Comments made by Mark McGwire’s bodybuilding idiot of a brother illustrate A) what a joke bodybuilding is and B) why bodybuilders should NEVER be allowed anywhere near real athletes.
So Mark McGwire’s loose-cannon brother has come out with a book, and in it he details his big brother’s steroid and Human Growth Hormone (HGH) taking regimen. Does anyone really care what this little man has to say about his disgraced brother? As a matter of fact, who really could be interested in what he might have to say about anything, what it’s like to be the talentless brother? Is there that much interest in bottom feeders these days?
Note: Someone should ask Jay if he helped his NFL quarterback of a brother Dan McGwire get an edge, as well.
Jay McGwire’s comments really speak volumes about how little bodybuilders know and why they should be ignored when they talk about athletic performance. Here’s a sample of idiocy from Little Jay, “Oh, his strength. His leg strength was awesome. I talked about what he is doing on the leg press — over 600 pounds for 20 reps. That is pretty good for a baseball player. And that is the key in baseball, I think. … Mark didn’t really have big legs until after that. He couldn’t do some other serious leg workouts because of his lower back issues, so we had to be careful with that.”
Hey Jay, did you stop and think the leg press machine might be responsible for your brother’s back problems? What did you do to try to strengthen the lower back, huh? Also, as a guy who supposedly spent a lot of time in the gym, you should know that 600-pounds on the leg press is common-place, unless you’ve spent your time in Curves’ gyms. And come on, what functional purpose does the leg press serve for a baseball player, not to mention for a guy who is approaching the end of his career? A lot of people can leg press 600-pounds for 20 repetitions, I have seen it countless times and it is completely unimpressive. It also proves nothing and is indicative/predictive of nothing.
More nonsense. “And obviously his arm strength, getting those hands through the [hitting] zone. Think about it, it is pretty remarkable. He is gaining 30 pounds over three years, and that is the right way to do it because you go slow and the body reacts slow in the ways of getting it more flexible. So Mark was more flexible 30 pounds heavier. Now think about that torque that he could have. That is why the ball was going out of stadiums.”
WTF? This is gibberish. It would take thousands and thousands of words to try to decipher this garbage. It’s classic bodybuilding, throw some jargon around, figure you’ll impress/intimidate people who supposedly don’t know as much, and Voila, you sound like an expert. He actually sounds like a moron.
At 170-180 pounds Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron were hitting home runs, why couldn’t Mark McGwire hit them at 225-pounds? Oh, and the Cardinals’ new hitting instructor had more strike outs than hits during his years as an active player in St. Louis.
Then Jay McGwire spoke about his brother’s drug cycles. More Neanderthal musings. Just like Greg Anderson, the alleged personal trainer who ruined Barry Bonds’ body with steroids and unsound training, Jay McGwire dosed his brother up with massive amounts of drugs. Again, bodybuilders who don’t do anything that can be considered even remotely athletic just need to add muscle, and ingest tons of drugs. Baseball players and real athletes don’t need to pack on muscle at any cost, especially at the cost Jay McGwire exacted on his brother’s body.
No less of an expert than BALCO Labs’ Victor Conte says, “The first thing you are going to see is size. You are using Dbol (Dianabol) and this stuff at this dosage, you’re going to look like Hercules, if he is doing the weight training. At 12 weeks and those dosages, this is not baby food.” By the way, you can train like Olive Oil and you’ll look like Popeye if you dose up like Mark McGwire did.
The final insult comes in the form of this statement by Jay McGwire, “Jay McGwire repeatedly stressed that any changes weren’t just from the drugs, but that his brother trained ridiculously hard, often six days a week. And the combination paid off.” This is just bullshit. The drugs are responsible for allowing someone to train “ridiculously hard, six days a week.” Don’t buy this nonsense. And don’t but the malarkey that teammates and team personnel didn’t know what was going on.
Mark McGwire cheated by taking performance-enhancing drugs because he wanted to break home run hitting records and his brother was right there with him every step of the way.
Spare us the tears, Mark. It’s 2010 and nobody is buying the pathetic nonsense that you didn’t take steroids to help you hit home runs. Furthermore, if it weren’t for steroids – not androstenedione, creatine or any other supplement – Mark McGwire would have been out of baseball around the time he was setting home run records.
Steroids were responsible for allowing McGwire to embark on his magical 8-year run that began in Oakland in 1995. That’s all we needed to hear. Not getting that simple,unqualified admission made the McGwire/Costas interview kind of silly.
McGwire acted like a little kid who got caught doing something wrong and broke down in an attempt to minimize the punishment and engender some sympathy.
Although it is sad that McGwire is still lying to himself and is still in denial about his steroid use. His claim that he didn’t take steroids to hit home runs defies logic, especially when you consider that Little Mac had the help of a public relations firm.
And let’s ignore Tony LaRussa’s defense of McGwire. LaRussa was on the scene of two of the biggest steroid scandals in baseball’s history, the Jose Canseco/McGwire A’s and the McGwire St. Louis Cardinals, and now he wants to bring Mac back to the scene of one of the crimes. I wrote about this years ago, and my case holds up to this day. LaRussa has managed to skate through all these years without having any of this steroid stink stick to him. Don’t buy this “Teflon Don’s” take on McGwire or anything to do with the steroids in baseball story.
The overlooked joke of this whole story is that Mark McGwire is coming back as the Cardinals’ hitting instructor. McGwire is a guy who struck out once every 4 times at bat and was worthless at the plate when he didn’t hit a home run. In his last year, after the steroids had ravaged his body, he had a .187 average, 56 hits with 29 home runs and 4 doubles. He struck out 118 times in 299 at-bats, the 4th highest total of his career in about 40% fewer total at-bats for the season.
The bottom line is that Mark McGwire got another chance to come clean and he blew it.
