In a quavering voice, McGwire apologized and said he used steroids and human growth hormone on and off for a decade, starting before the 1990 season and including the year he broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998. “I wish I had never touched steroids,” McGwire said. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. It was a wrong thing what I did. I totally regret it. I just wish I was never in that era.”

McGwire mostly disappeared since his infamous testimony before a congressional committee in March 2005, when he said, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” He had been in self-imposed exile from public view, an object of ridicule for refusing to answer the questions. Once he was hired by the Cardinals in October to be their hitting coach, however, he knew he had to say something before the start of spring training in mid-February.

McGwire was a baseball icon – Big Mac, with a Paul Bunyon physique and a home run swing that made fans come out to the ballpark early to watch batting practice. He hit 583 home runs, tied for eighth on the career list, and his average of one every 10.6 at-bats is the best ever.

His record of 70 home runs in 1998 was surpassed by Barry Bonds’ 73 homers in 2001 – the year of McGwire’s retirement. Bonds himself has denied knowingly using illegal drugs but has been indicted on charges he made false statements to a federal grand jury and obstructed justice.

In four appearances on the Hall of Fame ballot, McGwire has hovered around 23 percent, well below the 75 percent necessary. “This has nothing to do with the Hall of Fame,” he said. “This has to do with me coming clean, getting it off my chest, and five years that I’ve held this in.” Yet, he sounded as if all the criticism had wounded the pride he had built as the 1987 AL Rookie of the Year and a 12-time All-Star.

McGwire said he first used steroids between the 1989 and 1990 seasons, after helping the Oakland Athletics to a World Series sweep when he and Jose Canseco formed the Bash Brothers. “I tried it for a couple of weeks. I really didn’t think much of it.” He said he returned to steroids after the 1993 season, when he missed all but 27 games with a mysterious heel injury, after being told steroids might speed his recovery. “I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength purposes,” he said.

After being confronted by the AP during the home run streak in 1998, McGwire admitted using androstendione, a steroid precursor that was then legally available and didn’t become a controlled substance until 2004.

McGwire didn’t know if his use of performance-enhancing drugs contributed to some of the injuries that led to his retirement, at age 38, in 2001. “It could have. I don’t know,” he said.

McGwire became the second major baseball star in less than a year to admit using illegal steroids, following the New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez last February. Big Mac and A-Rod, coincidentally, are currently tied on the home-run list. Besides Bonds, others facing questions include Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Like Bonds, they have denied knowingly using illegal or banned substances. Clemens is under investigation by a federal grand jury trying to determine whether he lied to a congressional committee.

Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage watched McGwire’s confession and was happy his former A’s teammate came clean. That’s where the praise ended. Gossage said there should be no place in Cooperstown for McGwire or any player who used performance-enhancing drugs. “I definitely think they cheated,” Gossage said. “And what does the Hall of Fame consist of? Integrity. Cheating is not part of integrity.”

Commissioner Bud Selig’s scorecard reads something like this. Pete Rose: bad. Mark McGwire: good again. Why? Because Rose broke a now—90-year-old rule about betting on the game, and baseball follows its rules.

Unless it doesn’t. Then-Commissioner Fay Vincent deemed steroids illegal in 1991 when he sent every team a memo saying all illegal drug use was “strictly prohibited” by law, “cannot be condoned or tolerated” and could result in discipline or expulsion. (Editor’s note: What if Fay Vincent had remained Commissioner of Baseball? The steroid era could have been diminished)

At that time, McGwire, by his own admission, was between his juicing years, having first used steroids in 1989-90, then going back on them from 1993-99, when he and everyone else in baseball knew they were illegal.

But today, McGwire has been welcomed back by Selig’s loving embrace to the game he so betrayed, to the game he admits he pharmacologically fixed for nine seasons, while Rose watches and undoubtedly wonders why he didn’t pick up a syringe rather than another call from his bookie.

McGwire now is baseball’s most infamous cheater (only MLB could provide us with such a phrase), but only because Selig and the powers that be in the game are allowing it. With McGwire’s admission earlier this week, Selig should immediately have hit him with a one-year suspension, warmly inviting Not-so-big Mac to become the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach in February 2011, sending a message to all cheaters – and the millions of kids watching and wondering if they should try performance-enhancing drugs – that there are consequences for breaking baseball’s rules.

