So Mark McGwire has been hired to be the hitting coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers, working with manager Don Mattingly. There are a couple minor things that make this cool that I want to talk about before the bigger issue of Mark McGwire's career.
First, I like that my childhood baseball hero is now working with my brother's childhood baseball hero. There is something fun about being an adult and seeing our childhood heroes also in new stages in life. And it is fun that these two former competitors - both first basemen in the American League during the late 1980s and early 1990s, now working together. And they both had such different hitting styles: Mattingly hit for average and McGwire hit for power.
Now both of these great hitters will be working together, maybe helping different players with different styles. As my brother said, if this team doesn't hit, it won't be the fault of the coaches. He also said though that what remains to be seen is whether they can coach the other side of the infield. That is funny and true.
But for McGwire, I am very happy that he is quietly focusing on this task, doing what he knows, maybe trying slowly to rebuild his reputation. It was always said that he knew the fundementals of hitting. (Note: I am not trying to argue that his knowledge of the fundamentals was more important in his hitting than the steroids. I imagine the two things worked well together.)
Everyone makes mistakes. I was - and still am - disappointed to learn that McGwire had used steroids. He has to live with that decision the rest of his life and I do believe that it pains him. Even small mistakes, much less really big ones - can haunt you all of your life. But we can also work to make up for our mistakes - to show that one mistake, or even one long series of mistakes, doesn't define us. He is doing that now, and I respect that.
Of course, he has a lot more work to do. And I hope someday he'll talk much more openly about it. But for now, this makes me happy.
