MLB notebook: Memories of a Herculean McGwire crumble

It's always sad to see someone's reputation shrivel before our very eyes, but that's what happened on Thursday with Mark McGwire, the latest player to get trapped in the exploding steroids scandal.

In the course of one congressional hearing, McGwire went from near-mythic figure of strength to a pathetic picture of weakness, and it had little to do with the literal diminishment of his once-hulking physique.

Under oath, McGwire essentially confessed that his home-run assault was tainted, that his career was a fraud. What other conclusion can one come to after he raised his right hand, took an oath of honesty, and couldn't bring himself to issue his standard denial of steroids use?

When the inquisitors were sportswriters, McGwire never had a problem acting all put out as he dismissed the S-word, with barely controlled disgust at the indignity of having his integrity questioned.

Just one month ago, after former teammate Jose Canseco painted a sordid image of injecting McGwire's buttocks in a bathroom stall, McGwire issued the following statement to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Once and for all, I did not use steroids or any other illegal substance."

But Thursday, under oath, facing perjury, he all but came clean, damning himself with faint refutation. Contrasted with a finger-pointing, insistent Rafael Palmeiro, McGwire was the epitome of impotence (and no, that's not a Viagra joke).

Those fans still clinging to the belief that McGwire was clean all along, the victim of innuendo and mud-slinging, don't have one thread to cling to. Not after McGwire's repeated refusal to answer any questions related to his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The rule of law is that invocation of the Fifth Amendment is not an admission of guilt. McGwire's version of taking the Fifth was the phrase, "I'm not here to talk about the past." And yet in the courtroom of public opinion, the guilty verdict has already been delivered.

"What I saw and heard was a confession," Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said Friday.

Maybe one reason McGwire looked so sad and so flustered — so lost, really — is that he knows exactly what lies ahead for him.

His glorious assault on Roger Maris' home-run record, which resuscitated baseball during the magical summer of 1998, will now be looked at with scorn and fraudulence.

Unlike Barry Bonds, who may yet come crashing all the way down before this unfolding drama plays out, McGwire once enjoyed the height of popularity. The way he handled the record — unbridled joy, mixed with proper respect for the Maris family, after his 62nd homer — made us all feel warm and happy. But now it seems increasingly like a charade.

McGwire's Hall of Fame candidacy, once a slam dunk, is now very much in doubt. He may still slip in, if there are no major steroids eruptions to implicate McGwire before he becomes eligible in 2007. But at the very least, he now almost certainly will not be a first-ballot choice. You can bet that many voters will give strong consideration to a first-ballot exclusion as a protest statement for McGwire's perceived steroids entanglement.

Perhaps McGwire's weakest moment Thursday came when he was asked if he felt that using steroids was cheating. The other panelists — Sammy Sosa, Curt Schilling, Palmeiro, even Canseco — knew a meaty fastball when they saw it, and answered affirmatively.

McGwire replied, "That's not for me to determine."

It was startlingly familiar to the answer Bonds gave last month to the same question: "I don't know what cheating is."

McGwire and Bonds should be getting the hint by now that baseball fans know what cheating is. And they are starting to get a clearer and clearer road map of where to find it.

A war of the word ("or") over penalties

Besides McGwire's testimony, the most disturbing part of the congressional hearing was the controversy over the penalty for a first positive steroids test, which paints MLB's hierarchy as either sloppy or duplicitous.

When the revised testing plan was unveiled with much self-congratulations in January, the two sides had announced that a first offense would bring an automatic 10-day suspension, with the player's infraction being announced publicly.

But the copy of the drug-testing policy delivered to Congress for review this past week said the penalty was "a 10-day suspension or up to a $10,000 fine." Players who were fined would not be publicly identified — the stigma of which has been cited by most observers as the biggest deterrent against steroids use.

The inclusion of the word "or" rightly created an uproar of indignation from the politicos, including Sen. John McCain, who sent commissioner Bud Selig and union chief Donald Fehr a scathing letter prior to the hearing.

Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president and the attorney who negotiated the testing plan with the union, blamed the confusion on poor wording in a draft version of the plan. Selig, meanwhile, vowed during the hearing he would suspend anyone who failed a test, without exceptions.

Still, it was an embarrassing gaffe by baseball that further calls into question their sincerity in instigating a tough, foolproof testing program.

In light of the growing public skepticism about the integrity of past performances, and to quell a scandal that clearly hasn't even begun to peak, they would be well-served in convening with the union one more time to hammer out yet another revised drug-testing plan.

And make it tough enough to satisfy fans yearning to believe in baseball again — not to mention the politicos itching to pile on a flailing sport and carrying the ultimate weapon: baseball's coveted antitrust exemption.

More Cubs critiques from ex-broadcaster

Stone had some harsh words for Kerry Wood, who is causing mass panic among Cubs fans with his shoulder injury, on top of Mark Prior's elbow problems. Stone said that Wood's mechanics are making him conducive to injury and inconsistency.

"Wood has shown no adaptability," Stone said. "He wants to throw the ball 95 to 96 (mph); he wants to throw it at times through the catcher. When he loses his mechanics, he can't get them back again. Somebody is going to have to tell Kerry the object of the game is to pitch. That's why they call you a pitcher. If not, they call you a thrower.

"And if they call you a thrower, and if you keep saying you can't change your mechanics, and if in fact your mechanics are partially responsible for you getting hurt every year, you've got a couple of choices: You can take all the money you've made — which is a bundle — and you can go sell cars. Or you can make some adjustments and try to stay around this league for 10 years."

Notes and quotes

• The Washington Nationals dispatched special advisor Jose Cardenal to watch Cincinnati outfielder Wily Mo Pena for three consecutive games.

Washington GM Jim Bowden, who acquired Pena for the Reds, has always been enamored of the big outfielder, who might be expendable with the strong spring of Cincinnati's 275-pound outfielder, Rob Stratton.

Stratton is hitting .322 and leads the Reds with four homers, while Pena is hitting .114 with 15 strikeouts in 35 at-bats. The Reds would be looking for pitching in return for Pena.

• Todd Ritchie, trying to make a comeback with the Pirates this spring, retired last week, unable to recover from shoulder surgery two years ago.

Ritchie won 15 games for the Pirates in 1999, started the first game in PNC Park history in 2001, and was traded to the White Sox for Josh Fogg, Sean Lowe and Kip Wells after the 2001 season.

• What's spring training without a phenom? Presenting 21-year-old White Sox pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who didn't allow an earned run in his first 10-1/3 innings in exhibition games.

"He's the best pitcher we have in camp right now, no doubt about it," manager Ozzie Guillen said of McCarthy, who was 17-6 with 202 strikeouts in the minors last year.

Nevertheless, don't look for McCarthy to start the season with the White Sox, whose rotation is already accounted for.

• Then there's Jose Constanza, a 21-year-old outfielder in the Indians organization. He led the Dominican Summer League last year with a .444 batting average, including 19 triples in 259 at-bats. The Indians sent him to play winter ball in Venezuela, where Constanza hit .788 — 26 hits in 33 at-bats.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com