Steroid use can make you lose your balls as Mark McGwire proved this week. But that’s not all. McGwire may have just lost a highway named after him

WASHINGTON – In one of the more poignant moments of Thursday’s congressional hearing on steroids use in baseball, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) – a St. Louis native and diehard Cardinals fan – looked directly at former Cardinal Mark Mc.Gwire and asked: “Can we look at children with a straight face and tell them that great players like you play the game with honesty and integrity?”

Instead of a heartfelt answer, however, Clay got one of Mc.Gwire’s oft-repeated phrases of the afternoon: “I’m not here to talk about the past.”

Twenty-four hours after the hearing concluded, Clay was still seething about McGwire’s evasiveness and even threatened to take steps toward removing Big Mac’s name from a stretch of I-70 in Missouri. Mc.Gwire was awarded the honor after he broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998.

“I was sort of surprised. I gave (McGwire) an opening and he should have taken the opportunity to say whether he’d been involved with steroid use and whether the records he broke can be attributed to that,” Clay said. “I was appealing to him. He knows how the people of St. Louis bleed Cardinal red. It was disappointing. Maybe his name doesn’t need to be on that highway.

“For (McGwire) not to be forthcoming, it’s tragic.”

Clay reflected with pride yesterday how he still owns a baseball signed by members of the ’67 World Series team, including Bob Gibson, Curt Flood, Maris and Lou Brock.

“I have such a history with that club,” he said.

According to The Associated Press, the chairman of the state Senate Transportation Committee said McGwire’s name will remain on I-70 for now.

“Mark McGwire was a hero of baseball in St. Louis,” said state Sen. Jon Dolan (R-Mo.). “He remains so and must deal with the choices he’s made. But nothing he did would change my mind about what we do or don’t name highways.”

What did change is Mc.Gwire’s reputation.

“I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, ‘I did it and I’m sorry,’ ” former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent said.

Even Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, a staunch McGwire supporter, expected to hear more from the slugger.

“I think he was overcoached,” La Russa said. “Mostly, I think it was a missed opportunity to explain that if you use substances like creatine and over-the-counter stuff that’s not illegal, you can get the benefits of a hard-core weight training program.

“He’s made a statement where he’s denied (steroid use), and I thought it was a great time to make that same statement. I think he was kind of coached into saying this one thing, ‘I’m here about the future, not about the past.’ I was surprised he didn’t repeat what he said earlier. I think it would have helped his cause.”

Meanwhile, two congressmen said they expect Thursday’s hearing to be just the opening salvo in the effort to rid America’s pastime of performance-enhancing drugs.

“Major League Baseball thinks that because of the anti-trust laws, that gives them an added sense of privilege,” said Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), one of Thursday’s outspoken critics of the league’s new drug testing policy. “We’re going to continue to investigate. It may be that we don’t choose legislation, but they have to change their policy of five strikes and you’re out. I’d like to see how much support from the public (baseball) would get with a player getting five strikes.”

Shays was referring to MLB’s current drug policy – agreed to in principle in January – where a player can test positive for steroid use up to five times before the possibility of permanent suspension. Shays said he was “disappointed” with the testimony from the six players who appeared Thursday and that baseball should quit acting as if all of its problems can be solved internally.

“Organized crime keeps everything to itself. Baseball can’t be like organized crime,” he said.

Added Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.): “Can we trust baseball? It seemed like they gave us the ‘Hear no evil, see no evil, do no evil’ speech. You heard Kevin Towers (GM, San Diego Padres), after he realized (Ken) Caminiti was taking steroids. Why didn’t anyone else?”

Baseball leaders seemed to think that any immediate action was unlikely and that MLB was content to sit tight.

“As Bud (Selig) said, they offered a lot for us to think about,” said Rob Manfred, MLB’s senior vice president for business and labor affairs. “I think we’ll take the next few days, see where we are.”

Some players who were part of Thursday’s panel seemed relieved to get back to their day jobs.

“I am glad to have had the opportunity to tell the committee clearly and in no uncertain terms that I have never used steroids and am honored to have been invited to be a co-chair of the task force announced today aimed at warning kids about not using performance-enhancing drugs,” said Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro in a statement. “I look forward to talking to young athletes and their parents around the nation that success, not just in baseball but in any sport, is achieved through hard work and discipline, not by using steroids.”