LETTERS: SKILL, NOT STEROIDS, MAKES HOME RUNS

To the editor:

I am at a loss to understand the flap over whatever was in Mark McGwire's pill bottle. Even if it could be shown that he was ingesting steroids, I cannot perceive the relevance of the fact to his pursuit, accidental or purposeful, of the record for the number of home runs achieved in a single season.

If Mr. McGwire had steroids for breakfast, lunch, supper and midnight snack and had not his eye, his reflexes nor his wrists, his parabolic trajectories into the stands would instead degenerate into mere high pop-ups (if he swung a few hairs too low) or mere hard grounders (if he swung a few hairs too high) or mere foul balls (if he swung a few microseconds early or late).

The back of my hand to the wee people who pooh-pooh Mr. McGwire's accomplishment on such spurious grounds. There is a proverb in central Asia which applies to such picayune carpers: The village dogs bark, but the caravan moves along.

Disclaimer: I may be wrong on the following statistics, but not far wrong. Mr. McGwire has, at this writing, 61 homers, somewhat fewer doubles and no triples. This tells me that the more hard running a particular offensive category requires, the worse his stat gets. I conclude that Mr. McGwire, who is singularly unsprightly on the base paths, is forced to hit home runs just to avoid having to sprint.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.