Mark McGwire and Morality

I was there when Mark McGwire hit number 70.  A beautiful day, end of the season, electricity in the hotdog-flavored air.  Mark had hit homerun number 69 earlier in the game and the stadium was on fire.  When his seventieth entered orbit, we did too.  We weren’t in St. Louis anymore.  Up in the clouds, someone asked:  “Is this heaven?”

Mmm, not exactly.

A few years later, Mark was suspected of having cheated by taking steroids.  Pretty nasty stuff.  Completely illegal in baseball.  And rightly so: steroid-use harms the body.  It also encourages others with pure swings to consider doing the same—for sometimes the pure swing just isn’t enough.  And for athletes-- competitors-- the difference between being good enough and being the best is a lot: within their reach are multi-million dollar contracts, adoring fans naming their children and pets after them, and cool nicknames that live on forever.  

Cheater.  Liar.  Fraud.  All these were affixed to the man who had lifted our spirits (and our voices) so long ago.  I felt bad for him, for the homerun ball and his image were both crashing down to earth.  So were we.  I was in Rome when Congress brought Mark in for questioning, so I didn’t hear the famous line of “I’m not here to talk about the past” until the following year.  I returned back home to a city that didn’t like Mark too much.  Just about gone were his chances of entering baseball “heaven,” the Hall of Fame.  His only way to salvation would require a personal apology and a plea for forgiveness.  And even then, who knew?

He had broken the rules of the game and hurt a lot of people—and himself—in the process.  And why?  He gave reasons: he was injured a lot and the steroids helped him heal better; he loved the game of baseball and he couldn’t see himself leaving it; and restrictions on steroids at the time were easy to get around.  It couldn’t be all that bad, could it?

Yeah, Mark, it could.

Sometimes rules are there for a reason.  To protect us, to protect those who love us, to protect the very world that provides the rules.  And some rules are more important than others: cursing at an ump will get you thrown out of a game, while betting on baseball will get you thrown out of The Game forever.  There are some things you just can’t do—even if we want it, even if we love it, even if the technology allows for it.

And that’s really, really tough.  It demands a certain self-discipline and obedience.  It requires a kind of deferring of one’s judgment to those who might just know better.  And that’s really difficult.  After all, the skeptic in us wonders: what if they’re wrong?

In life, there are some things in which “there is no darkness at all.”  And no matter what we want, no matter what technology allows, and no matter what other people say about them—even if people put it up to a vote and decide otherwise—there are some things which are right and which we must, as a result, follow; and there are some things which are wrong, which we must always avoid.  Homeruns, good—steroids, bad.

But where are these rules of life?  Where do we find those boundaries that distinguish what is good and helpful, and what is bad and damaging?  How can we know for sure that they are true and that we can follow them?

In the case of Major League Baseball, it is the Commissioner that sets down the rules.  In life, it is God.  In the case of baseball, a player knows the rules either by reading the rule-book, by following the example of others, or by using his noggin’ and figuring out that “stealing first base” is really not an option.  (Consulting the Commissioner or any one of his representatives on this might help).   In the case of life, we know the rules by reading the rule-book (Bible, Catechism, Canon Law), by following the example of others (how bout then saints!), and by using our noggins.  Praying and seeking spiritual direction from the Church helps.

Major League Baseball guarantees its rules and thus preserves its game.  God guarantees his law, signs it in the blood of his Only Son, gives it to the Church, guarantees it will preserve it by the Holy Spirit, and thus preserves our lives.  Pope after Pope, bishop after bishop, saint after martyred saint have preserved what God wants us to know about how to live—and many of them have died for it.  “The Truth will set you free.”

How silly it would be, then, if someone came into baseball—like, let’s say, the National Football League—and told baseball what its rules were to be.  That would be silly indeed!  Then why do we find it acceptable for legislators to make laws contrary to those of God?-- for example, by allowing same-sex unions and abortion?  Or, even closer to your computer: why do we find it acceptible in our hearts to go along with it and sin, as though we were rewriting the rules ourselves?

I'll be the first to admit, this stuff is tough.

Mark McGwire tried to rewrite some rules—and he did it with a good intentions.  He didn’t mean any harm.  He wanted to be the best baseball player he could be.  What’s wrong with that?  Everything-- when you're willing to do anything to get it.  And that's why people were upset and demanded an apology: sometimes, you can't do certain things.

Whether they are rules concerning contraception or same-sex attraction or euthanasia or in-vitro fertilization or abortion or embryonic stem-cell research or celibacy or Sunday Mass or tithing—we cannot rewrite the rules.  It’s only when you try to break them, like taking steroids to defy baseball or encouraging contraception to defy the body, that we truly break ourselves.  Our Father does not want that for us.  In fact, he wants us to fly: “God became man so that man might become God.”  That’s pretty awesome.  That’s better than hitting seventy home runs in a season.  Better than baseball’s “heaven.”

So what do we do when governments, technology, our friends, and even our own desires tell us that it is ok to do otherwise?  We take the humility and say with strength and resolve, “As for me, I will follow the Lord!”

After all, if we who are Catholics won’t follow, who will?