Mark McGwire is Back

Just heard that Mark McGwire is returning to baseball as a batting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. My sons love sports, ESPN and the sports section of the Hartford Courant. At these ages it is sports 24/7 and a perfectly natural phase in their development. The oldest son asked the other day why Sports Center seemed more like the legal channel than a sports channel. It is hard to tell the difference between Michael Vick, Plaxico Burress, and the rest of the sports guys constantly getting in serious trouble with drugs, dog fighting, domestic battery and the infamous leaked list of baseball players who dabbled in steroid injections and all types of borderline conduct. Last week even the reporters covering baseball got a royal soaking with the Steve Phillips/ESPN debacle. I am no baseball fan but my husband and his family are loyal, loud and proud New York Yankees fans. They are upset at the shame brought on the game by the rampant steroid abuse but always root for the Bronx Bombers. I admire their steadfastness. As wrong as it sounds, the news that McGwire was returning to baseball tonight brought a smile to my face. The steroid conversations remind me of the Summer of 1998. Before steroids were known to be infecting the baseball world there was the legendary summer hit battle between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to be the home run king. Both were chasing Roger Maris' record. I was hugely pregnant with my first son and my father was dying. Dying in a quick, evident, and largely uncomfortable way of advanced cancer. Daily visits to his condomimium bore witness to his landslide decline. Rather than talk about the obvious - we focused on baseball. My father had not cared about a team since his beloved Dodgers left Brooklyn. The Mets were carpetbaggers in his opinion and he was a Yankee fan mostly by default. Lou was a New Yorker through and through. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa replaced the uncomfortable silences about morphine, hospice and other unmentionables. America needed to love baseball again after the last strike in 1994 and those two sluggers made for an exciting summer. It made for easy and light conversation during that difficult summer. Mark and Dad would root for McGwire and then we would leave for the night. When things got really bad Mark started sleeping on the couch just to make sure Dad would be okay. I would lumber home at 36 weeks pregnant and wonder what would happen and when for my father. His last days were certainly upon us. As Dad dozed in his recliner with a tray full of pills next to his chair they would watch more baseball. Dad has been dead over 11 years and the records of both Sosa and McGwire are now irrevocably tainted by their steroid use. But the home run battle of that summer brings a smile to my face. That was the summer baseball stepped into my life and for a moment relieved an uncomfortable and painful scene. However the players are judged by history I am a grateful fan. Good luck McGwire.