While the following might be the sort of thing you’d ordinarily file under “no fucking kidding”, it’s clearly the sort of public admission Mark McGwire needed to make before Congress several years ago in order to start a new career as St. Louis’ hitting instructor. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derek Gold transcribes a statement from Big Mac that may or may not allow the former A’s/Cards slugger to claim a place in public life.

It™s time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected. I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize. I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the nineties, including during the 1998 season.

I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.

During the mid-90s, I went on the DL seven times and missed 228 games over five years. I experienced a lot of injuries, including a rib cage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a stress fracture of the left heel, and a torn right heel muscle. It was definitely a miserable bunch of years and I told myself that steroids could help me recover faster. I thought they would help me heal and prevent injuries too.

I™m sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids. I had good years when I didn™t take any and I had bad years when I didn™t take any. I had good years when I took steroids and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter what, I shouldn™t have done it and for that I™m truly sorry.

Better late than never, I say, and hopefully McGwire’s admission will provoke a former SF Giants icon to provide full and frank details about his own PED use, the sort of revelations that will allow him to be finally  be embraced by fans and historians alike.  Whaddya say, F.P. Santangelo?