sports writing in the face, and did NOTHING about it, then he might write something worth reading.

There’s plenty of mud to be slung onto all parties, and one party is still without stain.

I won’t click through to the original column.

For Jeff Pearlman:

Who cares?