McGwire the Man Is Not Just the Player

Like millions of baseball fans, I watched former baseball slugger Mark McGwire’s reputation disintegrate last week before a congressional subcommittee. It was more painful than watching my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates try to drive a runner home from second base.

Although a lifelong baseball fan, I wasn’t among those riveted by the McGwire-Sammy Sosa 1998 home run duel. It’d be much too convenient now to say that suspicions of steroids or juiced baseballs dulled my enthusiasm back then; let’s just say I was skeptical about the home run record being shattered with such ease.

Fast forward to McGwire’s refusal under oath to deny past use of illegal steroids. I took his noncommittal position as a “guilty” plea.

I’m not a member of the McGwire Damage Control Team. He got himself into this mess. He’ll have to make peace with himself and the American sporting public on his own.

Which brings me to a short interlude about McGwire and a cluster of six imperiled Little League ball fields in Huntington Beach that are on surplus school district property and may be sold off for residential development. McGwire’s connection is that, about the same time he was setting the home run record, the foundation he created donated the bulk of the quarter-million dollars or so that was used to renovate the fields and build additional facilities on-site.

I’d be the first to say it’s a totally separate issue from whether his baseball achievements are tainted. But the current condemnation of Mark McGwire likely won’t separate out his on-field and off-the-field deeds. As we typically do with public figures, their entire lives come to be judged by singular misdeeds.

With that thought, I asked Alan Gandall what he thinks of McGwire’s problems. Gandall heads a group trying to save the ballparks, known collectively as Wardlow Field, that McGwire helped refurbish.

“Because of those donations,” Gandall says, “the field was made a safe place for kids to play, as well as giving them the feeling they were part of something bigger and that their dreams can be made of their own efforts.”

McGwire’s personal contribution was so significant that a plaque memorializing the field referred to him. Set in the middle of the field, the plaque reads, in part: “In honor of Mark McGwire’s 70 home runs in 1998, we dedicate this field to all the children -- past, present and future -- who ever dreamed of setting their own records.”

Gandall says his opinion of McGwire hasn’t lessened. His involvement was a “huge deal” to the kids, Gandall says. “They felt like they were part of something very big. During that period of time, the kids here were pretty proud to be part of it. I watched how the field turned into something pretty serious. I said, ‘Oh, gosh, it’s one thing to say it’s nice to do it, but donating his money and knowing he visited a few times ... just the fact that he did it makes you feel pretty good.’ ”

McGwire’s donation was made quietly. I could find no Times story from that period detailing his role.

“I think some of the things are so much overplayed,” Gandall says about the steroid controversy. “We as the general public are somewhat perplexed by steroids, other medicines, other aids. If he did use them during that period of time, you could probably line up 10 other guys [who did]. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hit the way he did and set records. It still takes some personal talents. Did steroids make him do that? I doubt that.”

I take a harsher view of steroids and am unsympathetic to the PR pounding McGwire may take. But before we brand him a cheat and a fraud, let’s remember Wardlow Field and other charitable things he’s done.

If it’s fair to say that McGwire the ballplayer may have been less than we thought, it’s equally fair to say that McGwire the man is more than just a ballplayer.