But no. In his puppy-dog eagerness to make steroids just go away, Selig simply welcomed one of baseball’s greatest all-time frauds back to the game.

It’s almost as if Selig didn’t listen to anything McGwire said Monday, didn’t hear his non-denial denials, did not pay attention to his convoluted attempts to explain away his steroid use by saying that he took drugs to help him recover from injury, as if that somehow was explicable behavior. There’s a word for that, for taking non-prescribed steroids to recover from injury. Cheating.

This McGwire line of reasoning goes further, saying that the drugs he took didn’t help him hit all those home runs, including the then-record 70 in 1998, the season of McGwire-Sosa. At about this point in the conversation, we have to figure McGwire has become a laughingstock to just about everyone but close family members. And Selig.

Anti-steroids activist Don Hooton watched McGwire’s act with much hope and a little sadness the other day. Hooten whose son Taylor committed suicide in 2003 after taking anabolic steroids, received a call of apology from McGwire 45 minutes before the rollout of his tortured PR campaign. Hooten had testified at the congressional hearing in 2005 in which McGwire infamously said he didn’t want to “talk about the past,” and Hooten was impressed that McGwire cared enough to call him this week.

But then he heard McGwire hem and haw and hedge and began to wonder exactly what the people he cares most about were taking away from this so-called apology. Those people are the young male and female athletes Hooten tries to reach as president of the Taylor Hooten Foundation. “It’s a risky message to send to kids,” Hooten said in a phone interview Wednesday, “that he was trying to suggest he didn’t take performance-enhancing drugs to play better but to heal, when we know they can cause sports injuries, and we also know that they will sure make the difference between a ball that drops five feet on this side of the fence rather than five feet on the other side of the fence. “It is illegal behavior, and we need to be clear about it to our kids,” Hooten added. “I would love for him to clarify that point.” Wouldn’t we all?

Scioscia, guiding the Angels to their third consecutive AL West title, conceded that this was the most demanding season. The team spent the year coping with the death of pitcher Nick Adenhart, 22, killed April 9 by an alleged drunk driver, and had to deal with pitching woes, using 14 starters as the entire projected rotation except for Jered Weaver went on the disabled list. “There are things that happen that you can prepare for, and some things you’re never prepared for. There are things that happen that you have no manual for,” Scioscia said. “That hit very deeply with our guys. It was about the Adenhart family and I think as we supported them, we found some peace. I think it gave us a deeper appreciation of playing baseball.”

Tracy, unemployed a year ago, took over the Rockies on May 29 when they were 18-28. The Rockies went 74-42 under Tracy and finished with the best record (92-70) in franchise history, winning the NL wild-card berth. He also was awarded with a three-year contract extension.

“When Tracy moved from bench coach to skipper, replacing Clint Hurdle, the Rockies’ offense was underperforming because of a lack of aggressiveness,” wrote Thomas Harding in MLB.com. “Pitchers were trying too hard and veering into plans that didn’t work. All around the field, the right plays weren’t being made in key situations.”

“But after a little more than a week, the Rockies had earned a four-game road sweep of the Cardinals,” continued Harding. “Suddenly, Tracy began thinking the Rockies could do more than just put their house in order.”

“It’s probably as flattering an experience as I’ve come to realize during my professional career in athletics,” Tracy said. “And obviously a new contract is extremely exciting. But what is more intriguing for me is what is still out there for our ball club.”

Scioscia, who captured 15 first place votes and finished well ahead of runner-up Ron Gardenhire of the Minnesota Twins, watched his team take off in mid-June. The Angels were 29-29 on June 11 but finished the season with 97 victories, winning their fifth AL West title in six years.

“I don’t think there was a moment that the light went on,” Scioscia says. “A lot of veterans understood there was some patience involved with this ball club after Nick’s tragedy. For a lot of guys, it wasn’t easy.”

Tracy deliberated in May before accepting the promotion from bench coach. This time he wasted no time accepting the club’s three-year offer. “There was never, ever a doubt in my mind that if I would manage in 2010, it would be with the Colorado Rockies,” Tracy said.

Lincecum won the Cy Young Award for the second straight year, emerging from on of the tightest votes in the history of the honor to become the first repeat winner since Randy Johnson. Only 10 points separated the top three vote-getters. Chris Carpenter was second and St. Louis teammate Adam Wainwright finished third despite getting the most first-place votes. Lincecum, nicknamed “The Freak” for his giant stride, led the NL with 261 strikeouts and tied for the league lead with four complete games and two shutouts.

