Mark McGwire concentrates on work with Cardinals

from Jupiter, Fla. —  It was 2:30 on a weekend afternoon, and Mark McGwire was still in the hitting cage, in uniform, working with St. Louis Cardinals hitters. He had been there since shortly after 7 a.m. after arriving at the Roger Dean Stadium complex an hour earlier, as usual reporting to duty with his extra security detail.

As McGwire picked up a bat to make a point to a non-roster hitter, in the Florida Marlins’ identical cage at the shared facility, less than 100 yards away, players’ children, some barely old enough to walk, ran around and wrestled with each other in the hitting area. It was impossible not to compare and contrast.

Out-working McGwire may prove as difficult as out-thinking the manager who hired him, Tony La Russa.

“It’s like I told my wife,” McGwire said a week ago, shortly after arriving in Florida. “I said, ‘Hey, listen, if I’m doing this, I’m doing it 150%.’… And I told all these kids, if you want me here at the crack of dawn, I’ll be here at the crack of dawn. If you want me until the sun goes down, I’ll be here.”

La Russa, who was McGwire’s manager in 15 of the slugger’s 16 big league seasons, knew this was the way McGwire would approach his return after spending nearly five years out of sight after his damning testimony in front of a congressional committee examining steroids in sports.

He was hardly doing McGwire a favor when he offered him the job that had belonged to Hal McRae for five seasons before the Cardinals produced only six runs in getting swept by the Dodgers in a division series in October.

“I know how much Mark has to offer, what he knows about hitting, how good of a teacher he has become,” La Russa said. “It’s a little insulting to hear somebody say I’m doing Mark a favor by offering him this job. I know what my responsibility is. You put your staff together to give you the best chance to win, and that’s what I did.”

La Russa knew there would be a public outcry after McGwire admitted his steroid use in a series of interviews a few weeks before camp began. But you wonder whether he was ready for the volume and shelf life of the criticism.

“A number of people have said we won’t win now because he’s a distraction,” La Russa said. “I don’t buy that at all. I know there’s a potential for distraction, a monumental potential, maybe. But there are always distractions.... The questions are, ‘Is he good enough? Are we good enough?’ ”

From all appearances, McGwire’s arrival has not changed the nature of camp. It is a typically detailed operation, as ones run by La Russa always are, with the normally laid-back interaction between those in uniform and the fans.

McGwire addressed the steroids question on his first day in Florida and again last week when advanced copies of a book written by his younger brother were released. Jay McGwire, who lived with Mark at times in St. Louis, writes that the slugger sought competitive benefits from steroids, contradicting Mark’s claim that he used them only to help recover from injuries.

The Cardinals have added some security but there have been few hecklers and no real incidents.

McGwire works with the best hitter in the majors, Albert Pujols, and a lineup that includes two friends he has coached privately in the off-season, Matt Holliday and Skip Schumaker. Rick Ankiel and Mark DeRosa are gone, but the team is largely the same that finished seventh in the National League with 4.5 runs per game last season.

McGwire will receive unusual scrutiny for a hitting coach. He’s unlikely to be a true reason why the Cardinals succeed or don’t succeed, but he seems likely to be mentioned high in the season review, one way or another.

progers@tribune.com