Growing up with Mark McGwire

Somehow it doesn’t bother me that McGwire took steroids.

So what if he took performance enhancing drugs? I was in the stadium the night he hit his 61st. It was magical. At the height of McGwire’s homerun prowess, I was a naive elementary school student living in the suburbs of St. Louis. McGwire bobble heads, pencils, shirts, and PEZ dispensers - my friends and I had it all. Oh believe me, I didn’t like baseball. I still don’t. But for some reason, during the fall of 1998, I could imagine myself growing up to be a baseball player, just like McGwire.

Parents today often talk about how celebrities can no longer be good role models for their children. Drugs, alcohol, sexual affairs, and scandal after scandal appear in the news daily. Where are the great athletes that children everywhere can aspire to be? Nonexistent. Realistically? Every great athlete. Honestly, children only understand what happens on the field and who wins the game. Saying that he or she cheated by taking enhancers and drugs; none of that would have made sense in my 3rd grade head. Drugs..is that like the Tylenol I take when I’m sick? Enhancers.. my gummy bear vitamins? Especially in sports, none of this brouhaha matters to children. What they see at a game is life changing. Nothing will take away my feelings when I saw McGwire hit that homer, just like I will always remember watching in awe Marion Jones win 3 golds in Sydney. Those performances are inspiring. A child needs to see those kind of performances, drug enhanced or not.

I doubt anyone is surprised that McGwire actually took steroids. It’s like a fairy tale. It’s almost supposed to happen. Great athlete achieves despite the odds, and then spirals into oblivion. Come on, look at Tiger Woods. As long as the black hole opens after a child sees an amazing performance by the athlete, nothing else matters.

All in all, I’m glad McGwire took steroids. Otherwise, I probably would not have seen that homer, or felt the amazing power of 45,000 fans all cheering for the same person. Knowing he may have took steroids during that game does not in any way change my experience.

After all, in my mind, he’s still the Mark McGwire I grew up with.
Ching-Ting Hwang
ND '12