How many steps forward versus backwards did Mark McGwire take?
They eliminated doubt, which is I guess a good thing. I found it – I don’t know how you found it – but I found it sad in a lot of ways. I watch some of these guys, and I think about Clemens and some of these other people, there’s a delusion there. I couldn’t believe that McGwire kept saying that he has the God-given ability to hit home runs. Now, when he was at USC, I can remember the late, great Red Sox scout Joe Stevenson calling me up and saying, ‘Mark McGwire is going to be one of the greatest home run hitters of all time.’ Yes, he hit 49 home runs as a rookie. Yes, he had all those injuries with the plantar fasciitis and all that. But to say it’s only health reasons – the fact is, a lot of people took steroids so that they could work out eight hours a day and get bigger. I think it really hurt him in the eyes, not of people who vote for the Hall of Fame, but in public opionion. For him to say that his home run numbers, the fact that he has the greatest home runs per at-bat ratio o
