After spending years in a shamed self-exile, McGwire's confession came as he sniveled through an interview with Bob Costas for the MLB Network.

While saying he wished he'd never done drugs and wished he'd never played baseball during the steroids era Dead Balls Era™, McGwire also blamed baseball's lack of steroids testing for his decade-long (he says) drug-taking. He said he didn't take a lot of 'roids, and they didn't help his hitting. The forbidden fruit of the day just kept him healthy, McGwire said.

He looked sad and lost. I liked McGwire better when he said under oath that he didn't want to talk about steroids.

Baseball fans in DC sure benefited from his drug taking. During batting practice at RFK Stadium in 1999, before a Cardinals/Expos exhibition game, McGwire hit two balls to the roof. Nobody there, present company included, had ever seen anything like it, because nothing like it had ever taken place. Within a matter of seconds, McGwire had reduced every tape measure shot ever hit there — even the ones Frank Howard hit which are commemorated with painted seats in the upper deck — seem like Texas Leaguers.

I'd never witnessed any athletic feat of any sort quite like McGwire's.

But, as McGwire pointed out yesterday, the drugs didn't put those balls on the roof. Other than, you know, keeping McGwire healthy enough to do it.

I remember watching McGwire after his feats of inhuman strength. He went back behind the batting cage and canoodled with his batting practice guest that day, Goldberg, the pro wrestling champion and a guy who always looked like a fellow synthetic testosterone connoisseur. Wrestlers don't have to cry or apologize for shooting things into their bodies. In any case, McGwire dwarfed Goldberg.

(AFTER THE JUMP: What's this mean for Mike Lupica? Even Thomas Boswell got caught up in the Dead Balls Era™? Another forced Google hit for Dead Balls Era™? Whatever happened to A.J. English? Not Alex English?)

The McGwire interview just continues the pain for Mike Lupica. He's the author of "Summer of '98," a book about the McGwire/Sosa home run duel and how that season enhanced Lupica's relationship with his three sons. From the Publishers Weekly blurb on Lupica's work:

In his columns, Lupica often deals with strikes, the atrocious behavior of some overpaid athletes and all the tawdriness of sports business and hype. But, in this book, he gives himself completely over to the beauty of baseball as both a game and as an agent of bonding between fathers and children.

Amazon has 37 copies available "from $0.01."

Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell, who blasted Jose Canseco for suspected steroid use as far back as the late-1980s, threw away his suspicions and picked up pom poms a decade later.

Here's a bit of his story that ran on Sept. 14, 1998:

Yesterday, baseball produced a moment that, for me, may have been more enjoyable than McGwire's 62nd homer: Sosa hit his 61st and 62nd. Hit them in a crucial game in the wild-card race won, 11-10, by the Cubs in the 10th inning. He hit them at Wrigley Field as the wonderful ivy-addled loonies went nuts. Both balls were crushed at least 480 feet.

Yesterday, Sosa matched McGwire in every way. When Sosa came to the plate with one out, nobody on base and the Cubs trailing by two runs in the ninth, my 11-year-old son Russell was literally jumping up and down in front of the TV.

Big winner yesterday: Barry Bonds. Let the feds try to put him in jail now, with everybody else already outed. He's in, well, the clear. (How slow are the wheels of justice moving in the U.S. vs. Bonds, anyway?)

The court of public opinion, if no other judicial body, has already convicted McGwire's rival Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez, and Rafael Palmeiro of using drugs. Since baseball locker rooms are real small and baseball contracts are real big, common sense tells us now that everybody used the so-called performance enhancing drugs.

Now we just have to wait for Cal Ripken to come out and confess to being a P.E.D.-ophile. Just say you took 'em and let us close the book on (here it comes!) the Dead Balls Era™.

***

Where are they now? Well, here's former Bullet AJ English.

A small story on the wires about a Delaware high school basketball game caught my eye.

At the Appoquinimink boys basketball game against Howard on Tuesday evening, junior A.J. English III, who was on the bench in street clothes while serving a suspension, left the court and went into the locker room along with his brother A’Jen, a sophomore starting guard, at the conclusion of the first quarter and neither player returned.

