Monday Mail Bag

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I'm going to try to start a new thing where every Monday I will answer a question that someone has either e-mailed to me or left in the comments. So submit your question and it might be chosen to get answered next Monday.

We only have one question today, let's get underway.

MZS asked on Friday:

"So what do you think of the Mark McGwire hiring?"

Well, MZS. This seems like a popular topic. And personally... I am all for it. I think it was a great signing. Somebody with the vast amount of knowledge and love for the game like McGwire needs to be around the game in some way, shape or form.

Did he take steroids? Yes. Did they make him stronger? Yes. Would he still have hit tons of home runs without them? Yes. They might have only gone 450 feet instead of 500, but they would have been bombs regardless.

But McGwire had enough respect for the team that he came out from behind the curtain and got everything out in the open before spring training. There will still be the media circus that everybody expects around Cards camp this March. It could be a distraction in spring training. But come April, that distraction won't be traveling from Roger Dean in Jupiter back to St. Louis.

I will be glad to know that the man that knows how to swing a bat like McGwire will be the same man teaching the 25 Cardinals how to swing a bat. No offense to Hal McRae or Dave Parker - both great hitters in their careers - but this is Mark McGwire. And he is definitely an asset to have on your staff.

I leave you with this short clip of McGwire taking some bp I found on the P-D web site. Nothing too exciting, I just like to see that Big Mac hand waggle. He can still swing it.

See ya on the flip side CardinalNation.