Some of Our Best Heroes Are Self-Made

By Thomas Boswell
Washington Post Columnist
Thursday, September 10, 1998; Page E1

ST. LOUIS – Everybody knows Mark McGwire now. But some of us knew him then. Ten years ago, when he was one of the best-known players on the best team in baseball, he wasn't such a prize, as a player or even as a person.

Warm now, he was abrupt then. Open, sincere and almost touchy-feely these days, McGwire was walled up and macho during the glory days of the 1988-90 Oakland A's. As unstoppably clutch under pressure in the national spotlight as he's been for the past three weeks – for the past three years, actually – that's just how tense and ineffective he was in three World Series back then.

McGwire's transformation is not a trick or a con. It's something far more important. McGwire has shown us how much a person – even when he's way past age 21 and considered a "finished" product – can change for the better. When people face their flaws and take themselves to task – physically, emotionally, psychologically – amazing changes can happen. The McGwire we see and admire now is the result of just such a long, hard, frightening project.

As much as any player in baseball, McGwire has worked on himself. Few players lift weights more rigorously or monitor their diet better. Few bypass time-consuming endorsements so completely to "focus" on their core job. What other famous player is proud to say he spent four years in therapy so he could understand himself better? And, yes, to a degree that legal-but-controversial testosterone-producing protein supplement (androstenedione), which baseball allows but some other sports don't, is also part and parcel of that same project.

Mark McGwire, as McGwire likes to say, is now the person he was always supposed to be. But you don't get there for free. Ninety percent of life is not just showing up. That's what too many athletes think: "Here I am. Give me my due." After McGwire hit 49 homers as a rookie, then made millions of dollars, he could've taken that tack, too, saying, "How can anything possibly be wrong with me?"

The self-absorbed adolescent – which includes plenty of 30-year-old pro athletes – thinks he's profound for asking, "Who am I?" The adult, like McGwire, demands of himself, "Who could I be? Who would I like to become if I can find the courage to work hard enough for it?"

A wise man once said that one of the tasks of youth is to identify its heroes. Not to worship them but, to the degree it's possible, to copy and cultivate their best traits in ourselves. The 22-year-old groundskeeper who caught McGwire's 62nd home run ball, then returned it to him for nothing, captured that point.

Tim Forneris, 22, explained that he actually felt that he knew McGwire. Once, during a rain delay, he and McGwire sat in the dugout and talked about the weather. Every time he passed "Mr. McGwire," he said, "Hi," and "Mr. McGwire always smiles and says 'Hi,' right back."

"When I grow up," said Forneris, "I want to be just like Mark McGwire." He didn't mean that he thought he'd hit 62 homers. Or earn $8 million a year. Forneris meant that he really, deeply wanted to be like the best parts of McGwire, not just superficially like him.

"Mr. McGwire is so genuine," said Forneris.

He wasn't always.

For the past week, McGwire's been the first to acknowledge that the blame for his failed marriage was largely his. He's given many versions of his deep self doubts after his flops in three Series (.188 with one homer and two RBI), his disastrous .201 season in '91 and the injuries in '92 and '93 that made him – for a few days – consider retiring.

However, his best summation of his feelings came in a recent Sports Illustrated story when he said, "I was all closed in. I didn't like myself. I wasn't a very secure person. I could never face the truth. I always ran from it. It's like, sometimes I look back at myself in those days and think, 'Who was I?' "

For McGwire, the work never stops. And, it seems, neither does his improvement. Often, people really do rise to the occasion. Cal Ripken did it in 1995, putting aside his natural diffidence and occasional moodiness to carry his sport. (McGwire got an 11-minute ovation Tuesday night. Ripken got a 22-minute ovation after consecutive game No. 2,131.)

The Mark McGwire of 1990 was considered a potential Hall of Famer. He'd averaged 39 homers and 105 RBI his first four seasons and already helped three teams to pennants. Yet that McGwire, if he had somehow hit 62 homers or set some other great record, could not have done for baseball even one-tenth what the McGwire of 1998 has accomplished.

That McGwire could never have welcomed Sammy Sosa into the chase so wholeheartedly or incorporated Sosa's gestures into his own home run trot just to honor him. That McGwire couldn't have granted endless interviews or accepted blame (three weeks ago) for blowing his stack at a rookie umpire or turned the other cheek during the controversy over his use of andro. That McGwire could not have studied pitchers, or maintained his focus under pressure, well enough to hit 15 homers in his last 21 games.

That McGwire would not have jumped the box seat railing to hug all of Roger Maris's six grown children, holding them and talking in their ears until they felt included and enhanced by the experience, not excluded and diminished. McGwire may even talk Maris into Cooperstown.

Many will say that the Cardinals slugger gave America a celebratory interlude during a rough patch in both world and national history. Or that he raised his game back toward its former sports eminence. Or that he made goodness and enthusiasm seem even cooler than hipness.

Perhaps what McGwire really did, especially in the last joyous week, is show us again that it's seldom too late to change ourselves.

"A few years ago, I couldn't have imagined this," said McGwire. You never know how far you can travel until you start the trip.