When Politicians Get Involved In Sports, pt. 253

For those of us who found the Major League Baseball steroid hearings fascinating (if incredibly sad for the sport) and are currently following the fallout from Mark McGwire’s admission of steroid use yesterday, this article is very interesting. The setup: McGwire wanted to testify truthfully at the 2005 hearings and wanted an immunity deal like Andy Pettitte got. Instead, McGwire was denied a deal by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and went on to humiliate himself in front of the panel by refusing to “talk about the past”. Joshua Green’s theory:

Here’s an idea: There was one guy in the administration who cared passionately about baseball; who seemed to sincerely love the game and revere its greatest players; who had a righteous streak, a strong sense of personal honor, and a tendency to see everything in terms of right and wrong; and who clearly had the power to make Alberto Gonzalez jump. This person also cared enough about the problem of steroid abuse to have mentioned it—and been ridiculed as a result—just a year earlier, in his 2004 State of the Union address. I wonder if George W. Bush was the one who blocked McGwire’s immunity deal and, in doing so, consigned McGwire to the ignominy he is just now beginning to try and overcome?

Wow. Could Dubya have been the one who put McGwire in this situation? It’s a fascinating story – if true. But it also (again, if true) illustrates something I’ve always thought about George W. Bush: his actions, at least with the passage of time, come to seem incredibly short-sighted. As a baseball fan who was transfixed, enchanted, and inspired by McGwire and Sosa’s race, I absolutely understand the desire to punish McGwire for tarnishing not just the single season home-run record that all of us as baseball fans cherished, but also the feeling that we all felt while watching the Summer of 1998. But seriously, the guy wanted to come clean. How can you not see that Mark McGwire telling a Congressional Panel that, “yes, I did steroids. It was a mistake. I did it because I thought it would keep me healthy for an entire season” would ultimately benefit the game of baseball in one of its darkest moments? Especially after we know the result of McGwire’s ultimate testimony – it was a P.R. disaster for the man and the sport that both are only now coming out of.

Regardless, we don’t know if this story is true. Even if it is, this is not one of Bush’s biggest mistakes – this is about sports after all. But if you really cared about baseball, as we all know Bush did, I can’t understand making that decision.