Barry Bonds says he’s proud of friend Mark McGwire for admitting to his PED use back in January of this year.

From ESPN.com:

“I have a really good friendship with Mark McGwire. I’m proud of him,” the 45-year-old Bonds, back in the Bay Area for a reunion at AT&T Park of the Giants’ 2000 NL West champion team, said when asked what he thought of McGwire’s January admission. “We’ve had a great relationship throughout our entire lives and throughout our career. I’m proud of what he did. I’m happy for him.”

He appeared to be in great shape and said he is down to about 225 pounds from his playing weight of 238.

“I’ve just been working out a lot, that’s all. I work out all the time,” Bonds said. “It’s been in my genes my whole life. I just don’t work out as hard anymore. I don’t lift as heavy weights anymore to be bulky. I don’t know, I’ve got that Hollywood look.”

I’ve got that Hollywood look? Does anyone else need to vomit or am I the only one?

People love to talk about “Manny being Manny” when it comes to the antics of Manny Ramirez, but ManRam has nothing on Bonds. This is a man that will look the media dead in the face and tell them that he’s proud of Mark McGwire for admitting his PED use, as if he shouldn’t have done the same thing long ago. Barry is one of those people that has subscribed to his own lies for so long that he actually believes in them now. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Mark McGwire showed up on the first day pitchers and catchers reported to spring training and offered yet another apology for his use of performance enhancing drugs during his playing days. He maintains that the steroids were used to help him heal, not hit home runs.

From USA Today:

Mark McGwire said Wednesday that performance-enhancing drugs helped him get on the field and get more at-bats, but he stopped short of saying that the illegal drugs helped his power.

When asked about not admitting that steroids helped his home-run power, McGwire, the new batting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, said that he took steroids to help his injuries.

“That got me more at-bats and a chance to play,” he told reporters during a 17-minute interview outside the Cardinals’ clubhouse at Roger Dean Stadium, hours after he first worked with St. Louis hitters at their spring training home.

There are people in this world that start to believe in their own lies after awhile. I’m not sure if McGwire fits that mold, but it’s amazing to me that he can look at people with a straight face and say that the drug use was only so that he could stay healthy.

He could apologize 100 more times and what he says still wouldn’t carry any weight until he admits he juiced so that he could hit 500-foot home runs. If he just wanted to stay healthy, then he didn’t need to bulk up to the size of a freaking linebacker.

His apologies are very hollow and insulting to baseball fans, but at this point it’s just time to move on. He’s not going to change his story any time soon.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Curtis Wenzlaff, a former trainer convicted of dealing steroids and who says he supplied Mark McGwire with performance-enhancing drugs in the late 80s, told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that Big Mac’s goal was to get “bigger, faster, stronger” from taking roids.

Wenzlaff also delivered the quote of the week when speaking on the subject:

“Will it help you hit a baseball?” Wenzlaff said. “Let me put it to you this way. If Paris Hilton was to take that array, she could run over Dick Butkus.”

When asked for his reaction to McGwire’s claim that he only took steroids to stay healthy enough to play, Wenzlaff said: “I chuckled. If excelling and kicking ass on the field is the end result I guess that’s a healthy, good feeling. But for health, there are other things you can take for health that are anabolic, but it wouldn’t be that type of combination.”

When asked about McGwire’s goal for taking the array of steroids he recommended and provided to McGwire, Wenzlaff said, “As anybody — bigger, faster, stronger.”

Shocking.

See, this is my problem with McGwire. He came “clean,” yet he still lied while doing so. He must honestly think that the general public is incredibly stupid and naïve. I would have had more respect for him if he came out and said:

“I’m ashamed – I took steroids and I want to come clean.”

“Why did you take steroids, Mr. McGwire?”

“Because they gave me big muscles and I wanted to hit as many home runs before my career was finished.”

He’d still be a cheater, but at least people could have respected him more for telling the truth. Now he just looks like a cheater and an idiot for thinking that he could get away with telling everyone he used drugs for health reasons. I’m not suggesting that everyone should buy into what Wenzlaff is saying, but it’s a joke to think that McGwire didn’t use riods to bulk up and smash 550-foot moonshots out of Busch Stadium.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

At Mark McGwire’s first public appearance since admitting to steroids he received a standing ovation from fans but evaded hard-hitting questions from reporters.

From ESPN.com:

His scheduled news conference, however, was shifted to an overcrowded hallway at the last minute, and McGwire evaded questions about the criticism he’s received from ex-players. The former home run king emphasized repeatedly he was ready to move on.

Dressed in jeans, a sweater and running shoes, the 46-year-old McGwire walked on stage to “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses, the hard-rock song played before his at-bats with the Cardinals.

He was cheered by fans who secured seats as much as 3½ hours earlier.

This is already playing out poorly. While McGwire’s confession was admirable, his claims that steroids didn’t increase his hitting power are ridiculous. Reporters are going to continue hammering him with embarrassing questions until he states the obvious.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

After Mark McGwire came out Monday and admitted to taking steroids during his playing career, baseball commissioner Bud Selig felt the need to recently proclaim that the steroid era is over.

