Mark McGwire finally admitted today that he used steroids during the majority of his major league baseball career. This includes 1998 when he broke the single-season home run record. Are any of us surprised?

McGwire, Bonds and Sosa should all be excommunicated from major league baseball. They should be forced to live in a soot covered tent city under some overpass in the middle of asscrack Nebraska — somewhere far away from the applause and adulation, away from the pop of flash bulbs and hard body swimsuit vixens. Those iniquitous frauds with their shriveled testicles and acne riddled backs should be stripped of their medals and their hardware and the tainted millions they earned while defecating on the thing they were supposed to love the most. None of these men should ever be given the opportunity to step foot inside of a big league ballpark again. And the doors to the Hall of Fame should be permanently slammed in their faces.

“Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era,” McGwire said. You and me both, buddy. I saw you play in Busch stadium during your final year. I was nearly blinded by all the camera flashes that ignited the entire ballpark every time you stepped up to the plate. Better than sex, wasn’t it, Big Mac? I bet it was.

Every man deserves a second chance. I agree with that statement. Only, I don’t think you deserve a second chance in the majors. You had your chance. For a few glorious years, you were the king of the hill. Now, if you had any respect left for the game, you would just walk away and fade into the distance.

I hear Foot Locker is hiring.

So, it turns out Sammy Sosa tested positive for performance enhancing drugs back in 2003. Honestly, I never imagined that Sammy would have resorted to cheating to inflate his stats or share the limelight with other magnificent MLB puritans like Mark Mcgwire or Barry Bonds. He just seemed like too good a guy to degrade the integrity of the game like that. It really breaks my heart to read that he –

Wait a minute? Who am I kidding? The only thing that would have surprised me would have been if Sammy’s name was NOT on “The List”. Come on, MLB. Let’s just rip that band-aid completely off. Show us the rest of the names. This dribs and drabs stuff is getting old. I’d like to know that the few players still held in high regard by me and others deserve to be lauded.

Just tell me that Griffey Jr. never cheated. That’s all I want to know. Because, at this point, the amount of fallen heroes from the game of hardball far outnumbers the genuine titans of the sport. The steroid era has tainted the game for a whole generation of fans. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens? All frauds. And what have we learned from the indiscretions of these men? I’ll tell you what we’ve learned — that the price of cutting corners and deception is an unending stream of fortune and fame. Stick a needle in your ass and be blinded by the white heat of flashbulbs, drown in crisp green oceans of cash and have beautiful women throw themselves at your feet. Not bad really?

The only thing you have to live with is knowing that you took something as beautiful and pure as baseball, probably your first and only true love, and you defiled it for personal gain. I doubt any amount of fame and fortune can mend that wound.

Did the earth move for you, Sammy?

Do you know why? It’s because he is the only person I know who can cheat his way into attaining the most coveted record in ALL of sports, get charged with 10 counts of perjury, 1 count of obstruction of justice, have an entire book written about him, abundant with proof that he slathered himself in performance enhancing drugs, and yet, when he walks into AT&T ballpark, the people, they cheer. Not only do they cheer, but they give Mr. Bonds a standing O. That would be like a man making love to his wife’s hot sister in his marital bed and his wife walking in and catching him red handed. But instead of beating the crap out of him, she strips to her bare essentials and joins in.

What a kick in a nuts.

So, this evening I turned on the TIVO and got my daily dose of Pardon The Interruption, one of the best damn shows on television in my opinion, and they were having their Toss-Up segment. One of the questions was who is more historically significant, Barry Bonds or Tiger Woods. An interesting question, I thought. But to me, it’s no contest.

The two commentators — Michael Wilbon and Dan Le Batard — had opposing views on this one. Le Batard went with Bonds and Wilbon chose Woods. Le Batard made the statement that what Woods has done isn’t at the same level as Jackie Robinson, at which point Wilbon suggested that it could possibly be at the same level. Bonds, one of the greatest players in the history of baseball, the man who broke the most heralded record in the history of sports. Or Woods, inarguably the greatest golfer to pick up a club, a man who, with 13 major championships, will inevitably tie and surpass the number of majors (18) won by Jack Nicklaus.

Okay, let’s disregard the fact that Bonds pissed on most of the greatness of his career with steroid laced urine. When it comes to the most historically significant, it’s not even close. Bonds may have broken the greatest record in sports, but Henry Aaron broke the record under the most strenuous of circumstances. Aaron’s breaking of the record will forever be more significant than Bonds or even Alex Rodriguez’s if he makes it to that point. Though Bonds likes to play the race-card (and in some remote instances, he has a right to), what he had to go through, some of which he brought upon himself, and what Aaron had to go through are leagues apart.

Woods, on the other hand, had to do almost the exact same thing Jackie Robinson had to do. It may appear that the obstacles were not as high or that there were not as many, but there were plenty there. Woods basically stepped into a white man’s sport and was not only competitive, but dominated the sport in a way that no one could have ever imagined. Plus, he is still in his prime. With good health and a determination that doesn’t wither, there’s no telling how far he could go. Baseball was never a white man’s sport. It was a sport in which several rich white men came to an agreement to exclude black players. But there were black players. Many of them. They were never told they couldn’t play baseball. They were never told they were not good enough or smart enough to play the game. They were only told that they were not good enough or smart enough to play with white players.

Golf, on the other hand, was the sport of the elite, the affluent. It was and still is the sport of exclusivity. When I was in high school, a man was giving a speech to our math class. I can’t remember what he was speaking about because he was a droner and I was barely paying attention. At one point, I barely heard him say, “You really don’t see black people on golf courses — unless they’re caddies.” After making the statement, he looked towards the rear of the room where I was sitting and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He rushed up to me and began to apologize vociferously. He’s sorry. He didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I sat there in shock. Not because of what he said. It was because I hadn’t really heard what he said. It was only after his stringent apology that I reran the previous moments through my head. I ran them through my head over and over again. It was at this point that I found myself getting angrier and angrier. I don’t think I was angry because of what he said. I knew nothing about golf and to tell the truth, whenever I was flipping past it on Sunday afternoons on the T.V., all I saw were white men.

What made me angry about the man’s statement was the implication. To me he was implying that this was not a sport for black men. Black men carried the bags perhaps but they did not play the game. Why not? It was just a game like any other. Are we not good enough? Stupid golf. Who would want to play that game anyway? I stewed about that for a long time.

Then Tiger Woods came upon the scene and the sport was never the same. It wasn’t a white man’s sport after all. It was a man’s sport (and woman’s). And when the doors were opened and Tiger stepped it, it became his sport. The historical significance of a Barry Bonds pales in comparison to that of a Tiger Woods. Like Robinson, Woods had to endure the exclusion, the threats of death and violence, and like Robinson, Woods endured. Unlike Robinson, who is probably considered to be the most historically significant figure in sports, Woods will most likely be considered both historically significant AND the greatest golfer in the history of the game.

I wonder where that man is now. The one who said black men were caddies and nothing more when it came to golf. I wonder if it really flipped his wig when he saw Tiger sauntering down the fairway, scribbling onto his scorecard, his white caddy trailing behind him.

All I can say is…c’mon A-Rod!