The first thing Mark McGwire

“That’s just the way life is,” McGwire says. “Especially today with so much media, Internet, magazines –everybody’s got an opinion. I stood up last night and spoke from my heart, from my soul. It was on live TV, you know. I didn’t get paid for it. I wanted to do this on my own.”

I did say to him that many people were bothered — angry, in fact — by his refusal to link his own massive power numbers to steroids. He acknowledged that but did not back away from his own viewpoint that he would have been the same hitter without steroids had he been able to stay healthy.

“It’s my opinion,” he said, “and it’s something I believe deeply. With the walking M*A*S*H unit that I was, sure, steroids benefited me. They got me on the field to play more games and get more at-bats.