Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David "Big Mac" McGwire, is an American former professional baseball player and currently a bench coach in Major League Baseball. As a first baseman, his MLB career spanned from 1986 to 2001 while playing for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He quickly grabbed media attention in 1987 as a rookie with the Athletics by hitting 33 home runs before the All-Star break, and would lead the major leagues in home runs that year with 49, setting...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBaseball Player
Date of Birth1 October 1963
CityPomona, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Some of the longest home runs I've hit, I didn't actually realize they were going that far. Everyone says, 'What does it feel like to hit the ball that far?' Actually, there's no feeling at all. I know when the ball meets the bat whether or not it's left the park. It's a nice easy thing.
To be the first player to do it three consecutive years (fifty or more home runs), you go back through the thousands of power hitters who played this game and nobody has ever done it, and I can sit here and say I'm the first. I'm pretty proud of that.
I mean, it's unheard of for somebody to hit 70 home runs, so I'm like in awe of myself right now.
The thing I sort of get tired of hearing is if I don't hit home runs or don't get hits, that the pressure of the media is getting to me. Absolutely not. Believe me, it's not getting to me.
The steroids I did were on a very, very low dosage. I didn't want to take a lot of that. I didn't want to look like Arnold Schwartzenegger or Lou Ferrigno.
I've moved on from it and I wish the media would, ... I've made my statement in Washington, that's my statement, and when I left Washington that's the last time I was ever going to talk about it, and that's really about it.
I've moved on from it and I wish the media would. It's pretty simple. I made my statement in Washington. That's my statement.
Baseball was a chapter in my life, and now I'm excited to start another chapter as a hitting coach.
You don't know that you'll ever have to talk about the skeleton in your closet.
There's not a pill or an injection that's going to give me, going to give any player the hand-eye coordination to hit a baseball.
I'd be here all of time. I just don't live here.
I have had to tell my son, my parents, my friends that I used steroids. It's been very hard. It's been very difficult.
Somebody gets into September with fifty, they have a shot down the stretch to either tie, break or get close to the record.
My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself,