Memo to La Russa: Urge McGwire to give it another try
Tony La Russa has been trying to rehabilitate Mark McGwire since the moment McGwire first needed rehabilitating. La Russa has not a soft spot for McGwire, but an entire down comforter.
It explains his full-throated defense of McGwire during the first through 3,000th suspicions that McGwire was chemically enhanced. It explains why La Russa has pushed so hard to get him back into baseball. It explains why he was so instrumental in getting McGwire to acknowledge his failings.
But now McGwire has explained himself, sort of, leaving lots of questions untouched and others sideswiped, and now La Russa has to urge him to do it again, because this one still has holes in it.
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McGwire wanted to tell truth at 2005 hearing Cardinals supportive of their hitting coach Bleacher Report: McGwire slideshow McGwire: Career stats | Statement on steroids |
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Gregg DoyelYes, McGwire approached the plausibility level, but he didn't subject himself to the full withering cross that undid Alex Rodriguez so much that he had to re-confess later. McGwire also made a claim to the MLB Network's Bob Costas that many people find preposterous -- that he thought he could have hit the 245 home runs in 1996 through '99 without the benefits derived from performance enhancers that included anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.
It's an opinion, and apparently it's his, but coming clean carries with it a level of believability. While many of his claims and denials cannot be independently proven without other people stepping forward, what can be pursued will be, and if there are holes that can be filled in any way other than his, the whole rehabilitation campaign is basically wasted.
McGwire all but said he is only speaking out now because of his decision to return to baseball, done at La Russa's request. The manager has spent his credibility defending McGwire from any and all comers, and McGwire's return was plainly part of La Russa's plan to save him from permanent sequestration.
There are, after all, plenty of good hitting coaches out there, but La Russa wanted McGwire, who had never been one. Reason: He could help the Cardinals hitters. Bigger reason: Redemption, with an eye toward Cooperstown. Greater friendship than this is rarely seen, at least not in baseball.
But if Monday's PR perp walk is found to have wandered wide of the facts, all La Russa's exertions and machinations will have been more than merely wasted. They will have been destroyed, because there is generally a limit to how many times a fella can have another fella's back, and La Russa has gone well past his.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
