Forgiving Mark McGwire

With Major League Baseball season just around the corner, it remains to be seen whether Mark McGwire will survive media scrutiny as the new hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The team named their retired first baseman slugging champion as new coach last October, promising he would be available to the media. For most of the past decade, McGwire has dodged accusations that he used steroids, even refusing to answer questions before Congress in 2005.

But in January, in a tearful interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network, McGwire admitted what nearly everyone has suspected: he used steroids throughout most of the 1990s, including the 1998 season when he broke the single-season home run record of Roger Maris.

In a round of sorrowful phone calls, McGwire expressed sorrow to Maris’s widow, his parents, baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Tony LaRussa, Cardinals manager then and now. All offered forgiveness.

But unlike movie stars and politicians who confess to wrongdoing and then are quickly absolved by the general public, McGwire’s apology only stoked the flames of controversy. Vitriolic responses from those who played in the era before show that the controversy won’t die soon.

Jack Clark, a Cardinals first baseman in the 1980s and now a Fox baseball analyst in St. Louis, said McGwire and other steroid users — those who haven’t come forward — are “liars” and “creeps” who should be banned from baseball. Former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog concurred with Clark, saying “they’re all lying” about steroid use. Ferguson Jenkins, a Chicago Cubs pitcher in the 1960s and 1970s now in the Hall of Fame, said McGwire needs to apologize to all the pitchers he tagged for home runs.

Cynics complained that McGwire is only taking the step now because he wants to earn an income off the game which he betrayed.

Certainly McGwire’s confession should have happened years ago. Whatever the offense, from sexual abuse to murder, it’s better for the perpetrator to fess up sooner rather than later. That conveys a genuineness to the action that somehow is missing when a person is more or less forced to own up to the bad behavior.

Yet I know how difficult it is to come to grips with long-covert sins, especially if in denial for years. It’s obvious watching the Costas interview that McGwire’s penance was real — and difficult. Carrying around the open secret has been a burden to him. He has taken the necessary first steps to begin healing. Nobody can be in right relationship with anyone else — co-workers, friends, spouse or pastor — until bringing an end to covering up the shameful deeds of the past.

McGwire will be dogged by detractors all season. I hope he can be even more honest and forthright in his responses, and that his presence on the team doesn’t become a distraction. With a thick enough skin, he’ll be able to move on, regardless of those who judge him.

Moving the Office

After a decade in the same office, my department has moved to a different floor, where everyone on staff has less space.

For weeks, I’ve been the only one excited about the transition. Finally, after 17 years at various jobs in a windowless room, I am able to gaze outside. It won’t be quite like the last time I had a window — when I looked out at fountains and a reflective skyscraper in Sacramento — but it will be a morale booster nonetheless. I enjoyed watching the blowing snow on Monday as I moved into my new digs.

Still, the downsizing has been laborious. In recent weeks I’ve tossed out many files and dragged home dozens of books. Providentially, for my recent 10th anniversary service award — before I knew of the office move — I picked out an oak double-wide bookcase for the home. It’s full now with all the materials I’ve brought home. My wife is thrilled with all the extra tomes.

The whole experience has shown me that I’ve collected way too many newspaper and magazine clippings, memos, letters and even books over the years. While my streamlined office is a bit cozier, I’ve only surrounded myself with the “most important” stuff. That’s probably a good lesson for any Christian on the topic of consumption. I’ve traded in many books for future credit at the local used Christian bookstore, and given others away for the upcoming Friends of the Library sale.

Letting the Paper Go

I’ve just made a radical decision. For the first time since childhood, I’m no longer going to read the local daily newspaper in my home. Of course it’s a decision that 20 million other Americans have made in the past two decades, which is why the newspaper industry is in jeopardy.

In some ways I feel like a traitor, having worked at daily newspapers for 11 years myself. But it makes sense, not just because I’ll be saving $16.31 a month.

The catalyst for my decision was customer service and delivery problems. Some days the paper isn’t there by the time I leave for work. Other days it blows away because it’s so thin, and the delivery guy didn’t bother to put a rubber band around it. Complaints haven't helped with the delivery.

What pushed me over the edge, however, was the content of the paper, or the lack of it. When I first moved to Springfield, the paper had interesting local stories and a vibrant editorial page with opinions expressed by local editors and an array of columnists. The editorial page has devolved into a feud between the rabid right and the loony left.

I’ve enjoyed sitting down to breakfast with the morning paper for years, but I can wait an hour until I get to the office. Everything on the printed page is available online — for free. I’ll be checking the obituaries and box scores, but not much else. Most everything in the paper I’ve read online somewhere the day before. I’ll continue to read USA Today and The Wall Street Journal at work. Those national papers haven’t appreciably cut back on their content.

I called to cancel the paper a couple of weeks ago. Only problem is the company keeps bringing it every day. Maybe I should have canceled long ago. I get better service.

Road Trip

My wife and l last month completed an 1,800-mile road trip to Texas to visit my brother and his wife in Corpus Christi. We drove down through eastern Oklahoma and central Texas, and returned via eastern Texas, northwestern Louisiana and Arkansas.

We stayed off the beaten paths going down, hitting places such as Hugo, Okla., and Paris, Palestine and Victoria, Texas. While the back roads are a great way to see the country, they aren’t conducive to eating well. Every little town had doughnut shops and fast-food joints, but no place to find a nutritious meal. On the return trip we hit larger cities, but you still could tell a lot about the economics of a place by its restaurants. Lufkin, Texas, had a good proportion of nice chain sit-down restaurants. Up the road in Nacogdoches, it’s nothing but burgers and chicken.

My wife drove the entire trip, including through Houston, Shreveport and Little Rock on the 16½-hour trip home in one day. Mile after mile in Louisiana we were struck by mansions only yards from shacks.

Another observation: Texas and Arkansas do a poor job of letting drivers know the speed limit and give little warning to highway junctions that are approaching. Most disturbing was the drivers we saw in every state texting, some of them while going 70 mph.

Despite all the driving, we did enjoy several days on the beach in Corpus Christi, hearing the crashing waves, watching the beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and escaping the frigid winter weather.