DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Mark McGwire now admits what many people had assumed - he used steroids for much of his baseball career. And that includes 1998, when he set a record for most home runs hit in a season.
MARK MCGWIRE: I wish they'd never came into my life, but we're sitting here talking about it. I'm so sorry that I have to. I apologize to everybody in Major League Baseball, my family, the Marises, Bud Selig. Today was the hardest day of my life.
INSKEEP: MIKE PESCA. Hi.
INSKEEP: McGwire sounds quite emotional there. But he phrased everything very carefully or seemed to. For example, saying that his admission would, quote, "confirm what people have suspected." Why phrase it that way?
PESCA: And it was revealed in his interview with Bob Costas that hours before that hearing he had met with the congressmen and he said, as he reported to Bob Costas, I wanted to come clean. I guess they couldn't work out an agreement. So all he had been saying up to this point was I'm not here to talk about the past, and then he went away in shame.
INSKEEP: Okay. So that's what happened in the past. But now he's made this statement. What has he admitted to precisely here?
PESCA: So now that he is here to talk about the past, he says he doesn't know what kind of steroids he took. But he does say he took them throughout the '90s, including 1998. And the weirdest thing about his interview and his admission was that he says steroids didn't help him hit homeruns.
INSKEEP: Yeah. I mean, the statement that it's about his health rather than his strength, is that any real distinction?
PESCA: He seemed to not get the necessary and sufficient distinction that strength isn't all you need to hit homeruns, but how could you say it didn't help him homeruns? Bob Costas really pressed him on this point. It was an interview sort of geared towards future Hall of Fame voters and stat geeks. And McGwire didn't provide answers that went beyond, you know, I just had good timing and I was good at my hand-eye coordination.
INSKEEP: Now, from what you just said, we can infer one reason Mark McGwire might come clean at this moment. You said future Hall of Fame. He's not in the Hall of Fame yet, despite all those homeruns. Is there any other reason he would come clean now as it were?
PESCA: And he knew he'd have to answer many, many questions or else be a distraction to the team. So he had to find a forum to talk a little bit about his past. And that's what he did in his statement and his interview last night.
INSKEEP: Mike, always good to talk with you.
PESCA: Good to talk to you too.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's sports correspondent Michael Pesca.