They're sons of AJ English, who the Washington Bullets got with a second round pick in 1990 draft. English had a quiet two year career in the pros — and is remembered in NBA circles only as the guy who was always confused with the far more successful Alex English.

I, for one, still confuse the two. Which is the only reason I read the story. But the part about brothers standing up for each other as the English boys did got me intrigued, and through some Googling it seems AJ III is a hot prospect for Appoquinimink who got in a spot of trouble with the beautifully named basketball Coach, Spencer Dunkley, and that got his former Bullet dad, who goes by A.J. Jr. in these matters, into a tussle with the coach in the local media.

First, after a loss, Appoquinimink coach told the local paper, the Middletown Transcript: “Can't play with them. Can't win with them. Won't play with them. Don't need them. Please put that in the newspaper. Thanks, that's all I have to say."

So the high school beat reporter went to the former Bullet. And got this:

A.J. English Jr. had this to say about Appoquinimink High coach Spencer Dunkley’s quotes after a 62-61 loss to Middletown:

“That doesn’t deserve a response,” A.J. Jr. said. “My maturity level allows me to take the high road on that. Any coach knows you keep that kind of stuff in the lockerroom and out of the newspaper. How can any kid trust him after that?

“He showed his inexperience by making those statements.”

Appo's leading scorer A.J. English III was on the bench as time wound down and his team was down a point.English Jr. said A.J. III was suspended until Monday, Dec. 21 and is uncertain if he'll return.

I do get giggles out of the lengths some parents go to for alliterative kids names, tho. "A'Jen" seems a stretch. Guess "Alex" wasn't on the board.

***

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I don't think I'd ever heard a college player booed by home fans like Vasquez was last year. It was like Juwan Howard at MCI Center right before he was run out of town. But Howard was getting paid eight-figures a year (!) to take that abuse.

Vasquez tried to get out of College Park, but yesterday he withdrew his name from the upcoming NBA draft.

Seems NBA scouts thought less of him than the Terps fans.

Seriously, do other college stars get booed at home?

***

Manny Acta lives to lose again!

The Nationals manager-for-now got to watch Elijah Dukes misplay two balls hit to the outfield by consecutive Yankees batters in the seventh inning, turning two outs into two Yankees runs and a lead into a loss in New York.

The .258 winning percentage means the Nats are now on a pace to beat the '62 Mets mark of 120 losses.

Why is Acta still around?

Well, much appreciated Cheap Seats Daily commenter Angry Al posted that Acta's going to stay no matter how much losing goes on, because the Lerners are so cheap they don't want to pay Acta and pay another manager.

I hadn't thought of that. But sounds like a plan!

***

Biggest winner in baseball yesterday: Barry Bonds.

How the hell are the feds gonna move forward  with their lame prosecution of Bonds for a couple dubious lies, now that Sammy Sosa's been outed?

Turns out Sosa's was among the 104 names on baseball's not-so-secret list of positive testers from 2003.

Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens all swore before Congress and country that they never ever never ever took anything. And The Man is going to let them walk, even though there's at least as much proof that they're PED-ophiles as we've seen against Bonds? No way. (A-Rod just lied to Katie Couric. That's fine.)

***

Biggest loser in baseball yesterday: Mike Lupica. The enthusiastic New York sportswriter's book "Summer of '98," sanctified that season's home run duel between Sosa and fellow chemical Popeye, Mark McGwire. "Summer" now stands alongside the Washington Post's 2003 editorial about Colin Powell's U.N. speech about all the WMDs in Iraq, a piece headlined "Irrefutable!," as the most ridiculable documents ever published.

(According to a review on Amazon, "Lupica gives both McGwire and Sosa their proper due.")

Please, Cal Ripken. Admit you used steroids! Baseball will never get past the Dead Balls Era™ until you do!

***

On the verge of the U.S. Open: Slate posts a video of what golf, a game where losers are allowed to blame camera clicks, would be like if basketball announcers called the action.

The real treat is hearing a few seconds of Johnny Most, the greatest play-by-play man in the history of history. And I'd forgotten how forced Dick Vitale's calls were.

The piece was conceived by my friend Josh Levin, Slate's sports editor and the godfather of tape-measure journalism (count the measurements!), and put together by his colleague Andy Bouve.

***

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