Mark Mcgwire Essay

Baseball is America’s favorite pastime. Transformation of baseball has drastically changed over the years. From the players being skinny and tall or chubby and short back when baseball first emerged, to baseball players having veins protruding from their biceps and the size of the thighs being comparable to the circumference of a tree trunks. The sport of baseball changed in the late 1990’s and even into the 21st century. But this was a change that looking back at it now, some may say it had an ugly outcome. Mark McGwire was born in 1961 in California, and grew up loving baseball (Editors). In high school scouts always kept in contact with McGwire because of not only his powerful swing, but his pitching skill as well (Editors). McGwire attended …show more content…
After an eye opening college career, Mark was drafted 8th overall by the Oakland Athletics and by the end of McGwire’s rookie season he made his name known by smashing 49 home runs and winning rookie of the year (Editors). Mark’s “never back down” mentality made him a leader on the Athletics team, but he was traded due to injuries (Editors). McGwire’s new team, the St. Louis Cardinals, did not have to wait long for Mark to make his presence known. During his first year with his new team, he knocked 58 baseballs out of several stadiums and this amount of homeruns only went uphill (Editors). In 1998, McGwire hit 70 homeruns which beat Roger Maris’ previous record of 61 (Editors). Fans were shocked by what Mark did, and many thought he could not have done that without some type of extra boost from a banned substance. Finger-pointing at McGwire about using steroids became the accusation. Although performance enhancing drugs were banned in the MLB in 1991, testing was not required, along with organizations and fans turning a blind eye to the fact that not only were baseball players getting bigger but their statistics grew bigger as well (Fitzpatrick). Now why would coaches and owners not make this a big deal? Steroids have many very