Ferguson Jenkins, nominated to the Hall of Fame, recently said that an apology is due from McGwire to all those pitchers who gave up the home runs.

Jenkins sent an open letter to The Associated Press suggesting to the home run king that he has not even started rendering apologies to those he had harmed.

From Sportsillustrated.cnn.com:

McGwire last week admitted he used steroids for a decade, including when he broke Roger Maris’ season home-run record in 1998. Jenkins is one of several Hall of Famers to criticize McGwire, a group that includes Goose Gossage and Carlton Fisk.

Hank Aaron has said he’s willing to forgive McGwire, tied for eighth with 583 home runs.

“You have yet to apologize to all the pitchers you faced while juiced,” Jenkins wrote. “You altered pitchers’ lives. You may have shortened pitchers careers because of the advantage you forced over them while juiced. Have you thought about what happened when they couldn’t get you out and lost the confidence of their managers and general managers? You even managed to alter the place some athletes have achieved in record books by making your steroid-fueled run to the season home run record.”

Jenkins said McGwire needs to render an apology to several constituencies.

Tags:  Ferguson Jenkins, Mark McGwire, Steroids

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The game of baseball has been kept under dark clouds after Mark McGwire made a belated confession of steroid use amidst crocodile tears and disclaimers. But Bud Selig thinks that the baseball steroid era is now over, a fact suggested by test results.

Though McGwire’s confession was not able to impress the die-hard baseball fans, it saved officials and team members by putting an end to the baseball’s era of performance-enhancing drugs to offer a new start for the game.

From Bostonherald.com:

That’s pretty much what Bud Selig said after the man who wouldn’t talk about the past to Congress finally spoke about it to Bob Costas. On the day of McGwire’s mea culpa, Selig said in a statement that in 2010, the use of steroids and amphetamines in baseball is “virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown.”

Two things: Either the commissioner of Major League Baseball pays no attention to the nonstop cat-and-mouse game still taking place between the International Olympic Committee and its world-class athletes, or he’s back to his old car-selling ways again.

If he ever really left them.

Otherwise, he would not have followed with this: “The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.”

The steroid era might be a thing of the past in baseball. But performance-enhancing drugs are an ever-evolving industry, as the IOC and its testing agents long ago discovered. Simply stated, the cycle goes as follows: You design a testing program to detect all known performance-enhancing drugs. They design a new drug that escapes that detection. After a while, you get wise, develop even more encompassing detection. They take your test, and build a new PED that avoids that detection.

Selig remarked that the use of steroids and amphetamines is no more prevalent in the world of baseball.

Tags:  amphetamines, baseball, Mark McGwire, performance-enhancing drugs, steroid era, Steroid use, Steroids

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According to Don Hooton, chairperson of the foundation and father of the late Taylor Hooton, Mark McGwire is the best man to talk about and spread the word against steroids, its abuse and negative effects.

McGwire’s popularity among kids as well as his persona is an advantage for him as speaker about performance-enhancing drugs. Being back in the spotlight is a great way for him to start getting his message across especially to teens and young students.

Ever since retreating to a more private life after his retirement from Major League baseball, McGwire has been busy with his own foundation. He promised that his foundation would spread the message against steroids and its ill effects to its users.

Several months after the controversial congressional hearings on steroids, Don Hooton received an envelope containing a check from Mark McGwire’s foundation.

The Taylor Hooton Foundation was named after Don Hooton’s son, a high school baseball player who died after committing suicide. It was believed that the reason for his suicide was due to depression, a side effect brought about by his use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

For the past three years, the Taylor Hooton Foundation has been receiving “substantial” amount of donations from Mark McGwire’s foundation, which his representatives, requested that the amounts be kept private.

From St. Louis Today:

Within a few months of the congressional hearings that have come to define baseball’s steroid era, Don Hooton, who testified at the hearings and is the father of a steroid-user who had committed suicide, received a nondescript envelope in the mail.

Tags:  Major League Baseball, Mark McGwire, Steroids, Taylor Hooton Foundation

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