馬怪爾—Mark David McGwire，在陳金鋒、王建民前進大聯盟之前，他絕對是台灣少數家喻戶曉的MLB球星之一。
關於類固醇，2010年以前，馬怪爾從來沒有公開證明或承認服用過，但也沒辦法斬釘截鐵的說不。在2005年的聽證會上，馬怪爾在面對聽證席的問題時，發表了以下的聲明：
Asking me, or any other player, to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve this problem. If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed. If he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.
"My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself, I will say, however, that it remains a fact in this country that a man, any man, should be regarded as innocent unless proven guilty."
在攝影鏡頭前問我或其他任何球員是否服用類固醇的問題不會解決任何問題。如果一個球員的回答是否定的，沒有人會相信他的回答；如果他的回答是肯定的，那他將會面對公眾的嘲笑及無止境的政府調查。……我的律師提醒過我，我無法在不傷害我的朋友、我的家人及我自己的前提下回答這些問題。但是，我必須說的是，在這個國家裡，任何人在被證明有罪之前，他們都是無罪的。
但是2010年他公開的表示自己的確服用過，如今，他從教練從新出發，並談到了這段日子的心路歷程。
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原文網址：
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/eye-performance/201110/mark-mcgwires-quiet-comeback
The afternoon is late, the last player gone and Mark McGwire leans against a
hallway beneath the Busch Stadium stands. He crosses his enormous arms and
smiles. The previous three hours have been spent doing the thing he loves
most: watching men hit baseballs, offering advice, being a friend, an
advisor, a psychologist. Now comes a joy every bit as great.
時間晚了，球員紛紛離開了，
馬怪爾靠在布許球場(紅雀隊主場)的門廊上。
他把巨大的手臂環繞在胸前並露出微笑。
前三個小時他都在做他最喜歡做的事情：
看球員們打擊、提供建議、試圖當個朋友、當個適切建言者、
並且在某些層面上，當個心理學家。
接下來的時光每一分都充滿樂趣。
He gets to talk about hitting.
And the laughter rolls off the concrete corridor.
他開始談論打擊，爽朗的笑聲在水泥建築中繚繞。
"I could do this for hours!" he gushes.
“跟我聊這個，那可有得聊了！”於是他開始滔滔不絕的分享。
He raves about the players he mentors as the St. Louis Cardinals hitting
coach, appreciating the way they listen, the way they want to learn, to
absorb. His eyes dance as he talked about the way young Daniel Descalso and
David Freese and John Jay were forced into increased roles and how they have
come to hit and how it seems that everyone is doing something in this year
that was supposed to be a disaster for the Cardinals.
他沉醉的訴說著以紅雀隊打擊教練的身份傳授知識的種種，
珍惜那些球員們學習的方式、渴求學習與吸收的心態。
當談論到年輕的迪斯卡索(Daniel Descalso)、David Freese、John Jay
如何被迫扮演不同的角色、以及如何回到打擊、
還有為什麼今年一些大家都有一些有的沒的狀況，替球隊帶來困擾。
McGwire disappeared after those steroid hearings in Washington, the ones
during which he dabbed at tears and said he was sorry. And when manager Tony
La Russa brought him back and put him together with Mike Aldrete as
co-hitting coaches last year, there was speculation that the whole thing
would not work out, that McGwire was simply a slugger who didn’t understand
the nuances of hitting and that the cloud of steroids would follow him
everywhere.
經歷那些在華盛頓的類固醇聽證會後，
頻頻拭淚說著對不起的馬怪爾消失了一陣子。
去年總教練Tony La Russa把他請回紅雀
和Mike Aldrete一起擔任助理打擊教練，
這樣的舉動惹來很多質疑。
有些人認為這是徒勞無功的做法，並認為馬怪爾只是一名猛打，
並不見得了解那麼多打擊上細微的部分，
而且不論他走到哪，做什麼，類固醇總是如影隨行。
Instead, the questions came fast and went away and McGwire disappeared into
the batting cage and the Cardinals hitters got better and better until they
had the best batting average and scored the most runs in the National League
this year.
不過這些質疑來的快去得也快，
馬怪爾從版面上消失，隱身到打擊練習場中。
而紅雀隊的打擊越來越火燙，
他們擁有全國聯最佳的打擊率並得到最多的分數。
"That wasn't an accident," Freese says. "Nothing we do here was an accident.
That's Mark McGwire."
Freese說：『其實這並不讓人意外，這些打擊佳績全都不是意外，
這些只代表一件事—馬怪爾McGwire』
But this is not about McGwire. It never really was. La Russa knew this.
Having managed him for so long in Oakland and St. Louis, he understood
something about his superstar first baseman. McGwire was shy. He hated
attention. He hated being the star. And La Russa realized that at some point,
when the timing was right, McGwire would make a great hitting coach.
