Mark McGwire’s steroid “apology” was going well … and then he said that steroids never helped him. “I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength purposes … There’s no way a pill or an injection will give you hand-eye coordination or the ability or the great mind that I’ve had as a baseball player.” What a joke.

mark mcgwire and tony larussa fraudsSure you did, Mark. Keep telling yourself that. Overall, we have very little outrage about this – unlike, say, Ken Rosenthal. McGwire’s admission has been 5-10 years in the making. (Regarding this column – if McGwire never said another word on the topic, it wouldn’t bother us. His day of interviews was enough.) We’ve lost interest. Steroid fatigue? Probably not. It’s just that almost everyone cheated, so there’s no major surprise after McGwire’s initial news popped. If someone asks, ‘what do you think of McGwire’ then we’ll say, ‘he’s a cheating fraud.’ And that’s basically it. Then they’ll ask, ‘would he get your vote for him in the Hall of Fame?’ And we’d say, ‘depends who he was up against. If the other choice is Bert Blyleven, then punch my ticket for one-dimensional McGwire over that cranky compiler.’ Next topic.

Here’s Tony LaRussa, after hearing McGwire’s revelation: “I didn’t know anything except that I knew we ran a legit program and that Mark was a good example of working his butt off and getting his strength gains as a product of hard work. I did, and still speak to his character and integrity.” What a crock of shit. Two years ago, when a St. Louis columnist pressed LaRussa on McGwire and steroids, Tony the Drunk twice defended Big Red Steroid. LaRussa is an embarrassment. How great is his, “we ran a legit program” line? LaRussa is beloved by baseball apologists, but it is worth noting his team has had its problems with steroids, HGH, and booze (not to mention his own DUI arrest) in the last few years. Why the media loves this clown is beyond us.

And Bob Knight? (Why is ESPN reaching out to Bob Knight on this? Because he’s friends with Tony LaRussa, of course.) That ass-clown had the audacity to say, “Gatorade is a performance-enhancing substance … I’ve always had a real skeptical approach to this performance-enhancing stuff.”