So it turns out that Jay McGwire and I have something in common. As I will discuss, at great length, in the tell-all book coming out on Tuesday, I too injected HGH for my older brother in the mid-'90s. The slight difference is that my older brother is a mathematician, but still: Now I see how all those Math awards will be forever tainted. But I'm not here to talk about the past. (I'm here to make money on the future.)
Family dynamics are strange, aren't they? Reading about the estranged McGwire brothers, it turns out that the "Brothers McGwire" have been estranged since a 2002 incident when "Jay's stepson tickled Mark, causing Mark to spill coffee and swat the child. Jay and his wife did not attend Mark's wedding and the brothers haven't spoken" since. Again the parallels are eerie, as I haven't spoken to my brother since that phone incident last week where I said "talk to you later" and he hung up the phone.
In his defense, Jay emphasizes that the book is not written to throw his brother under the bus, but rather that it's about sharing his own story of a once-suidical drug abuser saved by religion. Ah, now that makes total sense. And so Mark's steroid use is discussed in detail...why? Which religion is it again whose first commandment is "Throw Thy Sibling Under Thine Bus"? Heck if I know -- I have trouble just remembering those basic lists, like Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Sleepy, Dopey -- you know, the 7 Deadly Dwarfs.
Back to the McGwires. Remember when mom would say, "Put that BB gun down -- you'll put an eye out!" Well it turns out Jay lost his right eye in high school in a BB gun accident. This makes me wonder: If you file a lawsuit against the manufacturer of a BB gun, do you have to sue them in a pellet court? Seriously folks, c'mon: Losing an eye is not funny, but that pun is.
Anyway, you can see why Jay might harbor some resentment in life. Not only did he lose an eye that year, he didn't even get much attention for it because earlier that same month a student's face had frozen from that expression she kept making, and the Guinness Book of World Records was starting to take an interest.
Not that I should talk. I ran with scissors in 2005, and we only got something like 18% of the vote.
Feel free to share your entry for today's contest: "Stupidest reason two relatives don't talk to each other anymore." The winner will receive an autographed copy of Jay's book. Second place gets two copies. No seriously, the winner will receive a real coffee burn and a swat on the ass. Second place just gets the coffee burn.