作為馬怪爾長久以來的教練，
La Russa認為這些與馬怪爾從來就不是為了自己，
他太了解身為明星一壘手的馬怪爾。
馬怪爾很害羞，他討厭被別人注意，他也不想身為明星。
La Russa認為當時機成熟，馬怪爾會是非常優秀的打擊教練。
"He doesn’t make it about himself," La Russa says, standing in his office.
"That's what makes him a good coach. He doesn't want any publicity, he wants
you to get better."
站在辦公室前面La Russa這麼說：
『他並不是為了自己才做這些事，那就是他成為好教練的秘訣，
他並不想要因此獲得媒體關注，他希望的是打者能變的越來越強。』
This was probably always going to be the best fit. After the steroids and the
congressional hearings and everything else that happened, baseball wasn't
calling McGwire and he wasn't begging for the chance to step back into the
national glare again. But La Russa has always built a safe house for his men,
the ones who have performed for him, the ones who have been most loyal. If
someone was going to call for McGwire, it was going to be his old manager.
或許這樣恰巧是完美的契合，
經歷那些類固醇事件，比賽時看不到馬怪爾，
他並不想再度回到受全國注目的時代。
但La Russa總是替那些忠心子弟兵設想周全，
如果還有人要用馬怪爾，那必定是他的老教頭。
At the time it seemed like charity, La Russa rescuing his former slugger
caught in an endless whirlpool of controversy and hidden behind the walls of
a Southern California gated community. But La Russa shakes his head no.
馬怪爾身陷無止盡的類固醇風波，並躲到南加州的偏遠社區，
這時La Russa的援助看起來似乎有點像是仁慈或是施捨。
但La Russa搖搖頭表示根本不是這麼回事兒。
"It wasn't loyalty," he says. "He had a passion for it."
『這與忠誠度毫無關係，他對棒球仍充滿熱情。』
Yet how much could even La Russa know how this would work?
那事前La Russa知道把馬怪爾找回來會有這麼大的功效嗎？
或是認為有多少功效呢？
How could he know that Descalso would say as he did Tuesday: "It's been as
good as anyone could ask for."
Or Freese would say "I'm so glad he’s here." And that just as he does, Jay
would run by and shout, "Me, too!"
在周二提思卡索(Descalso)會自信得說出自己的狀態正處在巔峰，
並且說到做到。
Freese說出『他(馬怪爾)能與我們一同奮戰讓我感到很榮幸。』，
Jay也附和：『我也這麼覺得。』
La Russa怎麼知道馬怪爾能帶來這麼大的效果？
This is the test of a coach's impact on his players. How much do they want to
hear what he has to say? How excited are they to grab their bats and race to
the batting cage and take swing after swing and listen to his evaluations?
這是教練隊球員影響力的測試，球員們有多想聽馬怪爾所說的話，
當他們提著球棒跑到打擊練習區時有多麼興奮，
在一次又一次的揮棒後，又有多麼期待聽到馬怪爾的評估。
He has an ease with them, they say. He's not a coach or an instructor; he's a
friend.
對球員來說，他有放鬆的功效。他並非一個教練或指導者，反而像個朋友。
"It's never about him, it's just awesome," Freese says. He grew up outside
St. Louis watching McGwire play, lying on his bed staring at the TV in 1998
when Big Mac broke the all-time single-season home run record.
Freese說『其實這並非全是他的功勞，但有他在實在太棒了。』
他從小就看著馬怪爾打球，
1998年他躺在自己的床上看著電視上的馬怪爾打破單季全壘打記錄。
And the irony of what he just said made him laugh. It's still so
unbelievable. He and Mark McGwire?
但有趣的是現在馬怪爾就在身邊，
想到這裡他就哈哈大笑，覺得這實在是太不可思議了。
Talking hitting?
談論打擊？
Yes, he has gushed his teenaged obsession to his hitting coach. McGwire knows
his poster was on the wall of Freese's bedroom. And the player has asked so
many questions, gotten so many stories. Like the time McGwire broke his bat
and kept on hitting balls out at the Home Run Derby. Or that day McGwire got
mad at a Jim Joyce call and took off his helmet and stuck it on the handle of
the bat? Oh, Freese loved hearing about that one.
沒錯，他滔滔不絕的說著少年時帶對這位打擊教練的執迷。
馬怪爾知道Freese在房間貼上他自己的海報，
球員們問了他好多的問題，說了好多與他有關的故事。
馬怪爾曾在全壘打大賽中打斷棒子，仍然不停得把球送出大牆外。
或是當年面對裁判Jim Joyce的好球判決，
馬怪爾氣到摘下頭盔甩向球棒。
Freese實在很喜歡聽到這些故事。
Once, during spring training in Jupiter. Fla., McGwire stepped into the cage
and took batting practice with them. Soon the old swing was there, balls
rocketing off the bat into the warm ocean air. Then came the home runs.
