Mark McGwire was one of the more feared hitters in the batter’s box during his playing days.
Many, if not all, of McGwire’s 583 career home runs may have an invisible asterisk next to them, as the now 62-year-old admitted to using steroids throughout most of his career in 2010. McGwire’s admission to using performance-enhancing drugs included the 1998 season, when he broke the single-season home run record.
Nevertheless, baseball runs in the family. McGwire’s son, Mason, was an eighth-round draft pick of the Chicago Cubs in 2022. The right-handed pitcher missed the 2025 minor league season due to an injury for which the specifics went unreported.
After making three appearances out of the bullpen for Single-A Myrtle Beach, McGwire made his first start of the season on Sunday, allowing just one hit in four innings in a 7-3 victory against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. He struck out five and walked none.
McGwire’s toughest frame of the day came in the third, when he permitted a leadoff double and hit a batter. He managed to induce a double play to escape the jam. Myrtle Beach’s offense had already scored a combined five runs in the first two innings, including a four-run bottom of the second.
Through four appearances, McGwire owns a 0.90 ERA with 15 strikeouts across five innings. He is not featured on the Cubs’ top 30 prospects list on MLB Pipeline, but perhaps the splitter he learned from Hall of Fame closer Rollie Fingers can propel him up the rankings.
“He showed me. Since then, I’ve been throwing it,” McGwire told MLB.com about his interaction with Fingers at his father’s Athletics Hall of Fame induction in 2019. “I’ve been throwing it for three years now, and it’s been really good for me.”
For the Capistrano Valley High School product, consistency and finding the strike zone will be key in his second stint at Single-A. He walked 7.9 batters per nine innings and posted a 5.71 ERA in 15 appearances (eight starts) with Myrtle Beach in 2024.
Photo: Mark McGwire’s sons Mason, left, and Max during a baseball game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Los Angeles Friday, July 26, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
