It generally takes me a little while to warm up to baseball season every year. I love baseball, but I also love football and basketball and right now. When the buzz is spreading around about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training early next month, I am zoned in on the NFL play offs and the NCAA basketball chaos. With the Cardinals’ Winter Warm Up last weekend though, baseball has started to plant a seed into my sports drowned brain. Perhaps receiving even more publicity than the Winter Warm Up was the news of Mark McGwire coming back to the Cardinals as the new hitting coach. And then, to top that, McGwire’s press conference admitting to steroid use…

While there are some changes in the Cardinals roster from 2009 to 2010 (no Rick Ankiel, no Mark DeRosa, and new names of players younger than me – something I’m not sure I’ll ever fully come to grips with), no one seems to be interested in anything more than Mark McGwire. Even the Cardinals signing Matt Holliday to a contract some people doubt he is worth, didn’t seem to get attention after the news of McGwire’s hiring and admitted steroid use. Like almost any “scandal,” everyone has an opinion: Cardinal great Jack Clark has spoken out about those who’ve used steroids and his opinion is, well, not forgiving. Clark was quoted by the Post-Dispatch saying in reference to steroid users, “A lot of them should be banned from baseball, including Mark McGwire.”

Growing up playing softball and coaching high school softball, but not having experience with steroid usage (I want to make that clear), it’s my belief that steroids could likely do next to nothing to help a player hit a ball. Having a rounded object hit a round object is one of the hardest things to do in sports. Physics is against you. What steroids could do, in my opinion, is help a player hit the ball further. Further as in over an outfield fence. Home runs.

So many big names in baseball today and the past decade have been linked to steroids: Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez; all of these players have been tagged with allegations of steroid usage. The difference is how the public treats the players. It’s a strange mix of player personality, plus team, plus player skill level, plus what’s going on in the media at the time of allegation that results in a forgiving attitude or one of scorn.

So where does Big Mac fall? If any one was surprised at McGwire’s admission to using steroids they weren’t paying attention. People just don’t change body sizes the way McGwire did. It just seemed unnatural at the time, and now the baseball watching community has his confession. Now, will we – as a baseball community – forgive McGwire and allow him to coach players on how to hit a round ball with a round bat, or scale him down to the person he was when he made the mistake of using steroids?

McGwire’s admitting to his steroid usage seemed sincere. He claimed he wanted his body to feel “normal” after all the wear and tear his body took as a professional baseball player. He apologized. He nearly cried on national TV.

Big Mac was met with cheers at the Cardinals Winter Warm Up. A standing ovation. A heroes welcome. While there will be naysayers, I predict that over all McGwire is going to return to Cardinals Nation to open arms. He’s not returning as a player; he’s returning as a coach who can pass on his knowledge to younger players. Of course there’s the old saying that you’ve got to know how to lose to win. Maybe that’s what Mac is here to do: teach today’s Cardinals to not walk the path he walked, and to teach them how to do what steroids won’t help them do- put a sphere on a round, moving ball.

Annie is the Sports and Fitness Editor for Girls Guide. She writes about all kinds of sports related topics and then really goes out and plays sports almost every evening. You can contact Annie by emailing her at annie [at] girlsguidetothegalaxy [dot] com, and we are still trying to talk her into getting a Twitter account – no success yet.