Several of them.
"He's still got it," Freese says.
在一次佛羅里達的春訓當中，
馬怪爾站進打擊練習區開始和他們一起打擊練習。
很快的那令人熟悉的揮棒又出現了，
球迅速的飛離球棒沉浸在海風當中。
然後全壘打就出現了，還出現了不只一隻。
Freese說：『他還是很行！』
But more importantly, McGwire understands hitting. There was a point early in
his career when a job like this would have been unfathomable. "He was a
see-it-hit-it guy back then," La Russa says. And even though he hit a lot of
home runs in those first few years, he never felt like a complete hitter
until he came across Doug Rader in 1992. It was Rader who taught him the
finer points of hitting. It was Rader who got him to change his stance and it
is Rader who inspired the great renaissance of his career.
更重要的是，馬怪爾了解打擊。
在他職業生涯早期，他認為打擊是博大精深的。
La Russa說他是個球來就打的打者。
雖然他早期就擊出很多全壘打，但直到1992年遇到Doug Rader以前，
他認為自己在打擊上還不是完全體。
Doug Rader引領他用更好的角度來看待打擊這件事，
也讓他改變了以往的信念，
並讓他走向職業生涯的巔峰。
No matter what supplements or banned substances might be attached to
McGwire's name in the 1990s, Radar made him a complete hitter.
不論馬怪爾跟禁藥的牽連有多少，
Doug Rader使他在1990年代成為了完美的打者。
And now McGwire wants to pass these lessons along.
而現在，馬怪爾希望把這些課程給傳承下去。
The players in his charge say he spends a lot of time watching them,
assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and then he begins his work. But it
is never a complete rebuilding. He is not a believer in making everyone
follow one system, nor does he think he should adjust a hitter's stance or
swing or too much else. Their mechanics got them to the big leagues, he
feels. It's their mind that will keep them here.
他所管轄的球員說馬怪爾總是花非常多時間再觀察他們，
確認他們的強項與弱點，然後才開始下一階段的工作。
但他從來就不會把選手整個改造，
他不認無讓所有選手都使用同一套系統是最好的方式，
也不認為他應該積極調整打者們的姿勢或揮棒等等。
他們的身上的種種機運作制使他們得以進入大聯盟，
是他們的頭腦和心靈使他們的進步停滯。
When McGwire took the job, he told La Russa that he was less interested in
the title of "batting coach," that he thought the role should be called
"psychologist." Everything is about thinking, he says. So many young players
chase a bad pitch and then say they need to change their swing when in
reality they simply need to stop swinging at bad pitches. It sounds so easy
and yet little in hitting ever is. He figures he can relate to their
failures, having stuck out 1,596 times in his 16-year career. He remembers
too well in 1991 when he batted .201 and drove home after the games listening
to the radio talk shows killing him, certain that at any day he was going to
get a call saying he had been sent to the minor leagues.
當馬怪爾開始教練工作的時候，
他告訴La Russa其時他根本不在意打擊教練的稱呼，
他甚至覺得這樣得工作應該稱作是”心理協助者”。
他認為所有的一切都與打者怎麼想有關。
很多年輕打者會追打壞球，然後就認為他們必須要更改揮棒姿勢，
但事實上，其實只要停止追打壞球，一切都迎刃而解。
這聽起來似乎很簡單，甚至有點小看打擊的意味，
但他認為這可以說明他們的缺失。
在十六年的職業生涯中，他獲得1596次的三振。
對於1991年他記得太清楚了，僅有兩成的打擊率，
讓他在賽後的歸途中還聽到收音機上的脫口秀在諷刺他，
那些日子裡他隨時會接到下放小聯盟的電話。
Certainly he can tell a few young players their lives are not over with a
pair of 0-for-4s.
當然他有資格可以告訴年輕球員，
就算連續兩場四之零，他們的球員生涯還沒完結。
"I think it's more like being a doctor of psychology," he says. He smiles
again. Laughter fills the hallway.
馬怪爾說：『我覺得這樣得工作比較像心理治療師。』
然後大笑，笑聲環繞在門廊中。
He is having fun.
他很享受這樣的狀態。
Then he is told how much the players in the clubhouse rave about him, how
they say he is the reason everything has worked so well this year. He seems
moved.
然後他談到在球員更衣室內，他們是如何開心的面對他，
表達馬怪爾如何讓他們在今年把每件事都做的這麼好，
他看起來非常感動。
"I really appreciate that," he says. "It's very cool."
『我很珍惜這些事，非常酷。』他說。
And here he was thinking he was coming back to help them and instead they
were helping him.
他認為他是回來幫助這些球員，但事實上，這些球員幫助了他。
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