Finally!

As of yesterday afternoon around 3, notorious slugger Mark McGwire admitted in a tear-filled interview to the use of performance enhancing drugs during his MLB career. We all know he did it, it just came down to when he was going to come clean (no pun intended) and acknowledge it. According to McGwire, the reason he used HGH and steroids was to recover from injury faster, "I did this for health purposes. There's no way I did this for any type of strength use." McGwire claims he was given a gift to hit a baseball, and the fact that he used these drugs did not assist him in smashing all those home runs.

Tony LaRussa McGwire's manager during most of his MLB career reaffirms McGwire's claims, stating that he is one of the hardest working guys in baseball and still is. LaRussa and the Cardinals opened their arms to the ex-hero of St. Louis in October, putting them on his staff as hitting coach replacing Hal McRae. This was an obvious cry for help from McGwire to baseball. After hired we all played the waiting game, it was just a matter of time until he admitted his wrong doing and we got on with our lives. For those of you that see McGwire as a talentless hack who cheated his way to the top, go try and hit a 95 MPH fastball over 350 feet, then and only then can you complain.

Random thought: Maybe Pete Rose should give Mark McGwire's PR agent a call.

The Hawk makes the Hall

Andre Dawson was the only player to be elected to Cooperstown in yesterday's voting. The Hawk recieved 77.9% of the votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America, surpassing the neccessary 75%. Although Dawson was before my era, I vaguely remember him on the Red Sox during his final years after leaving his glory years with Expos and Cubs. The one thing I can recall of him was he could absolutely mash the ball he swung out of his shoes every time he took a hack. Anyways, congrats Hawk.

Some other notables who missed the cut:

Bert Blyleven (74.2%) 13th year
Roberto Alomar (73.7%) 1st year
Barry Larkin (51.6%) 1st year
Edgar Martinez (36.2%) 1st year
Mark McGuire (23.7%) 4th year

There are plenty of other notables, it's the Hall of Fame ballot, emphasis on the fame. This list is a of guys eho are more my generation or who are getting robbed for not making it aka the only pitcher with 3,000 strikeouts who is not in Cooperstown.