MCGWIRE DRUG AFFAIR A BUM RAP FOR HIM

Slugger Is Not Cheating With His Steroids

BOSTON---No wonder ballplayers loathe the media. Mark McGwire is stalking
one of baseball's most cherished records---until now the feel-good story of
the baseball summer --- and suddenly he's engaged in a tabloid-driven
controversy that's painting him as a cheater and a bad role model.

It's unfair.

If you just dropped in from a twoweek trip to Guam, here's the background:
An Associated Press reporter noticed a jar of androstenedione in McGwire's
locker last week. He asked the slugger about the stuff, did some homework
and wrote about it.

Androstenedione, known in baseball clubhouses as "andro," is an
all-natural, over-the-counter steroid (not of the dangerous anabolic
steroid family) that is used to help an athlete train harder and recover
faster. It is banned by the National Football League, the National
Collegiate Athletic Association and the International Olympic Committee,
but allowed by the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association
and Major League Baseball.

There. McGwire takes something that can be sold at any drugstore and is
permitted by his sport, and suddenly he's lumped with the Olympic swimmer
Michelle Smith-de Bruinand the sprinter Ben lohnson.

Wake up. The International Olympic Committee has limits on caffeine intake.
Juan Antonio Samaranch would strip McGwire's medal if he went to the
plateSafter consuming eight cups of strong coffee.

The story of McGwire' s historic home run chase is being tarnished because
folks are hearing bits of stories and reading wild headlines and concluding
that Big Mac is a pharmaceutical creation.

McGwire is not some 98-pound weakling who went on the juice and came back
as Rambo. He is a huge, muscular man, who hit 49 home runs in his first big
league season 12 years ago.

In Tuesday's Boston Globe, a doctor said that andro is part of McGwire's
success. This makes it sound as if the substance is adding 40 feet (12
meters) to McGwire's long fly balls. This is ridiculous. Andro might help
McGwire stay healthy and aid his recovery time from injuries, but the same
could be said about aspirin or any other pain reliever.

If a slugger eats Wheaties cereal (sold over the counter, not banned by
MLB) wouldn't it be true that Wheaties are part of his success? What about
steak? Is eating prime rib part of McGwire's success?

In McGwire's case, it is misleading to write that he's using a
"performanceenhancing drug." He's a baseball player, not an Olympic
sprinter. There' s nothing sold at drugstores that would help any of us hit
a home run in the big leagues (unless the store has a book on hitting
written by Ted Williams). Facing Randy Johnson and hitting a ball over the
fence requires bravery, timing, hand-eye coordination, reflexes, leverage
and strength. Most of all, it requires practice.

Meanwhile, how many other baseball players are taking the same stuff?
McGwire probably doesn't go more than a couple of days without hitting
against a pitcher who uses andro. While we're at it, what about creatine,
another dietary supplement sold over the counter, also used by McGwire?
What about METRx (endorsed on radio and in print by Mo Vaughn of the Boston
Red Sox)?

McOwire's been a good citizen, never one to disgrace the uniform. Most
recently he's dedicated his charity efforts to awareness and funding for
abused children. And now he's got to read that he's a bad example to young
athletes? Please.

Perhaps andro will be proven unsafe. That is an issue for the Food and Drug
Administration and for Major League Baseball and its Players Association.
In the meantime McGwire should be left alone on this issue.

We've all heard the stories about Roger Maris's hair falling out from
stress when he chased Babe Ruth's record in the summer of 1961. Turns out
Roger was lucky. He didn't play in 1998, when you can do something legal
and be painted as a cheater. And what about the Babe? The Bambino hit 60
homers in 1927, the seventh year of Prohibition. Think he might have had a
little bathtub gin coursing through his veins at any point during the '27
season?

Hope not. After all, it would have been a bad message for youngsters.