Radio Station Mocks McGwire, Gets Booted From Stadium

Maybe you haven't heard, but new St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach Mark McGwire came forward earlier this year to admit to his steroid use while playing baseball, including the 1998 season in which he broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record. It's an admission that is easy to mock, and Big Mac should probably get used to seeing fans pull quite a few stunts regarding his confession when he's on the road this season.

In fact, it's already started at Roger Dean Stadium, where on Friday a radio station was kicked off the premises for a stunt they were pulling to give away tickets to the game. Outside the stadium, Wild 95.5 set up a life-sized cutout of McGwire and had fans throw "steroid darts" at it.

Share The general manager of Roger Dean Stadium, Joe Pinto, did not take very kindly to the promotion, and had the radio station escorted from the premises.

"Mark McGwire is a partner on our team. I'm not going to exploit the guy," Pinto said. "My issue was they were doing something stupid on our property. It wasn't right. It was tasteless."

The Morning Show's Kevin Rolston, who organized the stunt Thursday, said about 10 people had successfully hit the Big Mac cutout -- winning tickets to a New York Mets-Marlins game -- before stadium security called a halt.

"It was not done to be mean-spirited," said Rolston, who monitored the promotion from the station's studios in West Palm Beach while a station employee handled it on-site. "It was done on a topical baseball issue as a way to give tickets away.

"Our point is, I don't think many people are past it, even after the apology he gave, unless they're blinded by being diehard Cardinals fans."

If it wasn't done to be mean-spirited, then exactly which spirit was it intended to be in? The spirit of exploitation?

Whatever the intended spirit was, this is something that McGwire should probably start getting used to. Barry Bonds had to deal with fans showing up at stadiums dressed as syringes, and he never even admitted to using steroids.