The wiry right-hander attracts plenty of attention on the mound with his shoulder-length brown hair and twisting delivery. But it was his 15 victories – the fewest for a Cy Young starter over a non-shortened season – that were really noticeable for the award winner.

The 2009 honors for Lincecum and Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke reflect a recent shift in how pitchers are evaluated. The focus changed to more developed statistics, including some that even take into account team defense. Greinke equaled the previous low of 16 wins for a non-shortened season when he won the AL award. Afterward, he talked all about FIF, a mathematician’s dream that stands for Fielding Independent Pitching.

Lincecum has his own favorite indicator. “To say which one I look to the most, I would just say WHIP,” he said, referring to walks plus hits allowed per inning, “Just because you just limit the amount of base runners that can hurt you.”

Lincecum went 15-7 with a 2.48 ERA in 32 starts and 225 1/3 innings. The 5-foot-11, 170-pounder made his major league debut in 2007 and is 40-17 with a 2.90 ERA in three seasons.

Every winter since the early 1920s, families from all over the United States have journeyed to small towns in Florida – and, more recently, the Southwest to watch their favorite baseball teams get in shape for the season and look over the new crop of rookies.

The sound of the bat is the music of spring training. No other sound is quite like it. To speak of the “crack” of the bat doesn’t catch the music: a ball literally springing off wood. All batters turn at some point into base runners. A runner’s ability to move himself safely around the bases is often the difference between victory and defeat. At spring training, players spend many hours in the practice of that complicated art.

Pitching is the heart of baseball. The pitching coaches want to see what kind of delivery a pitcher has, his poise, and if he has an off-speed pitch that can deceive the hitter. Middle infielders can be seen polishing their art in daily drills, refining the pivot and throw at second base and scooping up ground balls. Watching a well-executed double play is one of the pleasures of a day at the ballpark. The covered grandstand behind home plate is a favored roost of retired couples who want to stay out of the sun. The scouts sit in the front with radar guns, timing the pitchers’ pitches and judging whether they’ve got it, have lost it, or will never have it.”

There’s no question about when spring training ends – on opening day. Abruptly, the weeks of preparation merge into the months of reality. Hopes and dreams are no longer good enough. The public address system calls everyone to order. “Welcome to another exciting baseball season. The national anthem is sung and the umpire yells, “Play ball!”

Selig also said he would continue to discuss instant replay, but it’s not expected to be a major topic when owners have a full meeting even though there were several missed calls by umpires during the postseason. In the past, Selig has resisted the idea of expanded video replay. Under the current system, it is used only to judge if home runs have cleared the fence or are fair or foul.

“I’m going to talk to a lot of people. I haven’t changed my view at all, but I’m always willing to talk to a lot of people and I’ve talked to a lot of managers and general managers,” Selig said. “I haven’t heard from anybody about instant replay.”

Selig said he’s still working on details for the new postseason format. “When you plan the playoff schedule, you don’t know how many games the first round would go. So it’s difficult,” he explained. “There were clubs that sat around. Some were necessary, but some were not.” Starting in 2007, baseball added four extra days off during the postseason at the request of its television partners, shifting the World Series opener to Wednesday from Saturday, usually the lowest-rated night of the week.

The economic disparity between payrolls for some of the large-market teams – such as the New York Yankees – and smaller ones will always be an issue, Selig said. A salary cap might bridge the disparity between the large-market and small-market teams, but Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Aftanasio said there are other ways to address competitive balance, or imbalance.

“For example, by changing the draft,” he said. “Pretty much in the other sports the best players go to the worst teams. That doesn’t always seem to happen in our sport. I think if we can adjust things so that happens, that would help.”

At a meeting, general managers discussed factoring postseason performance into draft position, meaning the World Series winner would pick last. Drafting foreign players could also be a consideration, but that would be subject to collective bargaining. “I don’t know what the mechanics of that would be,” added Aftanasio. “Right now, really international is somewhat freeform,” Aftanasio added.

Under the current system, players outside the United States are not subject to the draft. They are free agents eligible to sign with any team. Selig favors restructuring the draft, too. “I’ve said it: We need a worldwide draft and we need a slotting system. There’s no secret about that. It’s fair,” Selig reiterated.

Revenue sharing was also discussed during committee meetings.