Episode 307 of “The Sports Experience Podcast” is here & we’re back on the diamond discussing Mark McGwire.

“Big Mac” made a splash in Major League Baseball after a successful college career at USC.

At 6’5” 220 lbs., the enormous first baseman unanimously won the 1987 American League Rookie of the Year when he clubbed a then-rookie record 49 home runs for the Oakland Athletics.

Along with his “Bash Brother” partner, Jose Canseco, McGwire helped lead the A’s to three straight AL pennants from 1988-1990 and won a World Series in 1989.

Though injuries and the 1994 MLB strike prevented McGwire from producing effectively, his final two and a half seasons in Oakland saw him club 125 home runs before he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals midway through the 1997 campaign.

Yet it was 1998 when McGwire was celebrated as the “Savior of Baseball” after the negative fallout from the 1994 strike.

McGwire broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record, and finished 1998 with 70 on the season! He hit another 65 in 1999 and hit a combined 61 in 2000 and 2001 before his retirement.

Sadly, these records came at a price. McGwire, thought to be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame as a 12x All-Star with 583 career home runs, was caught up in the scandal surrounding performance enhancing drug use in MLB during the 1990s and 2000s.

McGwire eventually admitted he took steroids during a 2010 interview with Bob Costas, and has been left out of Cooperstown like so many of his contemporaries who made the same choice.

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