Former Cardinals’ slugger Mark McGwire says steroid users are being unfairly punished
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Former St. Louis Cardinals’ slugger Mark McGwire is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore!
Speaking with former White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski on “Foul Territory,” the admitted PED user appeared frustrated with how he’s perceived within the baseball world. He wants the world to know that, sure he used steroids, but he didn’t need the stuff.
“I didn’t need to do it and I apologize for it,” he said emphatically. “But there was a lot of [expletive] hard work that went behind all the [expletive] people want to give me.”
McGwire is one of two players ever to hit 60 or more home runs in a single season multiple times. It all started with the home runs race of 1998, when McGwire and Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa chased Yankees’ Roger Maris’s single-season home run record of 61.
McGwire set a new record with 71 home runs that season while Sosa hit 66 of his own.
This set off a stretch four-year stretch in which three players – McGwire, Sosa, and Barry Bonds – exceeded 61 home runs in a single season six times. Bonds set the new single-season home run record at 73 in 2001.
McGwire blamed the rampant use of steroids on MLB culture of the time. He even referenced Bonds, whose 762 career home runs remain a record, in his defense.
“I think I heard Barry say the other day, there was no rules and there was no regulation,” he said. “Believe me, trust me, if there was any rules in place, that stuff would have never happened.”
Though suspicions of steroid use existed at the time, nobody took it seriously until McGwire’s former “Bash Brother” Jose Canseco published his book “Juiced.” In it, he detailed how he and McGwire used steroids regularly when they played together with the Oakland Athletics.
McGwire is one of 28 players in the 500 career home run club. He finished his career with 583 home runs, 11th on the all-time list.
Of those 28 players seven have been implicated for PED use. None of those seven are in the Hall of Fame.
