Friday column: McGwire's story — where's the truth?

If we’ve told lies, you’ve told half-lies and a man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth, but a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it. — Dryden to Col. Lawrence in the 1962 film Lawrence of ArabiaThough they came in a well-planned and no doubt expensive PR campaign, Mark McGwire’s confessional tears and angst I judge to be genuine.

It’s his words I have a problem with.

Let’s start with “I wish I had never played during the steroid era.”

The truth is, McGwire helped create the steroid era. If you believe the authors of Game of Shadows — and I do — the adulation showered on McGwire during his 70-home-run season goaded an envious Barry Bonds to go chemical. ESPN investigative reporter T.J. Quinn says that several players told him they were led to the juice based on McGwire’s “endorsement” of it. McGwire saying he wished he’d never played in the steroid era is like Ken Lay saying he wished he’d never worked during the Enron era.

Next on the list: “I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength use.” Which goes along with his absurd claim that if he had never juiced, he would have hit all those dingers anyway.

The truth is, even if you grant McGwire’s premise — and I don’t — then the healing properties of the drugs still helped him get off the injured list and onto the field, which resulted in more home runs than he otherwise would have hit.

Which brings us to his statement, “There’s not a pill or an injection that’s going to give me — going to give any player — the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball.”

Perhaps so; but let’s follow a simple equation: Steroid use equals muscle; muscle equals bat speed; bat speed equals home runs. With increased bat speed, you can wait longer on a pitch and drive it farther. Balls that would die on the warning track go into the seats. How difficult is this to understand?

McGwire robbed Roger Maris of his single-season home-run record, and as he did so, used the Maris family as a feel-good prop. If he really believed he would have hit those 70 home runs in 1998 without the ’roids, why did he feel it necessary to call Maris’ widow and apologize?

Then there’s the excuse about why he didn’t come clean at the 2005 congressional hearing: He was afraid of prosecution. Fine, but as Quinn points out, by 2006 such prosecution was no longer possible, yet McGwire stayed silent.

I feel for McGwire; I do, and what I hear and read in McGwire’s words strikes me less as artifice than self-deception. When it comes to the truth, the complete truth, he’s not hiding it — he’s forgotten where he put it.