McGwire brothers are two of a kind
by Gwen Knapp
Jay and Mark McGwire shouldn't be estranged. The brothers have too much in common, especially their message about performance-enhancing drugs. The two might as well be lobbyists for the steroid and growth-hormone industries.
The drugs, each brother says, were primarily healing agents for Mark. They were merely shortcuts. They let Mark get back on the field, saving his baseball career after an array of injuries.
Oh sure, both brothers express regret for using the drugs and tell future generations to just say no. Jay's book, released Monday, describes frightening side effects from his excessive consumption as a bodybuilder.
The caveats don't outweigh the justifications, which easily can be twisted into promotions. Jay's book, "Mark and Me: Mark McGwire and the Truth Behind Baseball's Worst-kept Secret," contradicts its cautionary tales so often that it won't deter anyone from doping. It might prevent famous athletes from relying on a lost-soul little brother as a guide through the world of synthetic hormones, but that's about it.
Jay says his Christian faith prompted him to write the book, to achieve catharsis. But he does a lot of verbal strutting over his role in helping Mark juice.
He brags that bodybuilders know more about steroids than any other athletes or, for that matter, doctors. He says of Mark's confession to trying the drugs in 1989, five years before Jay claims to have been counseling him on doping: "Obviously, he had no idea what he was doing!"
Jay describes receiving a 1998 Ford Explorer from his big brother shortly after Mark took Roger Maris' home run record in 1998. "I believe this was Mark's way of saying thank you for being a part of his success. I had helped him save his career by getting him into the right lifestyle and helping him to heal by prescribing the right stuff for him."
Just 14 pages later, he writes: "Steroids need to be out of sports and society completely. They hurt people physically and emotionally. They are incredibly addictive and debilitating."
Apparently, they also lead to dramatic contradictions.
Jay acknowledges having suicidal thoughts as he tried to kick the steroid habit, as well as horrible sleep disorders and difficulty breathing when his body expanded to freakish proportions. In the most candidly unflattering passage in the book, he admits to abusing girlfriends, "physically pushing them around" and saying they "came to think of me as psycho."
Most of those complications can be rationalized by other information in the book. Jay became profoundly depressed as a teen, after losing an eye in a BB-gun accident, so perhaps he already was predisposed toward emotional problems. Any weight gain, whether by steroids or pecan pies, can leave people winded.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, he says, left bodybuilding to avoid the damage of long-term doping. Some retired bodybuilders, after over 20 years' doping, "look good and healthy" to Jay, though he concedes that he doesn't know their emotional status.
If he wants to dissuade potential drug users, why not rattle off names of several bodybuilders who died before age 50? Two brothers went in their sleep, just two days apart. Another, who needed a heart transplant, collapsed at a bodybuilding show. His doctor later was charged with reckless endangerment for prescribing steroids to him, even after the transplant.
Jay also talks about a "not very toxic" steroid that a mature bodybuilder recommended to him and other teenagers. "He knew that it would help us gain strength, but that it wouldn't hurt us," the book says.
Kind of like Flintstones chewables.
Jay and his big brother have not talked since 2002, after a dispute that the book says began when Mark disciplined Jay's stepson with a swat on the backside. Mark, upon hearing that the book would be published, recently said he never plans to speak to Jay again.
He might want to read the book. It's very respectful, constantly referring to the first baseman's humility, hard work and thoughtfulness. Although Jay has said in interviews that it would be ridiculous to dismiss steroids' effect on his brother's power-hitting, the book largely supports Mark's position that health concerns alone drove him to the juice. It also celebrates his home run record as legitimate.
The brothers probably don't even realize that they're making a case for steroid use, presenting it as medicinal and enabling people who want to rationalize or trivialize it. They're simply playing sloppy defense, which appears to run in the family. They're both naturals.
