Big Mac's sad season ends with a mighty whiff

ST. LOUIS -- After one more strikeout, Mark McGwire called it quits.

Big Mac fanned on Sunday night. The retirement fax to ESPN was fine, but McGwire didn't play baseball for ESPN. He wasn't paid by ESPN.

McGwire owed a phone call to Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty. And McGwire certainly should have informed his friend and longtime manager, Tony La Russa. McGwire and La Russa have been through a lot together, in Oakland and St. Louis.

La Russa helped guide McGwire in the early years in Oakland. Tony played a major role in getting him to St. Louis. La Russa did everything possible to make McGwire comfortable during the record home-run chase in 1998. And La Russa did contortions in trying to defend and revive the sagging McGwire in 2001. La Russa has been so fiercely loyal to McGwire. La Russa shouldn't have to learn about Mac's retirement through the news media.

Then, again, maybe there was a reason for McGwire's apparent lapse in manners. Rams running back Marshall Faulk, a superstar in his field, knows about these things. On Monday, Faulk offered a theory on why McGwire didn't inform La Russa or Jocketty of his decision.

"Maybe he didn't want them to try and talk him out of it," Faulk said.

Could be. It's been a strange year for McGwire, and in a way it's appropriate that he goes out like this ... with more mystery and sadness. McGwire was an unhappy man for much of 2001, as he batted .187 with 118 strikeouts in 299 at-bats, and watched from afar as Barry Bonds broke his single-season home-run record. McGwire's mood swings were as powerful as his old home-run swings. And it was a drag on the team morale.

A depressed slugger

McGwire's teammates worried about him. Even as the Cardinals made their late-season power move to qualify for the postseason, McGwire sulked. Mired in his own depression, McGwire couldn't enjoy the team success. It was an awkward situation. The Cardinals were battling Houston for first place, and the energy was running high, but other players felt as if they had to tiptoe around the big, brooding first baseman in the corner of the clubhouse.

"We love the guy," reliever Steve Kline told me late in the season. "But he's always beating himself up. He's always saying that he let us down. It's hard to see him go through this. I just want to tell him, 'Dude, we're with you.' But it was hard for him to snap out of it."

And that's why McGwire made the right decision. His right knee is weak. His spirit is even more diminished. And perhaps that explains why McGwire wants to walk away. By hitting 29 homers this season, he at least went out with a respectable total, a measure of dignity.

Sure, McGwire could have rebuilt some of the strength in his knee. But McGwire turned 38 last month, and he's lost bat speed. McGwire couldn't handle the new, high strike zone. He couldn't get around on fastballs thrown above the belt. He feasted on mistake pitches, down in the low zone, his favorite spot. Mac was futile in the playoff series against Arizona, barely managing to make contact, as the Diamondbacks blew the ball by him with ridiculous ease.

The final humiliation came when he was lifted for pinch-hitter Kerry Robinson late in Game 5. It was an unfortunate ending. And it put La Russa in a terrible spot. Tony expressed great remorse over his strategy. He felt the need to basically apologize to McGwire. And while we can appreciate La Russa's fondness for Mac, no manager should ever feel guilt for making a difficult personnel decision in the heat of a playoff series ... or any game, for that matter.

And that was an issue with the 2001 Cardinals. The lineup didn't take off until La Russa moved McGwire out of the cleanup spot and, in many instances, to the bench. In 2002, La Russa won't be weighed down by his personal feelings for McGwire. This retirement liberates La Russa.

And McGwire probably sensed this, too. McGwire has high standards for himself. He simply wouldn't tolerate failure. He doesn't want to be a burden. He didn't want to risk having to put himself -- or anyone else -- through this again next season. And by quitting now, he gives the Cardinals sufficient time to make plans for finding a replacement.

McGwire will eventually elaborate on all of this, but he doesn't have to hold a press conference to tell us that. It's obvious. His retirement came by fax on a Sunday night, but in reality, McGwire spent the second half of the season in a state of withdrawal. That's why he was so sad much of the time. He knew.

Mac's long goodbye was heartbreaking to him.

And in one respect, it's uplifting. McGwire knows enough about baseball history to realize that few of the game's epic power hitters have ever reversed a decline. Babe Ruth, Mike Schmidt, Willie Mays, Harmon Killebrew, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Aaron all lost it in a hurry. Age happens. Ted Williams and Willie McCovey bounced back from bad seasons late in their career, but that's about it. So many athletes hang on for too long but McGwire didn't want to go down that path.

Rather than embarrass himself and take a salary that he felt that he didn't deserve, McGwire chose to leave $30 million on the table. In this modern era, greed often rules, so McGwire's refusal to collect that money is remarkable.

It's an amazing display of unselfishness and class. That's the Mark McGwire that I'll choose to remember.

-- Bernie Miklasz is a columnist with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.