Congress gives Selig, Fehr, sluggers long day's hearing

WASHINGTON -- In a room filled with humbled heroes, Mark McGwire hemmed and hawed the most.

His voice choked with emotion, his eyes nearly filled with tears, time after time he refused to answer the question everyone wanted to know: Did he take illegal steroids when he hit a then-record 70 home runs in 1998 -- or at any other time?

Asked by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., whether he was asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, McGwire said: "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject."

Asked whether use of steroids was cheating, McGwire said: "That's not for me to determine."

To a couple of other questions, all he would say is: "I'm retired."

The dark clouds over baseball rained on Big Mac, whose powerful bat once captivated the nation.

Retired Mark McGwire finds himself back in the spotlight. (AP)

McGwire was just part of Thursday's show at the House Government Reform committee's hearing on steroids in baseball, when lawmakers repeated threatened federal legislation to govern drug testing in not just baseball, but perhaps all U.S. sports.

President Bush, who in his State of the Union address in 2004 called for a crackdown on steroids, watched the highlights of the hearings, his spokesman said Friday.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, press secretary Scott McClellan declined to offer support for the congressional effort, saying Bush does not believe that federal intervention is the way to go. "Baseball has taken important steps to respond to concerns that have been expressed about the use of steroids," he said. "It's important for baseball to continue to take steps to confront the problem."

Five current and former players, three of them among the 10 leading home run hitters in history, found themselves sitting biceps-to-biceps on Capitol Hill instead of a baseball field, wearing business suits instead of uniforms, forced by subpoena to testify before Congress about whether they cheated by using steroids.

Heads turned, strobes flashed and necks craned to get a glimpse of them on a day of extraordinary theater. The players bemoaned steroids as a problem for their sport but denied the drugs are widely used.

Jose Canseco, whose best-selling book, "Juiced," drew lawmakers' attention, said anew that he used performance-enhancing drugs as a player. Baltimore Orioles teammates Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro said they haven't.