LBS- In an interview with Jayson Stark of The Athletic that was published Monday, the retired slugger said that he still could have reached 70 homers if he had not used performance-enhancing drugs, which he has admitted to doing.
“Absolutely,” McGwire was quoted as saying. “I just know myself. I just know. I was a born home run hitter. I mean, unfortunately, I did [take PEDs]. And I’ve regretted that. I’ve talked about that. I regretted it. I didn’t need to. That’s the thing. Didn’t need to. “But I know,” the former St. Louis Cardinal added. “Deep down inside, I know me as a hitter. And I know what I did in that box. And I know how strong my mind is. And I know what kind of hitter I became. And yes. Yes. Definitely.” ------- The truth is, I probably had the exact same hysterical reaction to reading that preposterous answer to a question that was, at it's most insightful, probably meant to get Mark McGwire to discuss the allure of substances that serve very little positive purpose if not to enhance performance. I just can't imagine that Jayson Stark thought he was encouraging a disgraced power hitter to stand by each and every one of his tainted homers when he asked him about his steroid-induced, record-setting season. Therefore, I think even he had to suppress a laugh at the implication that the former pro athlete he was interviewing had mental strength that absolutely would have magically made up for his artificial strength in helping him hit a ball out of park a historic amount of times. That said, we can't prove that Mark McGwire wouldn't have flexed his brow and transferred his intellectual weight in a brand new way that would have, hypothetically, allowed him to power 135 baseballs beyond the wall if he had happened to be clean from 1998 to 1999. I mean, we could easily make that inference by analyzing an entire era of statistical inflation, as well as career numbers that, while very impressive, don't exactly look as though they were a couple brain teasers away from making up what was - at the very least - a 12 dinger disparity. Still, that small seed of doubt that has been watered into a full blown poisonous plant by the superhuman mind of someone who was born to smash baseballs is technically being kept alive. Even if his rationalization is much like one used by someone claiming they can quit an addiction whenever they want, or a proud penis owner trying to explain the Viagra in their medicine cabinet, don't tell Mark McGwire he couldn't get it (the baseball, you perv) up naturally!
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