From the New York Times:

“The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown,” Selig said in a statement. “The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.”

Selig noted in the statement that in 2009, there were only two positive steroid tests in major league baseball out of 3,722 samples.

If only two positive tests came out of 3,722 samples, then the testing is a joke or players are finding better ways to mask the performance-enhancing drugs. There’s just no way those figures are correct and Selig should be ashamed of himself for actually believing that.

Selig wants everyone to move on because he doesn’t want his name to be synonymous with the steroid era. Well, too bad. He decided to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the problem over the past two decades and now he must pay for it.

I think baseball is finally moving in the right direction by having stricter testing in place. But that doesn’t mean I think the steroid era is over and instead of trying to rush the process, Selig should come to grips with the fact that it’s going to take the game a long time to get clean again (if it ever does, that is). He wants everyone to just forget about what happen and move on, but true baseball fans can’t and won’t allow that to happen.

Guys like Selig and McGwire need to slow down, take a step back and realize the magnitude of what they saying. They need to realize that fans are tired of having the covers pulled over their eyes and don’t want to be patronized with comments like, “the steroid era is over.” Because it’s not.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Jose Canseco says that his former bash brother Mark McGwire is still lying about his use of steroids.

From SI.com:

“I’ve defended Mark, I know a lot of good things about him,” Canseco told ESPN 1000 radio in Chicago on Tuesday. “I can’t believe he just called me a a liar. Umm, there’s something very strange going on here.

“I even polygraphed that I injected him, and I passed it completely. So I want to challenge him on national TV to a polygraph examination. I want to see him call me a liar under a polygraph examination.”

In Canseco’s 2005 book, “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big,” Canseco claimed he introduced McGwire and other stars to steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. He wrote about injecting himself and McGwire in bathroom stalls, and how the effects of the drugs were the reason he hit 462 career home runs.

“Jose is out there doing what he’s doing, but I’m not going to stoop down to his level,” McGwire told ESPN on Tuesday. “None of that stuff happened. He knows it. I know it. I’m not going to stoop down to that level.”

What chaps my hide most about McGwire is that he admitted taking steroids, yet he had the nuggets to tell everyone that they didn’t help make him a better hitter. That’s a flat out lie and he knows it. He didn’t take steroids to recover from injuries – he took them so he could hit 500-foot home runs and break records.

Canseco has his own agenda when it comes to steroids in baseball, but I’ll believe him over anything McGwire says. At least when Canseco finally admitted that he juiced, he confessed everything – unlike McGwire, who would have us believe that he only used them to help bounce back from injuries.

Give me a break.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Mark McGwire admitted something on Monday that every sensible sports fan already knew: He took steroids. He’s sorry and in time we’ll forgive him, just like we’ve forgiven Andy Pettitte and even Alex Rodriguez for coming clean.

What’s interesting is that we’ll forgive those that admit taking steroids, just as long as their names aren’t Jose Canseco.

You remember Jose Canseco right? He was the guy that helped (I say “helped” because Ken Caminiti had a hand in it too) bring the steroid era to light in 2005 with his book entitled, “Juiced.” He was one of the first to come clean about taking steroids and he’s offered full disclosure on the topic since then.

When his book was published, we called Canseco a snitch and a media whore who was only looking for his 15 minutes of fame and a wad of cash. And guess what? He was all of those things. The guy was willing to name names for a price and is so egotistical that he calls himself the godfather of the steroid era, yet also makes himself out to be a pariah for bringing the topic to light. He claims he wanted to save baseball and that’s why he wrote the book, yet he was a big reason that the game needed to be saved in the first place.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a shocker: Mark McGwire used steroids during his career.

From MLB.com:

“Now that I have become the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, I have the chance to do something that I wish I was able to do five years ago.

“I never knew when, but I always knew this day would come. It’s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the nineties, 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.

“During the mid-90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a rib cage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries too.

You can read McGwire’s full statement here.

Better late than never I guess, although he would have been better admitting all of this from the start instead of lying. I also find it a little humorous that he took a page out of the Andy Pettitte book of coming clean about steroids and saying he used the drugs to recover from injuries. I guess all the big muscles and home runs were just icing on the cake, huh?

Big Mac has been hiding under a rock for the better part of a decade, so before he stepped back into the public eye I suppose he had no choice but to come clean. Considering the media will surround him on a nightly basis during the season, he was bound to field questions about his involvement with steroids. So instead of denying the allegations for an entire season, he was better off admitting everything up front and starting his new career off on the right foot.

The ball is now in Barry Bonds’ court. The only hitters in the modern era to pass 61 home runs have all either admitted using steroids or are linked to performance-enhancing drugs and their masking agents. So are any of us to believe that Bonds hit 73 dingers on God-given talent? Don’t think so.

It’s good that another player came clean about his use of steroids, but I think it’ll be a cold day in hell before Bonds every admits to any wrongdoing.

Photo from fOTOGLIF