By saying very little, McGwire lost a lot

It's an amazing thing to observe how swiftly and stupidly a man can ruin his reputation and career. They took years to build, but they can be dismantled in a matter of minutes.

For Kobe Bryant, it was an encounter with a woman. For Mike Price, it was one drunken night. For Jayson Williams, it was a strange party. For Pete Rose, it was a lie. And now, for Mark McGwire, it was a few minutes in front of Congress.

Last week, McGwire was ordered to appear in front of Congress to testify about steroid use in baseball. A cocker spaniel would have been just as useful.

McGwire didn't say anything, and to almost any observer, he appeared to be taking the Fifth Amendment — he didn't want to incriminate himself.

McGwire acted a lot like a man who was guilty.

Baseball got called to the principal's office last week, and it didn't go well, especially for McGwire. A bigger-than-life, home-run hitting, broad-shouldered slugger, he stared down fastballs and Randy Johnson and the sort of record-pursuit pressure that once made Roger Maris' hair fall out. But he couldn't handle a few questions from aging men in suits. He couldn't tell the truth.

"My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family or myself," he said.

When asked if he was taking the Fifth, McGwire said — now famously— "I'm not here to discuss the past. I'm here to be positive about this subject."

Huh?

McGwire repeatedly refused to answer questions. He had previously denied steroid use, but now, under oath, he was acting differently. "What I heard and saw was a confession," said Dick Pound, chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Even McGwire's friend and former coach, Tony La Russa, thought it was bad form — "He's made a statement where he's denied it, and I thought it was a great time to make that same statement," La Russa said.

Missouri congressman William Lacy Clay called for the removal of McGwire's name from a stretch of Interstate 70 near St. Louis.

"I don't think he deserves a name on the highway if he can't be forthcoming about his involvement with this issue," Clay told the Associated Press in Washington. "He does not come clean. He's not forthcoming."