Rickey Henderson is proud of Mark McGwire

Rickey Henderson waves to the crowd during his induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., Sunday, July 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

AP

Ricky Henderson, who is currently working in the Athletics’ organization as a roving instructor, talked about his former teammate and current Cardinals hitting coach Mark McGwire during a news conference with Single-A Stockton on Friday.

“It made him a better man,” Henderson said. “He realized that the truth had to come out as it is. It was haunting him and hurting him and he was feeling guilty about it, so he wanted to get it off his chest and move forward.”

“That era, everybody got into a situation that they found something that gave them an edge,” Henderson said. “At that time, it wasn’t really illegal, and we couldn’t find out what it was doing to the ballplayer -- helping them or hurting them. Now that it’s come out that was something bad for the game, (McGwire) came out and spoke the truth.”

There’s very little in the way of revelations here. It’s pretty sad that he is being asked about meaningless garbage like this instead of the work that he is doing with young and hopefully clean ballplayers, but this a burden nearly every player of that era will have to live with in interviews from now until infinity.