Too little, too late (and too unbelievable)

Too little, too late (and too unbelievable)

The Boston Globe: Mark McGwire’s belated apology for using steroids and human growth hormone should be welcomed by everyone who loves baseball — if only as a confirmation of what everyone already believed.

Regrettably, McGwire’s confession was hedged about with self-justifying fibs that fool nobody. He pretended that a decade’s worth of pills and injections were taken only to heal faster from injuries. He contended, implausibly, that all those doses of performance-enhancing drugs had nothing to do with his suddenly swollen home run totals.

Simply incredible

In other words, he wants the world to believe he broke the law, broke league rules, and endangered his own health merely to heal faster from sore heels. Unmentioned was the $75 million in salary and the revenue from endorsements that the magic potions brought his way.

But baseball suffered an even worse shame when Commissioner Bud Selig asserted that “the so-called ’steroid era’ “ is now “clearly a thing of the past.” Selig and the owners bear the most responsibility for the flagrant cheating of that era. They looked the other way and pocketed the profits as steroidal sluggers rescued the national pastime from the aftereffects of the 1994 baseball strike. Now they’re the ones who need to come clean.