Mark McGwire* - First Ballot Hall of Shamer

Over the weekend more news came out in the steroid story. Allegedly, Mark McGwire’s* name came up during a massive federal steroids investigation. Interestingly, and completely counter to how the same situation was handled for other star players, no evidence was collected against McGwire* though there was ample evidence to indicate that McGwire* was regularly illegally using illegal steroids.

With hearings in Congress still scheduled for Thursday, this should be a most interesting week. Some current players, including Curt Schilling and Frank Thomas, seem eager to appear. Some former players, including – of course – Jose Canseco, have also agreed to participate. However, Mark McGwire* has taken a totally different tact with the whole thing and may end up being held in contempt of Congress if he defies the subpoena that he was issued.

Also interesting in this whole matter is why so many high profile people were asked to appear before Congress but Barry Bonds was not. Many of the people who will appear on Thursday are former players, many are current players, and others are high profile executives. It might seem that Bonds was given a pass on this event because of his involvement with the BALCO situation, but Jason Giambi, another central figure in that saga, was invited before Congress. Some have speculated that Bonds hasn’t been included because Congress is trying to gather as much information as possible at this stage and to later see to it that Bonds is prosecuted for whatever illicit drug usage he was a part of (while other players who talk to Congress this week will be in the clear – or so the conspiracy theory goes).

This thought process is not without merit. It would be unfortunate for Bonds to be singled out amongst a large number of other players who were doing the same sorts of things. Keep in mind that the whole BALCO situation unfolded directly because of Bonds. The FBI started following Bonds and his trainer, with the stated desire from the outset of figuring out what was making Bonds so successful. That ultimately led them to BALCO and the rest is history (albeit history that is still unfolding around us). But from the beginning the desire was to bring down Barry Bonds.

Mark McGwire* was never given this same treatment. In fact, from the text of the article mentioned above, the FBI specifically didn’t go after McGwire* previously because they didn’t know where to draw the line. So apparently the rules are different for McGwire* than they are for Bonds.

This time around it appears that the “powerful forces” that Jose Canseco has regularly referred to are working against Bonds. They just seem to be doing so in a much more public fashion than has been done in the past. Granted, this is all just wild speculation on my part, but something doesn’t feel right here.

And as much as it scares me to say it, Jose Canseco has been right every step of the way so far here. It will be interesting to see if many of his other allegations come true. If so, a bigger conspiracy and a bigger scandal than we can currently comprehend is soon to come upon us.