The hero of baseball for a decade was Mark McGwire. He and Sammy Sosa held the nation enthralled as they fought for the home run crown in 1998 and in the process McGwire eclipsed Roger Maris’ season home run record by nine. The heavily muscled McGwire shattered the record and helped baseball recover from its player strike. Thousands of people gathered to watch him take batting practice and launch ball after ball, deep into the stands. It has also been said that McGwire was a nice guy, miles ahead of the next home run king Barry Bonds.

The St. Louis Cardinals were coming to the Metrodome during McGwire’s era and a friend, his grandson and I went to see the Twins versus the Cardinals. Tickets were bought way in advance in hopes of seeing Big Mac park one. In fact, I had even thought about getting a ticket in left field in hopes of getting a rare and valuable home run ball. However, we found out that McGwire was injured and we wouldn’t get to see him play. But in a nice gesture he did come out and sign autographs for children. My friend’s grandson got one and it was a happy car as we drove home after the game.

We didn’t know it at the time, but McGwire’s body was probably breaking down from too many steroids. McGwire continued to use steroids and continued to hit home runs when he wasn’t injured. He retired an American hero.

While there may have been suspicions, Commissioner Bud Selig turned a blind eye to steroid use in the big leagues. Evidently feeling what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. But then Jose Canseco wrote a book exposing Major League steroid use and a congressional investigating committee came into being.

Some stars tried to deny use including Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro. Palmeiro later tested positive. McGwire didn’t deny use, but he didn’t affirm it either. What he said was that he was not there to talk about the past. McGwire chose not to lie as many have accused Sammy Sosa of doing, but rather to avoid the issue. He was probably raised to not tell a lie.

Hubris comes to us from the Greeks and it usually refers to someone of arrogance or overweening ambition overreaching himself and sowing the seeds of his downfall. There is no Greek tragedy about Mark McGwire. I don’t think he sat down one day and said I’ll take steroids and be the home run king. Probably at first his goal was to help his injuries and his abilities. His home run production went up and he kept taking steroids. While McGwire’s thinking may never be known, it appears that he kept taking them because it was the easiest thing to do. After all he kept getting bigger and stronger and the home runs kept coming. He became a hero. Good deal!

Perhaps even today he doesn’t completely realize the path he took. He says that, sure, he hit a lot of home runs, but he learned a lot about hitting and perfected his swing. I think it’s easy for McGwire to feel that while steroids played a role in his success, his skills played just as large a role. I suppose we should expect that feeling, for if he took the easy way years ago why not now.

McGwire probably believes he is a decent guy and he may be. But isn’t it also true that many bad things occur not because they were planned, but because it was easier to go down that road.

And I don’t care if he is kind to his mother and gives to charity, he wound up hurting an entire generation of children, ruined his reputation and put another layer of cynicism on our society. Sometimes a nice guy has to say no.